Makeshift landfills

Animal aristocracy

the Elephants

they cast the greatest shadow

on us all

majestic vegetarians

high caste bloodstock they

are still wild in certain parts

but struggle too

away

from sense to tribulation

habitat loss and more

up against the farmers

who really have waged war

water food and habitation

elephants desire

their memory holds varied paths

Brings them closer to the wire

the human population

have lost respect alas

they dump their cast off’s and their

rubbish

anywhere en masse

a landfill at the jungle apron

imagine that and see

mounds of plastic rotting

modern commonality

herds resigned to searching

through the stench of humankind

offensive and disgusting

why have we lost our  mind

our brashness and audacity

our shamelessness where we

alienate existence

with utter flippancy

and so we see the Elephants

starving so that  we

can spread into the jungle

and dump our shittery

contemptuous of reason

Mean spirited so we

are hostile to the residents

the godly souls who be

suffering true hunger

and rooting through our waste

we pay them a disservice

and stand in line disgraced

we cast our evil eye on them

denounce their right to be

in and around the forest

such indignity

they are thus consuming

plastic bags and muck

our heartlessness is growing

we somehow pass the buck

blindly miss the obvious

our  guiltiness prevailing

What was  totally inappropriate

Is tragically now failing

those noble souls

we wilfully disrespect

and they

are suffering and they are  dying

a price too high to pay

it boils down to irreverence

to having no regard

holding them in displeasure

the poor souls clearly scarred

By ignorance and true neglect

fault finding all the time

condemning them to rubbish heaps

and watching as they climb

no compunction and no remorse

Each unrelenting day

of suffering from wastrels

who look the other way

life for them a punishment

a scourging flagellation

a penalty for life itself

total deprivation

its hard to watch

to contemplate

the heartache that they feel

struggling from place to place

Just to  find a meal

religion casts a shadow

the rituals we can hear

bells and gongs and incense

and backsliding fear

watching from a distance

the poet feels their pain

the constant violation

unhallowed and insane