Bringing down the animal

[John]

Hi, Keith,

I read this as a school bully desperately trying to come to terms with his abhorrent behaviour. Second stanza initially looked like cannibalism, then saw it as cruelly playing with the victim's head.

I've just read Snake by DH Lawrence and saw the parallel with his (Lawrence's) coming to terms with his human pettiness - and much more in this case.

Enjoyed the darkness and it wasn't horrific.

I'd check spelling and punctuation - annimal (animal), and some of your clauses are end-stopped rendering them sentences.

Anything there you can use, please do.

Cheers

Standing by the science block,
that's where it started,
chalk on a blazer's back,
a two handed push,
"What are you looking at?
slap.
Get out of my way
and give me that!
gritted teeth gripped school ties.

Each day I took a piece,
nibbled on his flesh,
the soft parts of his mind,
made him small,
made him afraid.

Then the shudders started,
broke down, begged me to stop,
uncontrollable and I had done that;
I had done that,
it sat me down,
Samson, shaven and blind.

Two hours to take the bandages off,
why and what I had done.
Listened to his metaphor of me,
the pages of his ink black book,
detailed and gruesome,
hard for me to trace,
drawings sketched in despair.  

It's good at hiding now,
deep in its jungle.
But if someone stands
exposed,
lost in my long grass.
Then I hear it
coming through the trees,
tension lifts its chains.

I hope the dart
never misses
the thick part of its leg,
we wouldn't want it lose
inside our heads.