DING DONG
BONG...
ONE FOR YOU BOYO !
Young elephant seals are having a go
advanced machismo
on the shores of the South Shetland Islands.
Their causeways gauge the beach
shingle and sand ridged and pushed aside
tank tracks of blubber sacks
a pile of huge brown slugs
pululating, fat wobbly belliglugs
peristalting up the shore
playing little boy games of push
me over if you can !
Raise chin, a wrestler's chest
high on great flippers,
swing side to side, judge your time
then thump him.
Who's a big boy then ?
They’re at it weeks at a time
getting bigger all the while
an elephantine adolescence.
Small fry dodge and weave,
equals fight it out, sharp teeth
scraping blubber padded flanks,
blood stains on the sand.
Behind the noise and flurry
girt mountain of a beast,
a stranded not-quite whale.
Nobody answers his roaring challenges
shovelling around, flattening the sand.
Future beachmaster,
sumo seal, clumsy dump truck
of the ocean shore,
Rolling Thunder
Champion of the ring.