Rochelle Owens: '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
[N.B. To which she adds, in correspondence: “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.”]
Poems and poetics