The Animal Cornered

By Cliff Lake

 

The Animal Cornered

 

An animal is cornered.

It snarls and claws,

Its defense is reflexive and desperate:

The animal is cornered.

 

Is capture inevitable?

It retreats to darker holes,

Or to hide behind obscuring items,

It will not abide capture…

 

The animal lashes out.

It savages what is within reach,

It tears at more as it rages,

The animal is lashing out.

 

What damage may ensue?

What thoughtless carnage supplied?

The moment is the matter,

Consequence is never considered.

 

The animal begins to rave.

Illness long conquered its senses,

All that is left is fear and fury,

The animal is raving.

 

Survival of the torment it imagines is paramount,

Reality is of its own design.

Perspective is long lost,

Fight or flight is what remains.

 

An animal is cornered.

It bites and mauls,

Its defense is reflexive and desperate:

The animal is cornered.

 

What may tame the brute?

All offerings committed have been torn,

It spurns appeasement,

Ruin is its only objective.

 

The animal ravages its den.

It no longer feels safe anywhere,

It will violence whatever it can seize,

The animal ravages the den.

 

Blind rage, rooted fear,

These have long overtaken it.

No matter that it must reside here:

It will use claw and tooth regardless.

 

The animal soils its home.

Unclean in its very being,

It despoils its demesnes.

The animal has soiled its home.

 

It has sullied its domain,

It has long wallowed in grime.

Mire is its long custom,

There is no regard for grace.

 

An animal is cornered.

It snarls and claws,

Its defense is reflexive and desperate:

The animal is cornered.

 

Its reach is still too long yet…

 

Cliff Lake 1/7/2026

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2026

Location: Washington, DC, USA

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