
POETRY
The Smilodon
by Alzo David-West
snow falls
on meadows
and tall hills
a mammoth,
ancient and slow,
treads the vale
upon
the winter isle,
a smilodon
flakes strike
the saber jaw—
a leap in flight
in sanguine snows
spread forms
and bones
then the lurking
eyes of ancient foes—
men, wolves, bears
the tribes glare,
and the hills mark
their howls and roars
the noises of war
settle, the enemies
desist and cease
gashed,
the smilodon breathes,
frozen wind drifts
frost-clouds lower,
dim, heavy, grey,
and night falls
a sharp stone,
a torn thigh,
the smilodon sleeps
and it peers
into the shadows
of still dreams
the winter turns,
age glides to age
and green
END

Alzo David-West is a writer, poet, and academic. His creative writing appears in Antimatter, Balloons Literary Journal, Barzakh, Cha, Cultural Logic, Eastlit, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Grief Diaries, K'in, Missing Slate, Offcourse, Star*Line, StepAway Magazine, Tower Journal, Transnational Literature, and 365 Tomorrows. He has also edited and cotranslated scifaiku and tanka in Silver Blade and Star*Line.
Poetry by Alzo David-West:
"The Smilodon" October 2021