Elephant In The Dock

(Album: Ten Stories - 2012)

Pillary stocks at the gallows tree dock
the crowd grew impatient the clouds threatened rain
Elephant arrived at the Constable's side,
with her trunk locked in shackles, and her ankles in chains

[Bailiff:]
"All rise, all rise, his Honor presides,"
the Judge took the bench to the village brass cavalcade,
Elephant refused to swear the oath,
[Elephant:]
"I don't know anything about truth,
but I know falsehood when I see it,
and it looks like this whole world you've made"

Good of our chaplain to sail Kalispell Bay
And now down on his marrow for this old fool to pray,
"Lord, for sixty-so years I've surrendered my love,
to emblems of kindness, and not the kindness they were emblems of,
Trammels and rings, with the strength of old strings,
and some hobble skirt spring, by the old problem caught,
Children, sometimes I think all our thoughts are just things,
and then sometimes think things are just thoughts,"
and the rabble rang

[Crowd:]
"Hang! the Elephant must hang! the Elephant must hang!
Hang! the Elephant must hang! the Elephant must hang!"

[Elephant:]
"A thirteen coil knot for the samovar pot! Scottish Oatcakes in haversacks each to its grave
This mock trial can no more determine my lot,
than can driftwood determine the ocean's waves,
Brandish your ropes and your boards, and your basket-hilt swords,
but what is there can punish like a conscience ignored?
Yes, my body did just as you implied,
while some ghost we'll call 'I' idly watched through its eyes,"
and the jury sang,

"Hang! the Elephant must hang! the Elephant must hang!
Hang! the Elephant must hang! the Elephant must hang!
Hang! the Elephant must hang! the Elephant must hang!
Hang! the Elephant must hang! the Elephant must hang!"

[Elephant:]
I feel it stealing now
All adrift fathoms down