The Elephant Man

The Elephant Man

In the dust‑laden halls of an old London asylum, Joseph Merrick walked a fragile, aching path, His skin a cragged map of pain, his eyes a calm calm, While some saw a beast, some saw a poet of the past.

The Dr. Frederick Treves, with steady, honest hand, Offered a weary laugh and a gentle, quiet hand, He said, “You are not a monster, son, nor a king, You are a soul—a wound, a mirror, and a spring.”

Not a bronze bull, but eyes bright as morning light, He taught us by his name, that we cannot see in fright, The crude, the cruel, the sulking of the side of mind, For there, we all are but people, normal or incline.

So in that glass of glass, a man lay, not alone, He looked at his own hands, and felt a heart’s tone, The Elephant Man, his story, now a taught lesson, To life, to love, to look beyond our own compassion.