The Hyena is renowned for its cackle--
Not so of bats, birds, snakes, whales or jackals.
So, why such an intense sense of humor?
Perhaps, it's just a human-lampooner.
Hyena [Lyric Poem]
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Category Archives: poem
African Tulip [Haiku]
dense bloom clusters
of one week are a carpet
on the ground the next.
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Baboon [Lyric Poem]
I would never wish to impugn
That noble creature, the baboon.
Some say mean things about their fangs,
But about their gnarly butts-- DAAANG!
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Ostrich [Lyric Poem]
For the Ostrich, I feel quite bad:
The bird's great gift, it never had.
But, a flighted one, I don't wish to see;
I'd hate to have a falling one land on me.
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“Shiloh: A Requiem” by Herman Melville [w/ Audio]
Skimming lightly, wheeling still,
The swallows fly low
Over the field in clouded days,
The forest-field of Shiloh--
Over the field where April rain
Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain
Through the pause of night
That followed the Sunday fight
Around the church of Shiloh--
The church so lone, the log-built one,
That echoed to many a parting groan
And natural prayer
Of dying foemen mingled there--
Foemen at morn, but friends at eve--
Fame or country least their care:
(What like a bullet can undeceive!)
But now they lie low,
While over them the swallows skim,
And all is hushed in Shiloh.
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Late to the Hunt [Senryū]
tardy deer hunter
finds a deer grazing beside
his hunter's stand.
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Bear [Lyric Poem]
Walking down a trail, I had quite a scare --
For walking straight towards me was a big ole bear.
It glanced at me, and then down at its feet,
Then that speciesist bear had the nerve to cross the street.
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“Beginners” by Walt Whitman [w/ Audio]
How they are provided for upon the earth,
(appearing at intervals;)
How dear and dreadful they are to the earth;
How they inure to themselves as much as to
any -- What a paradox appears their age;
How people respond to them, yet know them not;
How there is something relentless in their fate,
all times;
How all times mischoose the objects of their
adulation and reward,
And how the same inexorable price must still
be paid for the same great purchase.
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Macaque [Lyric Poem]
I feared a big macaque attack
As I walked by, turning my back.
Though its expression seemed ill-meaning,
I turned to see it was still preening.
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“Silk-Washing Stream” by Su Shi [w/ Audio]
Stream-washed leaves are glistening.
Someone is boiling cocoons.
Workers gossip, I'm listening.
Dim-eyed man with a cane spoons
Food into a bowl, bending
To pass it before I swoon.
I ask when the bean leaves yellow.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 