Casa Tiger

 

Every movie can be improved by adding a hungry tiger into it--

a bullet-proof tiger who can talk, but

only speaks in aphorisms and maxims.

The tiger's voice should sound like broad green leaves 

and love language.

High Noon with Gary Cooper, bad guys, and a bullet-proof tiger.

Citizen Kane with a talking tiger on a sled.

Casablanca with a tiger behind the bar, saying,

"Love is like the stripes of a zebra; 

bright and dark touching but still apart and always moving."

Real life could be enhanced as well. 

The tiger could eat people who don't allow their dogs upstairs,

who cut in line, and who take duckface selfies.

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away!"

the tiger would say while standing over their bones,

full with both flesh and satisfaction.

You could come over.

We can watch movies--with tigers in them!--

spouting maxims and bromides,

wrestling feverishly with each other and with the notion

of tigers knowing anything about zebras or hearts

except that they are foolish things

made of meat

and consumable.

____

for Shay's Word Garden Word List--Incidents Around the House

Tiger

 

there is a tiger

who travels through each of my arms.

One is filled with jacaranda

with the moon asleep in its branches.

the other is a dusty courtyard in afternoon

with a fountain 

and a small child who walks its low wall.

your little balcony

is where the tiger likes to go.

there is a purple reflection in the fountain--

the child 

peels an orange to find the moon at its center,

and me in your arms

near the jacaranda branches

where everything is harmonious

and fragrant.

Lucy the Tiger-Human Hybrid

 Lucy, the tiger-human hybrid

litigated against the lab and strutted out one day

to a clatter of cameras and bright lights.

She's all about mid-century modern.

Her home is all in avocado and burnt orange,

even her skin between the stripes. 

She is uncommonly graceful

but life is awkward. Women won't let her

hold their babies for fear of bloody murder.

She has difficulty finding clothes that fit her.

Terrified clerks back away big-eyed, never thinking

of how these reactions hurt her. 

On a friend's birthday, Lucy jumped out,

shouting "Surprise!" and the friend fainted.

These snafus happen all the time.

"Sweet ink!" crows the hipster at the coffee bar,

She does not correct him. "And you must work out!"

He may be just the guy she's had in mind.

At Lucy's house, retro fashion reigns supreme.

She and the kittens groove to the Stray Cats. 

Her man is strictly cutting edge and avant-garde.

Life is so much better now, she says.

Things worked out thanks to lawyers and latte,

and the only thing she charges is her credit card.

________

for Word Garden Word List--Apathy.

The Mercy Of Tigers

My loved ones with their fish-hook tongues 
kissed me, blamed me for the blood.
I took to pulpit, text became
curse you
and you
and you the same.

I took to keeping tigers fine
right here in Shady subdivision.
Code Enforcement lost their minds,
saying no.
god no,
it's violation.

Tigers, soft as angel's nest,
muscled, purring Detroit dreams,
lay anvil heads upon my breast
and striped my world flame-and-cream.

In back yard buried the barbed wire ring,
more notices drift against the door, 
saying
no, just no,
these prohibited things
forbidden, verboten, forevermore.

Tigers sweet as caramel nuns,
teeth smooth and strong as hymns at dawn,
across your tongues devotion runs
in me, with me, on and on.
________

for Sunday Muse 107 .