Week 38- Photograph by Chris Sims
This week seven poets tackled the visual prompt above in very different ways. Some focusing on environmental issues, others taking an oblique or humorous stance. The winning poem was Elephant in the Room, which captured the most votes. Congratulations to April.
Poem 1
The Elephant Mooches
Look who is wading
in the loveliest of blue
faint light on water
Johanna Boal
————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Poem 2
Gladiator
Alone his feet track the arena
every step. hounded
chained by arms of blue clamping
every exhausted step.
The herd”s deserted, his wives
lye ion beds of rivals
hissing leaves speed his departure
to the certainty of death..
Carolyn O’Connell
———————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Poem 3
Diary of a River
He breaks away from the herd,
brave young bull.
The matriarch bellows goodbye;
perhaps to her only son.
I feel his splash-thump steps,
before he trunks me
over his parched-leather hide;
I’m too shallow to swim in you see.
Part of me ripples
towards the scorched shore,
and there I see them:
khaki-killing machines,
crouched-aiming cruelty;
takers of life.
Bright sunlight catches
the white one’s Rolex;
a blood-tourist.
The poor hearing herbivore
paddles and grunts,
blind to the bead drawn on him,
as I do my best to cool his feet.
“Good munee in dem tusks, Sabib”,
the Mahout turned traitor whispers.
More paddling. More grunts;
just an oblivious silhouette
on my blue.
Tomas Bird
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Poem 4
After Drought
Still half dreaming, the elephant wakes knee-deep
In sunbeam-flecked water, flaked light.
He wakes and wades in the blue.
The drought is done.
Now monsoon rains have come.
He feels his weight shift, that great heart
Still lodged deep in his chest, though slower now,
Uplifted, loosening, no longer strained, drained
In the trek, the blistering trek,
The trek for waterholes through the parched plains,
Through savannas murmuring his mother’s memories.
The drought is done.
Now monsoon rains have come.
On the water’s edge, a lean, lone heron screeches,
“New riches! Riches here!” then spears its prey.
But the elephant’s pads sink lazily,
So easily into the silk-soft silt
Where the only other sounds
(Once the heron’s flapping wing-beats fade)
Are grasses pushing shining blades
Above hushed ripples and water slipping,
Lapping under blue light.
The drought is done.
Now monsoon rains have come.
Extending his delicate trunk, he tickles the water; tastes it; draws it;
Tosses and sprays it over his back.
Drinks deep.
No more sleep-walking
In desert heat!
Replenished, he will go seek
His mother, cousins, sisters.
Last true emperor of India,
He blows his trumpet
And is answered by angels
On the far side, the far shore of the flood.
All the good days are here again.
The drought is done.
Now monsoon rains have come.
Lizzie Ballagher
———————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Poem 5
Elephant in The Room
There’s an elephant in the room.
Can we kick him out?
I don’t like the way he looks at me.
That elephant, he follows
wherever I go.
I can’t seem to shake him.
They all want to talk about it,
all except him.
He’s done talking.
Will this teasing elephant
ever go away,
or will he move in with us?
Maybe he’ll join me
at work, at play
and stand behind all of my conversations.
I’ll go away – some new place
and it’ll come too
my elephant shadow.
A friend sees the elephant
while we stand and smoke
and pretends it was never there.
April Nicholas
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Poem 6
the last of his kind
Stepping out of the water
The representative of our failures
Trails sparkling drops,
Like the lost stages of his evolution;
He is going no further.
In a world that doesn’t need him
he steps out of natural history
towards a future we never intended
but would not avoid;
the last of his kind.
Michael Docker
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Poem 7
Nellie Has Packed Her Trunk …
We are such unruly upstarts, with our
peremptory snorting. We stamp through
the landscape with murderous feet, carve
ivory trinkets for the congenitally pointless,
raze the bush and create little more
than chaos and desert in its wake.
We should have more fun. We should
roll about in mud and squirt water fountains,
splash the day away in a clear blue lagoon.
Like elephants that sing their silent songs
across the vast savannah, we should go
in quiet wonder where they walk the earth
with dignity. How we must grieve them
with our little hearts and digital cameras.
We have machines to capture beauty
now our eyes fail to see, so busy are we
with poaching, burning and overall destruction.
Our world-view lacks the necessary pixels
for grace. We are circus clowns.
Shirley Wright
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————
