BONES OF THE REPUBLIC

by Earl David Freeland

I weep.

The king didn’t take the throne.
The elephant knelt—
tuskless,
trumpeting fear,
its weight crushing the roots
of a nation it once carried.

Palms open,
backs bent,
offering the crown
wrapped in fear,
cheap flags for bows.
Will there be midterms?
Will it matter?
When power hums the same note,
ballots dusted under a golden sneaker,
lines redrawn to cut out the noise—
cut out us.

Maps don’t divide now.
They silence.
States, neat and obedient,
stacked under a crown.

What world waits for my son?
A place where truth
gets dragged—
hair tangled in fists,
paraded like a lesson.

Freedom?
Traded for chain-slick comfort.
Easy.
Cheap.

The anthem plays.
Hands rise—
not for hearts.

I see it—
the Mouth of Putin,
slick, wide, laughing.
Spitting out slogans,
black seeds rooting into
boots,
barbed wire,
burned books.

Long live the king,
they say.
And mean it.

I weep.

But I’m watching.
And if democracy dies here—
I’ll bury it with teeth.
Bared.
Fists raw.
Tear the ground open
and dig through the bones
the elephant left behind

Earl David Freeland is a mathematician, former cartographer, and teacher whose poetry balances precision with raw vulnerability. His work explores societal critique, existential themes, and human complexity with unflinching honesty. His poems have appeared in Poets Reading the News and reflect a deliberate rejection of polish in favor of visceral authenticity.

TROPHY HUNT

by Pepper Trail

Image source: The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

Elephant, what man
Not driven by hunger
Not confronted by your bulk, your tusks
Not defending his house or farm

Knowing what we know
Of your vast and furrowed memory
Of your lines of mothers and aunts
Of the slaughter pursuing you across the continent

What man
Thinking of you, elephant
Your dignity, your utter majesty in this world
Thinks of killing

Travels thousands of miles
Spends a useless fortune
Is led to you, elephant, quiet in your life
Asks for the heavy gun, and shoots

What man
Cuts the tail from your great body
Poses for the pictures, fills out the forms
Flies satisfied away

Leaving an erasure in the map of Africa
Your circuit of waterholes, lost
The hiding-place of your family bones
The silent harmony of your song, sung through the earth

What man
Consults the record books
For spread of ego, weight of pride
Fills a trophy-room with ignorance
Elephant, what beast?

Pepper Trail is a conservation biologist, poet, and photographer living in Ashland, Oregon.  His poems have appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Pedestal, and other publications, and have been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net Awards.  He has long been involved in efforts to protect wildlife and wild places.  His collection Cascade-Siskiyou, a cycle of poems about Oregon's Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument (currently under threat by the T***p Administration), was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

VETERAN

by James Penha

The elephant is the soul of Thailand,
the beast that bowed to kings,
built their empires
from jungles, the warrior that bore armies
and the brunt of generals' attacks. The elephant
is the nation's sacred symbol, its
trademark, its commodity, temple-venerable
and night-market kitsch. Without wars to fight
in an age of drones
and caterpillars, the great one follows
Fagins of mahouts
around carnivals amidst city streets,
hobbled and humiliated,
homeless and hungry, trunk
down with its luck. Now cartoon heroes
in masks and dark glasses
are glorified
as one great gray soldier and another
fade away and die.


James Penha edits The New Verse News.

UNETHICAL TRADE

by David Feela





If only the African moon
was made of ivory,

and as it weighed
so heavily on the horizon

poachers could cut it
into pieces and get away

by daybreak with a truckload
of the polished night.

I would give up the moon --
all of it -- let the earth

invent its own luminosity
if only to keep the elephants.

David Feela writes a monthly column for The Four Corners Free Press and for The Durango Telegraph. A poetry chapbook, Thought Experiments, won the Southwest Poet Series. His first full length poetry book, The Home Atlas appeared in 2009. His new book of essays, How Delicate These Arches  , released through Raven's Eye Press, has been chosen as a finalist for the Colorado Book Award.