Swizzle Stick

Belief in Drunken Elephants

Drunken elephants are an urban myth:
not barreling into bars for happy hour
nor crashing joyfully into waterholes
elephants are sober, not imbibing
spiritus liquor, not sculling beer,
not waiting for stockpiled fruit
to turn under elephant skies.

Drunken elephants are dangerous:
weighty careening through grasses,
trunks packed with wine skins
trumpeting slurry, emotive & blurred.

Drunken elephants bet on horses,
text ex-lovers, pleading or venomous,
drive cars illegally, book tickets
to impossible future concerts & countries.

Drunken elephants blow into the bag
to get a reading. They try to accelerate
sobriety with black coffee but it never works.

Drunken elephants, plastered pachyderms:
tired & emotional. They've had a few.
Loaded, trashed & tanked up, pie-eyed.
Brahms & Liszt, three sheets to the wind.

People just want to believe in drunken elephants.
said the scientist. The persistent myth
of drunken elephants remains
an open & tantalizing question,
a priority for future research.

Drunken elephants, coloured pink, I see you
through my rose-coloured glass of gin
which I raise, in a warm giddy toast
to all of we mythical, drunken elephants.



Quoted lines in italics from here:
https://www.savetheelephants.org/news/elephants-really-can-t-hold-their-liquor/


April 6: Beverage, libation, liquid