Silence of the Lion Roar

the bitumen track is empty now
and so is the tartan
where hotorange lions once raged
over soft green loins
in ecstasy to prove their brawn
over the creeping black striped tigers
from over the rainbow
the mauling caterwauling naked beasts
who for water would give up their claws
to satiate their lusts
in the Babylonian dens
of sloth and greed and pride ...

Where are my lions now,
are they in the dens
castrated like fools
or chained to the eunuchs of old
in Pondicherry and in Jerusalem too
with soft kittens their playmates
and vegetables their diet
not blood and deer and zebra
in the footstools of the Himalayas ...

the stadium is like Bidadari
entombed in a moneyed culture
that prostitutes the golden calf
above sacrifice and nobility
and love for country and people ...

the lex loci is abstract
and filled with so many mundane amendments
the Euphrates becomes bedevilled
with weeds meant for muttonheads
not men of courage or integrity ...

So the lions mew like kittens
after a year of celery and milk
their soft purrs are not of dissent
but of meek submission
to the eunuchs who control the Red Sea
up near the Suez Canal
where Pharoah once kissed Big Brother
for both had their slaveships filled
with dissenting ducks from mandalay
who when aggrieved made emotional outbursts
that threatened the fenghshui of the Outer Hebrides

now the Scotmen are being nailed
and their kilts shredded like sarongs
for the turtlenecked women of Pagan
as they are whipped into submission
to the warlords of warwick on Kent
and Picadilly and Kingfisher
in the old red river town
where a growl is often mistaken
for a happy laugh
and a dissenting remark
the greatest crime on earth
greater than murder and often interpreted
as Treason :

oh, on our fair shores in Pondicherry
I saw leopards run into the rivers
only they were the naked labourers
of a naked city that has clothed
itself with diamonds
and forgotten Truth
and the spirit of courage
which once drove the whiter tigers
into the cold frosts adjoining the
berlin wall
where donkeys once acted like kings
in an Auschwitz
that is reminiscent of
big brother and 1984
when hotorange lions were lured
from born free safari parks
into cages where they were blinded
and forced to lay
beneath lewd donkeys
braying in the dark
to satisfy their lust
for power and vanity
[despite being the ugliest creatures
in Auschwitz ]

So my lions are burnt, bruised
and beaten into submission,
cowed by whips and stengahs of glory
to become subdued meek lambs
with their gory golden locks
sheared for hollywood bald headed eagles
serving dick cheney on Thanksgiving Day ...