The elephant statue, dark colored coal,
a kingly pet bought by a kingly toll,
the remain of days of foreign conquest,
put here to attend to an age of rest.
Now defenseless from a people irate,
who seek to call ruin on the estate.
An axe scrapes a toe to heartless good cheer.
Drunk now, a farmer attacks the veneer.
From a rotten wound in its side outbreaks
the rat-bit scholar who lives in its legs;
shouts at the mob every curse that he knows:
“You anarchists, anti-Christs, and assholes.”
Below callous claws, skin peels away clean
to release beneath a summerset gleam;
a chest, trunk, and tail made of despot’s gold,
dissolved into dust – the marketplace sold.