Poetry (About Animals)

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birds,
mammals,
reptiles,
amphibians,
fish,
arthropods,
vertebrates,
invertebrates......

 

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Something to Believe In

Carl Phillips
My two hunting dogs have names, but I rarely use them. As
I go, they go: I lead; they follow, the blue-eyed one first, then
the one whose coloring—her coat, not her eyes—I sometimes
call never-again-o-never-this-way-henceforth. Hope, ambition:
these are not their names, though the way they run might suggest
otherwise. Like steam off night-soaked wooden fencing when
the sun first hits it, they rise each morning at my command. Late
in the Iliad, Priam the king of Troy predicts his own murder—
correctly, except it won’t be by spear, as he imagines, but by
sword thrust. He can see his corpse, sees the dogs he’s fed and
trained so patiently pulling the corpse apart. After that, he says,
When they’re full, they’ll lie in the doorway, they’ll lap my blood.
I say: Why shouldn’t they? Everywhere, the same people who
mistake obedience for loyalty think somehow loyalty weighs more
than hunger, when it doesn’t. At night, when it’s time for bed,
we sleep together, the three of us: muscled animal, muscled animal,
muscled animal. The dogs settle to either side of me as if each
were the slightly folded wing of a beast from fable, part power, part
recognition. We breathe in a loose kind of unison. Our breathing
ripples the way oblivion does—routinely, across history’s face.

 

[Wolfnox]

I am one with land.
The sky is my friend. The moon my guide.
I wonder in shadow. Fearless knowing my own paths.
Cautious,careful scenting for danger and prey.
The wind gently swishes my fur.
The moonlight glints of my gold eyes. I am the wolf.

 

[Pats]

The buffalo is shaggy.
His tail not very waggy.
Birds ride on his back
His food never lacks.
Get in his way, he will bag ye.


I didn't know any so I made up my own.

 

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[Crossbreed]

I wrote this alliterative poem for my kids when they were little. (I was hoping to do one for each letter of the alphabet, but this is as far as I got.)

Bubbles Baboon
Was in a balloon,
Blowing her bagpipes
By a blue moon.

With bright red beret,
She'd belt out a tune,
That nobody knew,
But Bubbles Baboon.

 

[Pats]

I wrote this alliterative poem for my kids when they were little. (I was hoping to do one for each letter of the alphabet, but this is as far as I got.)

Bubbles Baboon
Was in a balloon,
Blowing her bagpipes
By a blue moon.

With bright red beret,
She'd belt out a tune,
That nobody knew,
But Bubbles Baboon.

I love that.
I did make up an animal song that I would sing to the grandkids while rocking them to sleep.

 

[Crossbreed]

For the OP,

Fuzzy Wuzzy
Was a bear.
Fuzzy Wuzzy
Had no hair.

Fuzzy Wuzzy
Wasn't fuzzy,
Was he?
-unknown

 

[Crossbreed]

A Flea And A Fly In A Flue - Poem by Ogden Nash
A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly, "let us flee!"
"Let us fly!" said the flea.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

Ogden Nash

 

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The Yak
By Hilaire Belloc
As a friend to the children commend me the Yak.
You will find it exactly the thing:
It will carry and fetch, you can ride on its back,
Or lead it about with a string.

The Tartar who dwells on the plains of Thibet
(A desolate region of snow)
Has for centuries made it a nursery pet,
And surely the Tartar should know!

Then tell your papa where the Yak can be got,
And if he is awfully rich
He will buy you the creature—or else he will not.
(I cannot be positive which.)

 

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[puzzlingbill]

A Flea And A Fly In A Flue - Poem by Ogden Nash
A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly, "let us flee!"
"Let us fly!" said the flea.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

Ogden Nash

I believe it was Nash who wrote what is supposed to be the shortest poem ever:

Fleas
Adam
Had'em

 

[blue_bird]

Ode to Chloe - A poem I wrote for my very shy, sensitive budgie.

You’re always caged,
But never enraged,
Always shy,
Too tentative to fly.
You prefer to be alone,
And are always at home,
Nobody is let near,
For your safety you fear.
Too sensitive to survive,
Too innocent to strive,
From the others you hide,
And never sit by their side.
From a distance you live,
From a distance you give.
I wonder if you too want to know,
What it feels like to belong?
And what it's like to be of one mind,
With others of your kind?
I also wonder if you,
Were given to me for a reason?
And if you could have survived,
With anyone else for more than a season?
To them you may just be a quiet, little bird,
One hardly seen of or heard.
But to me, you’re a ‘somebody’,
And you do belong, to me.

 

[tree]

My Invisible Horse and the Speed of Human Decency


People always tell me, “Don’t put the cart
before the horse,” which is curious
because I don’t have a horse.
Is this some new advancement in public shaming—
repeatedly drawing one’s attention
to that which one is currently not, and never
has been, in possession of?
If ever, I happen to obtain a Clydesdale,
then I’ll align, absolutely, it to its proper position
in relation to the cart, but I can’t
do that because all I have is the cart.
One solitary cart—a little grief wagon that goes
precisely nowhere—along with, apparently, one
invisible horse, which does not pull,
does not haul, does not in any fashion
budge, impel or tow my disaster buggy
up the hill or down the road.
I’m not asking for much. A more tender world
with less hatred strutting the streets.
Perhaps a downtick in state-sanctioned violence
against civilians. Wind through the trees.
Water under the bridge. Kindness.
LOL, says the world. These things take time, says
the Office of Disappointment. Change cannot
be rushed, says the roundtable of my smartest friends.
Then, together, they say, The cart!
They say, The horse!
They say, Haven’t we told you already?
So my invisible horse remains
standing where it previously stood:
between hotdog stands and hallelujahs,
between the Nasdaq and the moon’s adumbral visage,
between the status quo and The Great Filter,
and I can see that it’s not his fault—being
invisible and not existing—
how he’s the product of both my imagination
and society’s failure of imagination.
Watch how I press my hand against his translucent flank.
How I hold two sugar cubes to his hypothetical mouth.
How I say I want to believe in him,
speaking softly into his missing ear.

--Matthew Olzmann

 

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[Crossbreed]

The only animal haiku that I know,

Haikus are easy,
But sometimes they don't make sense.
Hippopotamus.

 

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The Cow
by Robert Louis Stevenson

The friendly cow all red and white
I love with all my heart:
She gives me cream with all her might,
To eat with apple-tart.


She wanders lowing here and there,
And yet she cannot stray,
All in the pleasant open air,
The pleasant light of day;

And blown by all the winds that pass
And wet with all the showers,
She walks among the meadow grass
And eats the meadow flowers.

 

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