Devour Not the Elephant

Devour Not the Elephant

Poaching scene
crime scene  carcasses of
dead rhinos and Savannah elephants

Precious the ivory tusks and horns
cut off  severed

Two from a bull
raw and bleeding holes gouged
into Jumbo's face

Swollen  infected the wounds
every day bears the data

Data of body
feces  hair and nails  yellowish-white
bones push to the surface

In the green of leaves  Earth
Air  Fire  Water

          *

What is property?
property is the body  Ears  Trunk
Feet

The face half-severed  precious
the ivory tusks and horns

Property is the body
mutilated  burned  Ears  Trunk
Feet

Ears like human fingerprints
none are the same

Flapping their ears
blood circulates in the head
ears the shape of Africa

Two long pointed teeth stick out
of the mouth

The trunk is like a human arm
or the fingers of a hand
picking berries

Elephant corpses found drifting
In a creek  yellowish-white bones

Push to the surface
In the green of leaves Earth
Air  Fire  Water

What is property?  property
is the body  a human arm or hand

My mother was sold
from me \when I could
but crawl

                      *

Among the stalls
piles of ivory trinkets  bangles
and beads

Rows of Ivory carvings
of maidens  monks  and birds

Carcasses of dead rhinos
and Savannah Elephants  carcasses
stripped of their skin

Burned  mutilated  saleable parts
hacked off

Ears  Trunk  Feet
the horns and tusks ground up
my body the bread  my blood the wine

*

Disturbingly informative
an elephant savaged by poachers

Poison in the rivers
poison in the arrow heads  following
the dying animal around

Following the dying animal around
every day bears the data

Data of body  body of data
property is the body mutilated  burned
carnal/spiritual

In the green of leaves  Earth
Air  Fire  Water

The elephant is a nonpredatory mammal, a sensate being.
The poem intersects body and spirit — elephant desire,
with the function of marketing, production, distribution
and exchange of elephant and rhino body parts by human
predators.

Selected Poems

Hermaphropoetics

from Solitary Workwoman

Part 3: Fire Clayfrom The Joe 82 Creation Poems

Selections fromI am the Babe of Joseph Stalin's Daughter

Not Be Essence That Cannot Be

Part 3: Fire Clay
from The Joe 82 Creation Poems

Selections from
I am the Babe of Joseph Stalin's Daughter