The venue is a large building shaped like a gazebo

Spaced steel bars for walls and roof

Everything inside visible

Outside, at each corner, men stand with long poles

Inside stands a man

Dressed for a Safari

Boots, a revolver, jodhpurs, a coiled whip, a pith helmet

A low steel door springs open

A noise as loud as a gunshot marks its unlatching

Then back behind canvas, another gunshot noise

We think another door has opened

A large powerful Bengal tiger enters from a tunnel

It looks at the man and licks its lips

Pacing in full cat stealth it moves towards the man

The man pops his whip with sonic cracks

He herds the cat toward a round pedestal

The cat knows its place and sits on it snarling

Another gunshot noise releases another tiger

That tiger too is herded and seated

The pair look like two giant chessmen 

On the devil's board

Three more empty pedestals are soon filled

The last tiger is over 700 pounds - the largest

He regards the 150 pound man

As the 150 pound man would regard a cheeseburger

The 150 pound man prances around the ring

Showing off his whip to each tiger who snarls  

Brandishing sharp teeth and claws 

As long as the man's fingers 

The strutting man pretends he is superior to animals

Only his whip impresses the cats

They hate its noise

They hate the discipline 

Provided by the men with the poles

That can provide a stunning electrical jolt

The audience applauds the domination 

Of these powerful animals

Stolen as babies from a murdered tigress

Intimidated to behave unnaturally as fools

Treated in inhumane ways

To serve their master's need of wealth and goods

No man with a whip would face a tiger in its own bailiwick - 

The jungles and swamps of India and Bangladesh

There the tiger is supreme

But as men remove the jungles and swamps

So they can increase their wealth and population

The tigers decrease

Soon to disappear

The last to be seen - on pedestals

Snarling at a man with a whip

2013

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