Ringed-Necked Spiting Cobra Poem by Gert Strydom

Where I lie on my back as if I am dead
you will think of me with somewhat lesser dread
but when suddenly from that position I do strike
with great poison and lightning quick I you do spike,

or spit into your eyes the venom that stings like acid,
wish that you with the power of your boot crashed my head you did
and many times away into the grass and veldt I will be slithering
while to you I may be a dreadful lowly dangerous thing

with hilted fangs and the power to with death sting
and unexpectedly and dangerous constantly I am arising,
you will want to clobber my head and spine
as to you I am indolent and supine

but I do remember another distant time
where once I had been a creature sublime,
for eons I have seen the falling rain experience the rising sunrise
and I do still remember the garden of Paradise

where the angel Lucifer came into me, treated me like a god,
but now I am lower that the lowest sod.

© Gert Strydom