Self Portrait as a Werewolf Talking to his Human Self

Struck to the core, the heart’s red core again by Liardet’s

Self Portrait as Shamdeo – misread as Shenandoah – Talking 

to his Future Self as if facing two antagonists: Ferocity and Sorrow.

I comb the jasmine, waterlily in my hair, rub bristles on my jaw. 

Removed from this apparent world, pursued by gods of earth

and air, setterragic a ssalc my demon pack of backward-hunting 

carnivores, smoky spirits of the claw, jacketed in ash,

foul-breathed in wide, extraordinary yawning, we lick our paws. 

Tormented by a yap of Alpha Dog or Sophia’s dream –

sweet reason that devolves from dust, the twisters of thrilled air 

tunnelling through Roman gardens, Parthenon, theatres empty

of the dead, long gone but in their stead a debt of anguish 

and self-loathing. How wearisome you are. Raised up on all fours

now again, back on two naked feet, you make such shaky progress 

to your clothes lines on the brink, the water's edge where hangs

a scarecrow’s skin, your battered coat removed so long ago 

you struggle to adorn yourself with human clothes again.

Contemplate your place with men. I whine and fawn, nip your heels.

You draw me back and hold me down. Struggling twin entities

squabble over worry bones, our painted knuckles on dirt floors 

scattering our grammar from the first recorded text. Let me

write it slant-wise in the mirror sweat: Red in tooth and claw, 

the neighbour at the door, the baying dog who knows you well,

can only be your own reflection.

--

by Dominic James

Dominic James (UK) lives by Seven Springs in Glos, near the source of the Thames and follows poetry meetings along the southern counties, on the M4 corridor. His second collection, Smudge, was published by Littoral Press, 2022.  https://djamespoetic.blogspot.com/