Susan Ross rscj | April O'Leary rscj

Happiness

The mad philosopher
nibbling peanuts, feeding
lettuce to his
tortoise, chocolate
beans
to children button-eyed
with wonder,
burrowing into skies
like velvet
with a telescope
once used
at Trafalgar

is happy
to advance the cause
of happiness
by being
happy

Fox

You stalk me:
padding silently, muzzle
delicate, questing,
paw uplifted, deceptively
gentle as you freeze
scenting your prey

O you fox.

I am but sitting duck
to your superior guile.

My silly defences
crumble, dissolve
--in desperate--inability
to plead my right to live--
in panic runs in one inane
and foolish cackling.

Why do I postpone
an inevitable end?

Why not submit
more graciously, accept
the verdict of your red
and terrible eye;
become in the tangled
reeds of nomansland
a strangled cry
a burden, heavy, broken-
necked across your back,
a few white feathers
drifting in your wake,
and then
a silence.

Fear

Afraid, aren't
you? Wolves,
bats, things
in the dark, buildings that
fall, (or might)
tigers
with human hearts,
humans with
tigers'.

Afraid
of aloneness,
of people who smile
knowing your
insufficiency;

people who frown
sensing your need
of them.

Afraid of non-being,
annihilation: Death
by the Bomb, by
water or strangling;
Afraid of involvement
and of rejection.

Afraid, aren't you,
most of all
of ineluctable,
and totally demanding
being.