Midas’ Limbo

Maxwell MacDonald

The hunter drags the lion’s head

across the floor of the jungle

thinking of tomato soup and fresh socks

waiting warm and soft at his campsite.

These African skies all end black and cool

wet with honeysuckle cologne

and starved breath

until the fires start.

In the end it will all burn.

It will all drown.

It will find love

deceive

then explode.

The looters announce themselves

with customized mufflers

capturing a boom and reverberation

like a sonic embassy.

They blast Van Halen,

and dine under flood lights.

This convergence of crime,

when the jackal looks up

from the shredded throat of an old leopard

to catch the one-eyed vulture wink,

is all that is left.

The sound of soup cans clanging into a truck bed

adds hurried syncopation to the jungle soundtrack.

The hunter stops in the bush.

He rests his dumb ass on the lions head,

ties his shoes,

and watches as his campsite burns.

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Maxwell MacDonald grew up on the coast of Maine . . . “went west like we all have to do, and continue to pick the bones clean . . . “

 

ZO has started the tradition with our poetry expo — to use a particular piece of art as a muse and then to pair the featured poems we choose with new art. As we searched for an appropriate piece for Maxwell’s poem we couldn’t help but envision the many hunts that we’ve seen in the news of late where beautiful endangered animals are killed as trophies. It is our hope that awareness increases and that blindness ceases in regard to this. We alsothought it was kind of serendipitous that we chose the work of a photographer who goes by the moniker “Fate atc (amenable to change)” .