As Panther pants a fetid breath over the lifeless

‘tec turned would-be insurrectionist, and guzzles

the lifeblood fountaining from his jugular vein,

a glittery powder falls throughout world,

twitching all cats—real or imagined—to life.

Tiger tattoos upon the arms of convicts

and marines shrug off their subcutaneous bonds

with a sharp ‘Ouch!’ Leo the lion dangles

a paw earthwards to snatch up clawfuls

of all-too-human flesh, as onlookers clap hands

to mouths and gasp. The leonine stones that sat

at statuesque Victoria’s imperious

feet melt into flesh and yawn, pissed off to have

to wake, after so long a sleep. Go on the prowl.

Picking off tarts and panda cars. The sphinx

atop the column in St Mark’s takes wing

and shakes with her pecking the ground under

the Apennines, stirs old Vesuvius to life.

Pets that await their dear-departed masters

in the afterlife in stone on tombs spring

of a sudden awake and bound across the green

now hominid-free hills of Highgate cemetery.

The pelt of Herakles’ prey worn as a trophy

on his back is resurrected, strangles the chump

who wears it, as Hera’s snakes back in his cradle

were supposed to do. And sets about its culling

work again. The tiger burning bright with fearful

symmetry detaches itself from the schoolbook

and comes out at the gasping schoolkids reading it.

The lions leap off the flags and sport stars’ shirts

to go off on the maul. Rampant, the beasts

crouching on shields pop up from the abime.

The tiger leaps back out of your tank. Your engine

stalls. The jag turns. On its owner. The heart

rips itself out of the brave  lionheart’s chest.

And, for the grand finale, Leo turns heavenwards,

shoving the dog star and the little bear aside,

and slings an interstellar comet from its orbit

to blast into the southern pole. Penguins

and polar bears give thanks as nuclear winter falls.

The shaggy, long-toothed monsters of the icy past

stalk tundra once more. Sphinx shakes off centuries

of sand and rears again. Stomps off across

the Sinai wilderness en route for Armaggedon.

Smashing a pyramid and a temple or two

to dust, smirking, along her merry way.