by Brandon Marlon
prisma/universal images group
Man is the animal believing himself human.
Man is the animal habitually supposing
what sort of animal he is.
Male ontogeny is a tedious process.
Well-endowed, he swings himself wildly
and hacks with a machete across
muggy jungles as if infuriated by foliage,
then urinates circularly to demarcate
his domain; boorish and brutish,
adamant man will have his way
with the world then spit in disgust
at the recently conquered. For this reason
every adamant man must have
an even more adamant mother.
In his hubris, adamant man forges
and welds, asserting his aptitude,
confident in his honed will-to-power
or at least in his heavy-duty leaf blower.
The more adamant man is the more
laughable. Spare a care, will you?
Pity poor adamant man, Adam-the man-the ant.
Brandon Marlon is a writer from Ottawa, Canada. He received his B.A. (Hon.) in Drama and English from the University of Toronto and his M.A. in English from the University of Victoria. His poetry has been published in Canada, U.S.A., England, Ireland, Greece, Romania, Israel, India, Pakistan, and Singapore. His is a Journal Featured Writer and can be reached at brandon@brandonmarlon.com.
Photo credit: Roman Art. Relief commemorating the victories of a gladiator represented in various struggles with adversaries. Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest, Retrieved 29 June 2015 from http://quest.eb.com/search/300_169719/1/300_169719/cite