White Elephant

The white hunter sits on his porch with his elephant gun and his tears, ready to shoot for free anyone who dares to come around. A protester kneels on the neck of a statue; the statue whispers, “I can’t breathe,” and the protester replies, “Now you know how it feels,” before kicking it into the sea. I am a Botticelli Venus with a penis, riding a giant scalloped fan, a woman of sea foam rising from the spray, coming to do you harm with a gun in my pants full of elephant tears and a seahorse on each arm. My elephant gun of tears will shoot you all for free if you ever think of coming near; I’ll shoot you in the fucking face if you even dream of it. I am an ice sculpture melting in the sun, an ice sculpture holding an elephant gun, an ice sculpture made of elephant-sized tears raining gas and salt upon your heads while the president calls in the Feds. I’ve been planning this for years: to shoot you in the fucking face, to shoot you just for fun. I am a statue lying on its side in the sun, with the memory of an elephant evaporating before your eyes, becoming a vast grey cloud of wrath roaring salt upon the earth. I’ll shoot you all for free if you so much as look at me. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, del álbum Carnage*, 2021