The Elephant has no shepherd

There is a thorn blanket
Woven between the thicket
A red carpet of lost toes
Trod day by day
To the waterhole

There is poison berry
Inviting from the green ceilings
A juicy treat from the anunebe
Drunk day by day
With lunch

There is the fake mating call
Inviting across the plains
The heady pheromone on every leaf
Inflaming with each breath
Carried across the trap

There is the smooth path
Across the quicksand lawn
The inviting relief for aching feet
Sucking the herd soothingly
Beyond relief

There is the distant booms
Of massacre and fire
Massing cinder on cinder
Promising inheritance
Of torched grass lands

There is the cacophony
Of baboons telling the stork
Of quela flock telling the locust
Each voice raised in assurance
Of the path down the long lost lake

There is the growl
Of massed hunger hidden
Murderous eyes shinning in the bushes
Waiting to claim the first scalp
And the last meal

There is the glade beyond the hills
Away from the spears of many cuts
There is the calm beyond the rainbow
But the elephant has no shepherd.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

When it's your turn

When it's your turn
The wind will not stop
The slow and furious traverse
Across land and sea and time

The air will not become foul
Or dark and cloudy
It will not cry for your breath
Or miss your smile

The sun will not forget
To climb out of her easterly bed
Her rays will neither curve nor lose its teeth
Biting through the gap of your absence

The dreams will still
Conjure the illusion of importance
Now that you have become but a thread
Of this dream that forever sleeps

The earth will still turn her spindle
Dancing only in small steps
Around the immortality of her journey
Forever slipping through this silence
That you now share

The butterflies will still seek the flowers
Nectar will still feed the bees
And the bees will still sting to death
The keeper and the stray dog

Memories will still be written
With chalk on smooth rocks
Buffeted in eternity by these
Waves of tears

Don't worry,
When it's your turn
The day will still break.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad