Call me dour and unimaginative
even say in foggy vistas
that I am numb and thick-skinned
but without mendacity
I duly hand on heart thus proclaim
I just cannot at all relate
to these croaky periphrastic fantasies
of weak disenchanted ghosts
who cursing their opaque transparency
in vacuous bland plasma
crave sojourn in howling and bawling
begging attention and validity
excusez moi mon petite les miserables
but your fantasies
neither resonates nor romanticize
in the sublime realities
of those who walk on solid terra firma
and despite ghostlore
do still see themselves in the dark
and know to keep things real

He came as an orphan
June 26th, 1865
Having seen
the death of his mother
Chased and speared by a hunter

First African elephant
in Europe
At the London Zoo
All alone
in all of Europe

How he broke and wore his tusks
In the iron of his enclosure
In night pain from toothaches
From many rotten teeth
Caused by his only grass hay diet

Given whiskey and beer to calm
Shared with his keeper
Matthew Scott, a difficult man
With no close friends
But with a deep empathy for animals

Who drank whiskey
with Jumbo
Into the late, lonely night
Jumbo liked whiskey, beer
and lots of sticky buns

A problematic elephant
With a Jekyll and Hyde character
Sold for 2,000 pounds
To PT Barnum
as a star attraction

Jumbo tearing his chains away
Then sitting like a mule
Until he knew his keeper
Would also ride the boat
Across the big pond

Barnum’s Scott
Made a deal
Queen Victoria wasn’t happy
Her children had sat
And rode upon his back

Jumbomania in America
Accompanied his arrival
20 million saw him alive
Brooklyn bridge opened in 1882
A year before Jumbo arrived

Then 17 May, 1884
Twenty elephants
marched across
All the way to Brooklyn
led by Jumbo

The bridge vibrated and rebounded

In St Thomas, Ontario, Canada
was his suffering demise
The day the circus train came to town
Tom Thumb and Jumbo
Were waiting to get loaded

Perhaps bumped in the ****
By the speeding freight locomotive
Internal bleeding
and a slow death
Tom Thumb only a broken leg

Jumbo in a slow death
Scott in a slow death afterwards
Having witnessed
the last breath
Of his best friend

Photographed (a recent novelty)
just after his death in B&W
Poor dead Jumbo
Scott at his head
Weeping inconsolably

Although PT Barnum
In pure PT Barnum invention
Says Jumbo ran headfirst
Into the freight locomotive
To save his keeper and Tom Thumb

Jumbo died
at twenty-four
still young
and growing
in size and girth

His stuffed mounted skin
burned at Tufts University
except the unbroken bones
plus the end of his tail
“And this is what remains of Jumbo”

Yesterday, I saw wild elephants on the banks of the Zambezi river
near Victoria Falls
Tomorrow I’m hoping to touch Jumbo’s bones in New York City
And walk the Brooklyn Bridge

©  2017 Jim Davis

(strike while the iron's hot,
else...up prize cold hard steel Goldfinger
rewind: the following case in point).

Believe me you (stranger out there
along the information super highway),
perhaps feeling comfortably numb,
which I (personally experiencing futility)

vainly searching for Nirvana) attest
to be more appealing that flounder
(like a Phish out of roe jeers waters),
this Pink Floyd wannabe (actually live

ving an absurd existence as an A1 Deep Purple
People eater among a Band of *******)
oft times doth Abandon All Hope, when
this close (a hare's breath - imagined

by thumb and index finger nearly touching)
pinching that elusive Golden Silence),
when in the throes (up raised hands
signifying Abhorrent success) hopelessly

striving to summon forth a measly poetic
creation only to Rage Against The Machine
(Ablaze In Hatred) horridly glomming fruit
less endeavor, (a far cry approximating A

Blue Ocean Dream) extremely at wits end tide
feeling the painful impact re: classic mind
paralysis vis a vis Abnormyndeffect (whereat
most diagnoses an Abomination at best,

(strongly resembling, and easily mistaken
for gingerly feigning good knight two step
A BoogieWit da Hoodie), thus mental health
specialists advocate best ditch writer's block

as an Aborted effort gone south (by About a Mile),
yea...Just Above The Golden State (The Ruins),
when...with a whoosh A Canticle for Leibowitz
manifests and Jethro Tull appears waving a

magic wand while issuing Abracadabra birthing
from out The Breach of Silence inspiration met
with immediate backlogged literary juices, and
sudden Abrogation viz A Broken Silence, where

what appeared as a budding **** fantastically
heralded breakout New York Times best seller
collapses into a Uriah Heap of absentmindedness
twisting within psychic wind Abysmal Grief pain

full Acceptance of Absolute Zero literary talent
with strong considerations for an Accidental
Suicide Usher red via shocking the body electric
with maximum AC/DC self selected Act of Violence

deadening this once Acute Mind eve vent chilly Beck
conning Adam and the Ants, the Addiction Crew, and
most Petty full Heartbreaker i.e. A Death in the Family
unexpectedly engendering A Different Breed of Killers

who (Like the House of The Rising Sun nemesis),
essentially a Phoenix villa fied Gorgon Twisted Sister
faintly resembling a cross between Golgotha, Adolescents,
and Adonis, when...Who should appear A Dozen Furies

hence fomenting A Dream Too Late, Adultery admonished
by an Adult Mom with a doctorate in Advanced Chemistry,
and physiology of A Few Good Men inexplicably trans
forming into A Flock of Seagulls After Dusk matter of

fact After Forever leaving an Afterglow Against Time,
a veritable Air Supply ample enough to solve every
Algebra problem posed by Alice Cooper easy enough
to solve by average Alleycats, Stray Cats and Also Eden.

I hope you enjoyed Altered Images (ideally while in an
Altered State) Among the Oak and Ash during A Month
of Somedays assigning Amorphous Androgynous (A Pale
Horse Named Death) naysaying A Positive Life!