Walrus tusks are longer than I thought
Length of a yardstick, new and store bought
Females' tusks are much longer; they serve as teeth
Sharper than a copper dagger in a leather sheaf
Categories:
tusks, animal,
Form: Rhyme
Yesterday was lush and green
Tomorrow will be baron
They’ve arrived, with cunning
How do we continue on, endure
After these creatures of the night
Have rambled through
Nothing can grow here
Will never flourish again
A perennial disenchantment
They’ve poached the roots
Eaten them greedily, wildly
This habitat trampled away
Moving across, multiplying
A tedious landslide nocturnal
The more we hunt them
The quicker they learn
Boastful tusks challenging
A successful vendetta
Completed only by being
Being what they are
Doing what they do
Why exhaust a hoof
When you can starve the hand
A hand that time and again
And again and again
Has done the very same
Creature of the night, if you could say
We’d know it was ourselves
That showed you how to defeat us
Knocking at the door
Blowing it down
Categories:
tusks, animal, nature, people,
Form: Free verse
A large green grootslang with giant tusks
shook down a bunch of red and yellow mollusks
hunted them down
Northeast of Gerogetown
Scaring sweet corn off of their stalks and husks
Categories:
tusks, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form: Free verse
achingly ...
he still recalled
as if but a day hence ...
the air still moved, tender
the earth a-sole, still trembling
grasses parting like swells for a mighty prow
dust from bulky feet in diaphanous clouds ...
swept up and woven like a thin shuka
as if a Maasai blessing
to grace the hips of the coy Kilimanjaro ...
yet naught remained but the beautiful white
the echoes of the poachers' rifles
and the countless cries of a grand species, ghosted
lost to the thirsty Serengeti soil
shamed red by the rills of blood let
for a sake, sadistic ...
and the inexhaustible glut
of greed.
Submitted on November 26, 2020
To the "On Your Marks, Naturally" Poetry Contest
Julia Ward, Judge & Sponsor.
Categories:
tusks, animal, farewell, nature, sad,
Form: Free verse
I walk these plains of sun-dried grass
together in a row
with other elephants and calves
to search for food- then go
for miles in thirst, to find a drink
as dry season appears.
I walk along and stay in sync,
alert with eyes and ears.
But, land in our domain is less,
encroached by humankind,
uncaring that our crowded space
harms our state of mind.
Still worse, I have become aware
of threats- the cruelest kind,
alert to watch and hide, beware
of horrors which I find.
So oft I see a sight disturbed,
sprawled out along our path;
a member of our precious herd-
we trumpet loud with wrath!
Then stop to mourn as humans do;
stand vigil, and grief-filled
caress the faceless friend we knew
who for its tusks, was killed.
Now, cautiously I live my days,
fulfilling nature's reign,
in my deep hope to drink and graze-
and procreate my strain.
Our hide is dark, our tusks are white;
stand out in day and night.
For them, we're martyred every day.
To end our deaths- I pray.
Categories:
tusks, abuse, animal, sad,
Form: Personification