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Poetry

Please read and enjoy these submissions!

Remember to take note of the code (poe1-poe39) and to vote here for first place, here for second place and here for third place.

poe37: KILLING AT MALA MALA

Caked mud - surreal memorial to a water hole
The savannah creaking like honey comb charcoal
Exacerbated the care of the lions' step
As closer to the boundary they crept
Bellies delicately brushing the ground
As they stealthily obviated their arrival's sound
Armed with the bold strength of desperation and hunger
There was no allowance for error
As the females of the pride advanced in ambush on the impala
In the scrub of the scorched earth of Mala Mala .
Upwind of the drinking herd they crept closer
The herd did not sense the danger ,
They drank - unspooked
They quenched their parched throats - for lions none looked !
Reaching the tangents of the critical striking distance
Factored the consideration of the herd's resistance ;
Silence hung suspended in the tension of the hunt
The target was an adult of the herd , not a runt .
Then with the strategy of surprise the attack began
With lightning speed the impala was set upon
The lionesses brought it down
The coup de gras delivered swiftly
Death delivered clinically
The feeding frenzy then began
Gnashing teeth tearing the flesh
Each trying its quota to accomplish
Released the scent of fresh blood
That rented the dry night air like a flood
Attracting a pack of hyenas on a reconnaisance mission
A hungry clan out on night patrol in search of nutrition
The females being larger than the males
Formed the battle ramp of the attack
They interrupt the banquet of warm blood - chuckling !
Their collective descent in a war cry of intimidating laughter
Chased the lionesses off the kill ,
The lionesses momentarily faltered then returned ,
In the fragile safety of the lull of a temporary truce
Together the hyenas and the lions ate their fill
The lion's share going to the hyena's alpha male !!
The smell of death rendered the air around
Damp and stale
As the impala's blood soaked into the parched ground .

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