From my 2005 collection, a touched-up version of my animal reincarnation poem, which came to me after reading an article about the sex life of the giant anaconda snake.
1
Some want to come
back from death,
reliving their human
folly
again and again,
life after dreary
life
until they get it
right,
then slide down the
chute
to soulless
oblivion.
We who don’t care
for perfection
are doomed to come
back as animals.
Do we return
according to
our habits,
the heaped
accounts of karma,
or can we choose?
I choose,
study the animal
kingdom
for the soul’s
best condo,
the leafiest turf,
the longest return
engagement.
Choosing is hard for
a hermit poet.
No herd instinct for
me,
no hive or flock or
pride
if you please.
Let me be something
solitary yet strong,
lordly and
unapproachable.
I search for
incarnations
on top of the food
chain.
I’ll eat
but not be
eaten
hunt, but elude the
hunter.
At last I find it —
the giant anaconda.
Female I’ll have
to be —
the males are
nothing.
Mother of all
snakes,
I’ll grow to
thirty feet,
spend all day lazing
in the waters of the
Amazon.
Nights I’ll wait
at the edge of the
river,
when deer and
rabbit,
panther and lemur
come to drink.
My fangs attach
to whatever
approaches;
I throw throw my
coils
with amazing speed.
The astonished prey
immobile, breathless
as I squeeze
squeeze
squeeze
to heart-stop
stillness.
Compacted to sausage
shape
the still warm
animals
slide down my
gullet,
my inward turning
teeth
guiding them
onwards.
I have no enemies,
swim unconcerned
among piranha
electric eels
and crocodile
caymans.
Not even my prey
seem to notice me
as I mount skyward
to the treetop
banquet,
my green and black
camouflage
matching the dappled
forest.
Parrots and toucans
I eat like
candy.
Only the monkeys
fear me
somersault
screaming
at the sight of
me —
Oh, and the hairless
apes
in the jungle
villages:
I need but show my
tongue,
my unblinking
eye,
to make them run
away.
Taking the sun
on a bank a-burst
with yellow
blossoms
I am a jasmine
empress
irresistible
to the males of my
species.
I sense them coming,
feel the grass
parting,
a dozen today
twining about me.
I turn with them,
move toward mud.
Hours we coil
together —
puny as they are,
it
feels good
everywhere —
one of them will
find the spot.
2
I stow away
on an airplane’s
cargo hold,
emerge at La
Guardia,
hitch ride on a
luggage rack
through tunnel to
Manhattan.
I mean to eat my way
around —
a big green worm
in the big green
Apple!
City Hall Park has
plenty of trees,
pigeons abounding.
I study the
populace,
learn how to move
among them
with camouflage and
mimicry.
This is going to be
easy.
I will have my fill
of man-food.
Homeless Anaconda
a garbage bag
unraveled to wrap me
gets me a night
in the city shelter
(lots to eat,
but it needed
washing)
Hip-Hop Anaconda,
plenty of room for
me
in those baggy
pants.
Ate well on 125th
Street
but had to spit out
gold chains and a
boom box.
Transvestite
Anaconda
prowling the piers
in matching
alligator
accessories. Honey
I could just eat you
alive.
An Anaconda Dowager
draped in furs
indulging my sweet
incisors
with the ladies
at Rumpelmeyers.
Roller Blade
Anaconda
knocking down
doormen
on Central Park
South,
scarfing up poodles
at the curbside.
Painted purple,
welcomed as Barney,
I am Day Care
Anaconda,
turning a jungle gym
into my cafeteria
(I really must start
counting calories!)
I’m unadorned as
Bowery Anaconda —
an hallucination —
acquiring a taste
for marinated men
left out for the
taking
in cardboard boxes!
The Anaconda Nun
in her floppy habit
waylays worshipers
in the nave of St.
Patrick’s.
The Irish cardinal
wouldn’t know a
snake
if he saw one.
Resting now, I am
Steam Tunnel
Anaconda
need time to
digest
all my
victims
time to prepare
for the
progeny
already swelling in
my belly.
I’ll winter here
in warmth,
no rent no
taxes,
won’t need a green
card
welfare or
Medicaid
They can’t zoo or
jail me
I have
immunity
endangered
species status.
When my seventy-five
babies
emerge from
manhole covers
on Easter morning
on lower Fifth
Avenue
they’ll already be
citizens —
American Anacondas!
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