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Best Famous Zebra Poems

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NIGHT

 (published on BLINKING EYE, http://www.
blinking-eye.
co.
uk/writer/padel2.
html )



Then spoke the thunder, shattering the looming blackness of our national life.
 The rumble that breaks a spell of the dry season

 – Saro-Wiwa, "The Storm Breaks"



Does a zebra foal dream? Head lower, lower
under lenticular dark cloud,
he drags harlequin fetlocks, porcelain
quails' egg hooflets through pimpling dust,

slower, slower through the silver
rainbow night, this soot and fester
cellar-lighting, electricity of the blue
and evil eye.
 Night ringed with eyes,

gutter-glow of new-soused theatre,
hyena, leopard, caracal (that caramel cat
with ear tufts, anxious to feed her cubs)
watching the lame foal weakened by drought.


All you know is, that you don't know,
and are afraid.
 Moonshadow
where the big rocks laugh apart.

Predator-senses.
 Cilia.
 Heat detectors

crowd this long auditorium, segment
after segment of the midnight shuffle-plains.

They radar in on bodies, fluids, molecules
of flesh that do not know they glow, they draw.


Let's give him one dream-memory,
a zebra wish fulfilled in dazing plod,
some sheer green wall of sugarcane.

And look - he's made it through

into the bleach and blaze, rose curdling
over indigo and lard, this granult scar
of dawn.
 One more dawn nearer the water.

Sky blood-taggled, blood-tufted,

rushes over him like a white bowl
at the end of things, the little safe horizon
of a pilot's dial,
an inventory of therapeutic gems.

Written by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot |

Sweeney among the Nightingales

 APENECK SWEENEY spreads his knees
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
The zebra stripes along his jaw
Swelling to maculate giraffe.


The circles of the stormy moon
Slide westward toward the River Plate,
Death and the Raven drift above
And Sweeney guards the hornèd gate.


Gloomy Orion and the Dog
Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas;
The person in the Spanish cape
Tries to sit on Sweeney’s knees

Slips and pulls the table cloth
Overturns a coffee-cup,
Reorganised upon the floor
She yawns and draws a stocking up;

The silent man in mocha brown
Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes;
The waiter brings in oranges
Bananas figs and hothouse grapes;

The silent vertebrate in brown
Contracts and concentrates, withdraws;
Rachel née Rabinovitch
Tears at the grapes with murderous paws;

She and the lady in the cape
Are suspect, thought to be in league;
Therefore the man with heavy eyes
Declines the gambit, shows fatigue,

Leaves the room and reappears
Outside the window, leaning in,
Branches of wistaria
Circumscribe a golden grin;

The host with someone indistinct
Converses at the door apart,
The nightingales are singing near
The Convent of the Sacred Heart,

And sang within the bloody wood
When Agamemnon cried aloud,
And let their liquid siftings fall
To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.

Written by Mary Darby Robinson |

Mistress Gurtons Cat

 Old MISTRESS GURTON had a Cat,
A Tabby, loveliest of the race,
Sleek as a doe, and tame, and fat
With velvet paws, and whisker'd face;
The Doves of VENUS not so fair,
Nor JUNO'S Peacocks half so grand
As MISTRESS GURTON'S Tabby rare,
The proudest of the purring band;
So dignified in all her paces--
She seem'd, a pupil of the Graces!
There never was a finer creature
In all the varying whims of Nature!

All liked Grimalkin, passing well!
Save MISTRESS GURTON, and, 'tis said,
She oft with furious ire would swell,
When, through neglect or hunger keen,
Puss, with a pilfer'd scrap, was seen,
Swearing beneath the pent-house shed:
For, like some fav'rites, she was bent
On all things, yet with none content;
And still, whate'er her place or diet,
She could not pick her bone, in quiet.


Sometimes, new milk GRIMALKIN stole,
And sometimes--over-set the bowl!
For over eagerness will prove,
Oft times the bane of what we love;
And sometimes, to her neighbour's home,
GRIMALKIN, like a thief would roam,
Teaching poor Cats, of humbler kind,
For high example sways the mind!
Sometimes she paced the garden wall,

Thick guarded by the shatter'd pane,
And lightly treading with disdain,
Fear'd not Ambition's certain fall!
Old China broke, or scratch'd her Dame
And brought domestic friends to shame!
And many a time this Cat was curst,
Of squalling, thieving things, the worst!
Wish'd Dead ! and menanc'd with a string,
For Cats of such scant Fame, deserv'd to swing!

One day, report, for ever busy,
Resolv'd to make Dame Gurton easy;
A Neighbour came, with solemn look,
And thus, the dismal tidings broke.

"Know you, that poor GRIMALKIN died
"Last night, upon the pent-house side?
"I heard her for assistance call;
"I heard her shrill and dying squall!
"I heard her, in reproachful tone,
"Pour, to the stars, her feeble groan!

