​Come, behold the Elephant Woman

Who hatched from a mother dove’s egg.
She is loud and tall and
See how she tramples the world underfoot
Great are the feet and wide
Of she, the Elephant Woman

Wanderer long-minded, she remembers
What you have forgotten
The ancient waterholes,
The graveyards luminous in the desert’s night
She has tales to tell,
She the Elephant Woman.

Gentle, sometimes, the Elephant Woman –
She lowers her trunk to tickle children,
Holds them in her arms.
But should someone raise a hand against them,
She would rise, Goddess of Destruction,
Grow new arms, a second head,
Dance drunken on their burning cities,
Rend bridges with her tusks.

She, the Elephant Woman,
Who came from a mother dove’s egg.

Meant to write Presidential but it came out Pestilential. Dang. – Margaret Atwood

The world disintegrating
Seems to contain only
Perishable pleasures

And sure, we have each other
The final bulwark against
The rising of the hydra’s heads

The beast slouching
– A more belated birth, perhaps,
Than expected –

But every usual escape
From daily cares
Has taken on a monstrous form

The shadows of stories
My sustenance in such times
Wax in warning of the nearing night

And heroes hang their heads
Escaping others’ nooses
And I I I

Am drowning in Necessity
Watch: two heads bloom
For each one severed

One thing that can be said
For the fight against injustice:
No matter how bad the market,

There’s always work to do.