PATRICK TEN BRINK

B-Movie Cacti

Spikey, green stranger feeding three
finches prickly fruit, and nourishing the grinning
iguana and an ever-frowning tortoise

with thorned leaves, thick as hands. You
look inhospitable, but life
revolves around you.

Some are tall, with thick,
red-orange trunks, and
burnt, cracked skin.

Needles adorn fleshy leaves that
sprout, one out of the other, forming
a dangling mass of thorned ovals.

Others are thin: simply trunks
upon which grow
a cactus leaf, two, three.

One faces me, the next
stares left, and another
away.

You could be aliens,
monsters from old B-movies, 
modern sculptures.

A cacti forest stands on black,
volcanic rock, dry despite
crashing white waves.

I walk among you, dodging your
spikes – one more life
revolving around you.

Patrick lives and works in Brussels, his day job dedicated to protecting the environment, his spare time to writing fiction, poetry and art reviews. His short stories have appeared in Beyond Words, Coffin Bell, Night Picnic Press, The Brussels Review, and 101 Words, his poetry in Beyond Words, Dreamers Creative Writing, Maya’s Micros and Honeyguide Literary Magazine. His poetry collection, Urban Enigmas, will come out as a chapbook in July 2025 by Dipity Press.