And the very last, the endling,
Caged in the sunlight at Beaumaris Zoo,
Tired of the poking and the prodding
Paced out of existence into history,
Into emblem and icon
Legend and label,
On to things protected by copyright,
Footage and fable,
And the internet's electric jungle,
And into that great white emptiness
Of extinction,
That giant ship which we are building,
Stacking and storing,
Fitting and filling,
Recording into the grand voyage
Of oblivion.

Just enough to
Pave your heart
frost bit cold

Where are the wild
Things compelling you
to search your own Sun
and the stray wind that
will carry you home

We cannot live on cement alone
Though we’ve covered
the Earth with toxic stones
that do not breathe
And trash that will never perish

It may be our undoing
What we’ve done to ourselves
To die upon this heap
To suffer the bloodstains
on the asphalt

I feel like the white lion
stuck in a cage for the rest of my days
feet set to tread a path barred and dusty
from all of those who trod before it.

The only excitement, the jangles of
keys from the keeper who runs to
throw carcass of rabbit, turkeys
through my bars for me
to render sustenance, incomplete.

I fear the white lion
hear my lonely roar and wonder
at such talons, canines now stolen
and feet dismembered, claws ripped
from their shackles, top-of-the-food-chain
fear desecrated.

And a genetic time-bomb too
ticks under my skin and theirs
as I sit and I listen to the lies
your children now share.

My line also ends, a mere stutter
in the sand, as the tides flow steady
and the last lion lingers.

And I am, too, held high like a beacon,
a warning, a message spanning
centuries, look, children, look!
See the mistakes of your ancestors.

See how her coat shines so very bright
that it reflects all seven colours
of the light? See how lonely and low
the last of a manipulated, mistaken,
misconstrued species can go?

She was drawn from her mother
mixed with her father, no she doesn't need him
and the others, why yes, all left
are her kin!

How wonderful, how quaint, you
know only ten now remain?
None in the wild of course, where
their life cannot sustain,
better here locked under our
constraints where we have
so much wonder, so much recreation
and education to gain.

And true, from this bleak place
they can never migrate
but look at her, no where else to go
this man-made mistake.

Don’t worry about the pacing,
the maddened, gleaming eye
the freedom they miss
out there? They would die!
And they know no other way
than this.

I know she looks sad, but
that’s just your feelings projecting,
they’re just animals, my darling,
you’re innocent, shouting in consternation
save her in the name of conservation!

But we are all white lions
all now endangered, our steps
are no freer, our lives all
subject to external changes and we
cannot move but for the cage
they have constructed, their
lives are impacted but our
wonder is not deducted.

I feel like the white lion
this ambassador of our greatness
this one mistake, so very clever,
engineered to engage us, these lives that
were wrought solely to entertain us.

I feel it, their future entwined in mine
and in humans across the ages.

Meaning of life designed, its sibilant message
dangerous, a dumb animal wandering
a set path, disregarded, destructive, aimless.

What if everything we know
Everything we ever learned
Was just a cover up
To protect us from the real world?

Would we want to learn the truth
Or hide inside our walls
Our limits
Because that’s all we’ve ever known

Would you enter the unknown
An abyss waiting to be discovered
Or would you try to stay confined
Inside the black and white guidelines set for you

As children, we are imaginative
We make our own games
Our own rules
Which are taken away as we are told to grow up

But “growing up” is not that simple
You are set to discover who you are
With no help
No guidelines

We are given choices
And most of us choose to stay who we’ve always been
While some of us venture
To discover who we can become
OUR limits

I chose to take the path of no return
I’ve been through hell and back
And I learn something new everyday
To the point where I feel my limit is endless

Until I realize that
This world is cruel
And when you seem to stand alone
You’re faced with the horrible reality

That people like you
Are killed off
For expressing themselves
Being different
Choosing their paths
Creeping away from the normal routes
That are chosen through blind eyes

We are an extinct species.
For the ones who chose to be unique,
Are exterminated
And forever gone

the parallels of she and her and you
and the era extinct.
the notes that linger on the rooftop
the shapes that she drew
the shapes that you colored in
the notes that were written
the notes that were written
and erased.


the absence is not new,
though rises like a dull sun in winter
in search of somewhere
less white.