The Last Chameleon

We're now deep into the sixth extinction and the pain of this has accelerated.

 

My second collection of writings and scribbles - The Last Chameleon - respond to this visceral sense of an ending, and the urgent need for us to create safe havens and sanctuaries for all the more-than-human-life that is still with us - most of it hiding and trying desperately to hold on.

 

These two ecocide themed poems were published by Suffolk Poetry Society and Art Branches CIC in 2023-24.

 

LOST MADAGASCAN SOLITUDE

Sloping crystalline falling away skies

nudge a luxuriant forested isle - wide-eyed tree-skipping lemur-strewn -

obediently it slides eastward, ever further distant from anchoring shores.

 

A boat-less earth.

Hunched up blood-licking apes locked into fruit-held rift valleys. 

Sharpening their flints. 

 

The sautéing sifaka, jitters, nervy, princely pirouettes. 

Esoteric treasure trove, trust-bound, 

assembled exotica anciently unfolds. 

 

In solitude, a jolly party contained together in pacific balance:

reptilian bug-eyed chameleons sure and slow-footed, 

shy slinking Fossa, a lone long-fingered aye-aye absentmindedly 

tapping out dangerous omens in primeval morse code.

 

Waves crash, anguished howls -

one rogue boatful with hungry bellies and hatchets. 

Chameleons adjust multi-coloured jackets 

- to hide away fast. 

 

The island’s grizzled chains slip their moorings

grind down Noah’s Ark of charms. 

Axes sear, slice, ricochet

Malagasy’s pristine wonders slump - wounded, bloodied, defiled.

 

The world’s fourth largest isle, 

once tree carpeted now down to rubbed raw floor boards.