On exhibit at the Berlin Museum of Natural History is the dinosaur Giraffatitan brancai, which, like a giraffe, had a long upright neck and forelimbs longer than its hindlimbs. Notably, Giraffatitan is a specimen of colonialism, having been collected from the locality of Tendaguru in the colony of German East Africa (Tanzania today) between 1909 and 1912 and brought back to the German Empire’s capital.

Here in Berlin from Africa,

taken from Tendaguru’s hills!

Lofty among the atrium’s

glass and steelwork high overhead,

eye-socketed summit of bone—

The Giraffe Titan, astride Earth

once again! Do not strain your necks

as you gaze upward in awe, dwarfed

by Mesozoic proportions—

Depleting a continent green,

between this cavernous ribcage

and pelvis sat the source of its

insatiable appetite that

was fed by devouring its way

across Africa’s rife lushness

Strung along these gargantuan

bones were insensate muscles, their

violent contractions swinging

the limbs lumbering wantonly

to leafy troves snatched by its maw.

Next, note how the skull would look out

from this neck tall as a tree’s trunk,

the inhuman heights distancing

higher thoughts from the disasters

waged as each footfall would convulse

the earth, the trail of footprint scars.

Do grasp ladies and gentlemen,

that before you stands the terror

of its time, hunger incarnate

covered in scales, a creature who

by a glutton’s nature, would not

leave a single leaf on a twig

as whole forests suffered its teeth,

entire lakes flowing as rivers

guzzled down a sluice-long throat,

vast wilds fouled to wastes by sludge dung.

My good people, I implore you

to know that this scourge preyed upon

lands homing other animals,

availing itself of food

that would sustain them, untroubled

by whether then they might perish.

Woeful species that could not flee

Were left to the famines sprouting

from its presence, fields of ribs bleached

by the sun, with any challenge

extinguished by the immense weight

crushing bodies beneath four feet.

Be thankful that our Berlin Beast

is but a nightmare’s memory

bound to this defunct skeleton—

Please though take care to remember:

Evolution has a knack for

repetition, reinventing

wings among birds, bats, and beetles,

sleek fins among sharks and dolphins—

She’s likewise over the ages

rehashed her ravaging Titan,

finding a new form to harbor

its continent-gorging greed.

From Europe’s soil, her behemoth’s

avarice arose once again,

albeit in a much smaller

human’s stature. Staking feeding

grounds in Africa through charnel

colonies, this voracity

without end tries in vain to cram

itself full, stuffing its mouth with

diamonds and sapphires, rubbers sap,

gold and copper, clear-cut timber

medicinal herbs, ivory

and hides, animals bound for zoos,

fossils destined for museums,

plantation-grown cocoa and cane,

coffee, sisal, and palm’s red oil,

despoiled rivers and vistas, lands

fertile, grasses for cattle, men

yoked faceless for beast’s hard labor.

If you were to tremble at just

the mention of such crazed desire

not content until Africa

was consumed down to mere pebbles,

I could not blame you. However,

do know I tell you these horrors

alongside the bones showcased here,

so you can recognize as truth

that a rapacity apt for

a dinosaur can masquerade

as something human, giving you

no future reason to gawk, breath

stopped by a gasp betraying

an ignorance of our darkest

nature. Take this chance to acquaint

yourselves with this recurring bane

so to know when it walks the Earth

again, as we can but surely

wager that this monstrosity

will be reborn at a mere whiff

of wealth wafting from soil, luckless

lands left to fend off famished jaws.