<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
hose-pipes its trunk to one of the bath-taps must have been built around its great grey bulk. pink or white, depending on the progress of the evening, are beginning to doubt their ability to keep pace and later joins the ongoing debate as a vigorous advocate but has been known to settle for the sotto voce<\/em> denigration but carefully rationalized rage known as musth<\/em>, it fears nothing for the thunder of ivory-smugglers\u2019 guns might feel like the only <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Matt Merritt<\/strong> is a poet and wildlife journalist from Leicester. His third collection, The Elephant Tests<\/em><\/a> is out now from Nine Arches Press. He blogs at polyolbion.blogspot.com <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The elephant in the room is an elephant. Far from ignoring it, we are trying to recall exactly how it snuck in here, how long we have before it strips the house-plants, hose-pipes its trunk to one of the bath-taps to satisfy its extraordinary demands, or turns the furniture to kindling with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4880,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4879\/revisions\/4880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe elephant in the room<\/strong>
\n<\/em>
\nis an elephant. Far from ignoring it,
\nwe are trying to recall exactly how it snuck in here,
\nhow long we have before it strips the house-plants,<\/p>\n
\nto satisfy its extraordinary demands, or turns the furniture to kindling
\nwith us still on it. Of course! This whole ramshackle edifice<\/p>\n
\nDid I say grey? It does tends toward
\na textbook shade, but occasionally colours<\/p>\n
\nthe quality of the light. Every knock on the door these days
\nseems to be a dung beetle, but even they<\/p>\n
\nwith production. The creature turns one huge, deaf ear
\nto their mutterings, tunes the other in to every conversation<\/p>\n
\nof its own highly structured and stable social order.
\nIt is unafraid to trumpet its kind\u2019s many virtues<\/p>\n
\nof hippopotami and all their works. In this current state,
\na periodic outbreak of vicious, indiscriminate<\/p>\n
\n\u00ad\u2013 not mouse, nor man, nor umbrella stand. To banish it
\nto the far savannah of your conscious mind and pray<\/p>\n
\nviable strategy, but it has already weighed your worth
\nand found you wanting. Don\u2019t expect it will ever forget.<\/p>\n