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

Did the ancients of Africa not pray for posterity?
Could their Gods not save their future?
Oh river of raining collective thought
Bring us a the greatest prosperity.

As the Zambezi river flows forever
Did it not ever change its chaotic course?
Do the mountains where the water comes from
Not quarrel with the clouds and their friendship sever?

rain

drops

fall

from

a

cloud

and

Lands never in our hands.

Roses are red and violets are blue...
Love is so beautiful and true...
I really found this in you
Since the day I met you...
Sylvia, my baby boo...
So sweet and loving too...
Babe, you're the only one I dream off...
The only one I think off...
Like a soldier and his Kalashnikov...
You're my wife and your love...
Is truly sent from above...
Ka mungeli straight from Mushili...
Met this guy from Zambezi...
Two love birds fell in love completely...
Your love fills me whole you complete me....
Yours truly Chris, I love you dearly.....

I am like the ground that contains minerals
Which are expensive.
I am like a groundnut in a shell

My thoughts are covered like an old Indian lady everywhere.
My thinking is beyond the technology of nowadays

The dream I dream shines like the morning star
The vibrant future is as bright as the sun,

Is this profanity?
Perhaps it's the quality of being ******
This is the enthusiasm everyone wishes

But my best is not to be sculptor
What's more imperative in me?
To keep the word of God burning
In the lost souls.

What's in side me
is as wide as Zambezi river
My heart has kept quotes of scriptures
Which it has built me pillars to stand strong.

I am full of words...
full of being proud whenever am not.
Fighting to make my faith to be strong like concrete.
Tick tack
Time click
Still looking for spear salvation

Am no longer feeling like a grease spoon around
But my word sharp like the sword to fight against my enemies for not showing the green lightsWhat's inside me
is roaring like the lion

The foot step I take is as tortoise
So no more Algophobia!
No more Taphophobia!
No more Atychiphobia!
That's what inside me...