My Inner Wild Beast

Some psychologists say we
have an inner child,
a part of us like kilned clay
which formed by our childhoods
can for decades stay...
a child that may be angry
or maybe wants to play

About this theory
I really couldn't say
except that a truthful kernel,
in it truly does lay

But if there's an inner child,
there's also an inner wild-beast
at least in me,
that longs to be
free of law, idea, and city:
bloody-fanged with ecstatic rage
amid the gnarled trees
of this silicon stone-age

And when my ideas go wrong
or my body grows weak,
he helps me to again grow strong
and new dreams to seek

The wild is not as strong
in me as in many souls:
the free animal is not my role

I am a civilized, rational man
liberal and philosophical,
modernistic and methodical
"sensible to the advantages of the installment plan"

Yet it is possible the beast
is far stronger than I thought
(not the receding "Id" of which we're taught,)
not tame but only caught:
wooly and full
of animal cunning and lust,
singing to the moon's barbarous pull

And is it just possible
that without him...
all liberal humanism
would soon grow dull and dim?