"Alone, I heard her piercing cries--
"With not a Friend to close her Eyes!"
"Poor Puss ! I vow it grieves me sore,
"Never to see thy beauties more!
"Never again to hear thee purr,
"To stroke thy back, of Zebra fur;
"To see thy emral'd eyes--so bright,
"Flashing around their lust'rous light
"Amid the solemn shades of night!

"Methinks I see her pretty paws--
"As gracefully she paced along;
"I hear her voice, so shrill, among
"The chimney rows ! I see her claws,
"While, like a Tyger, she pursued
"Undauntedly the pilf'ring race;
"I see her lovely whisker'd face
"When she her nimble prey subdued!
"And then, how she would frisk, and play,
"And purr the Evening hours away:

"Now stretch'd beside the social fire;
"Now on the sunny lawn, at noon,
"Watching the vagrant Birds that flew,
"Across the scene of varied hue,
"To peck the Fruit.
 Or when the Moon
"Stole o'er the hills, in silv'ry suit,
"How would she chaunt her lovelorn Tale
"Soft as the wild Eolian Lyre!
"'Till ev'ry brute, on hill, in dale,
"Listen'd with wonder mute!"

"O! Cease!" exclaim'd DAME GURTON, straight,
"Has my poor Puss been torn away?
"Alas ! how cruel is my fate,
"How shall I pass the tedious day?
"Where can her mourning mistress find
"So sweet a Cat? so meek! so kind!
"So keen a mouser, such a beauty,
"So orderly, so fond, so true,
"That every gentle task of duty
"The dear, domestic creature knew!
"Hers, was the mildest tend'rest heart!
"She knew no little cattish art;
"Not cross, like fav'rite Cats , was she
"But seem'd the queen of Cats to be!
"I cannot live--since doom'd, alas ! to part
"From poor GRIMALKIN kind, the darling of my heart!"

And now DAME GURTON, bath'd in tears,
With a black top-knot vast, appears:
Some say that a black gown she wore,
As many oft have done before,
For Beings, valued less, I ween,
Than this, of Tabby Cats, the fav'rite Queen!
But lo ! soon after, one fair day,
Puss, who had only been a roving--
Across the pent-house took her way,
To see her Dame, so sad, and loving;
Eager to greet the mourning fair
She enter'd by a window, where
A China bowl of luscious cream
Was quiv'ring in the sunny beam.


Puss, who was somewhat tired and dry,
And somewhat fond of bev'rage sweet;
Beholding such a tempting treat,
Resolved its depth to try.

She saw the warm and dazzling ray
Upon the spotless surface play:
She purr'd around its circle wide,
And gazed, and long'd, and mew'd and sigh'd!
But Fate, unfriendly, did that hour controul,
She overset the cream, and smash'd the gilded bowl!

As MISTRESS GURTON heard the thief,
She started from her easy chair,
And, quite unmindful of her grief,
Began aloud to swear!
"Curse that voracious beast!" she cried,
"Here SUSAN bring a cord--
I'll hang the vicious, ugly creature--
"The veriest plague e'er form'd by nature!"
And MISTRESS GURTON kept her word--
And Poor GRIMALKIN--DIED !

Thus, often, we with anguish sore
The dead , in clam'rous grief deplore;
Who, were they once alive again
Would meet the sting of cold disdain!
For FRIENDS, whom trifling faults can sever,
Are valued most , WHEN LOST FOR EVER!

Written by James Lee Jobe |

Richard

 It's mid-winter and the sunrise knows it, and wakes me 

with a shudder; I'm just a man.
 


For 5 cold mornings in a row, the beautiful pheasant 

has come to our patio to steal some of the dry catfood, 

sometimes right in front of my cat.



The house is still, and I enjoy the Sunday newspaper 

with strong, dark coffee; the smell of it dances 

around in the early darkness.



Driving to church there is bright, eager sunshine, 

and the shadows of bare winter oaks stripe the lane 

like a zebra; shadow, light, shadow.



At church I pray for my favorite aunt, Anna, her clock 

seems to be quickly winding down, dear lady, widow 

of my favorite uncle, Richard; mostly I just pray 

that she finds her center.



The pheasant is a male, strikingly colored, 

so beautiful, in fact, that I've begun to scatter extra catfood 

to draw him back; we have become his grocery store.



I tell my wife that if he comes a 6th day, I'll give him a name, 

Richard; but he never comes again.

Written by Edward Lear |

Z was a zebra

was a zebra,
All striped white and black;
And if he were tame,
You might ride on his back.

Pretty striped Zebra!

Written by Robert Browning |

Through The Metodja To Abd-El-Kadr

 1842

I

As I ride, as I ride,
With a full heart for my guide,
So its tide rocks my side,
As I ride, as I ride,
That, as I were double-eyed,
He, in whom our Tribes confide,
Is descried, ways untried
As I ride, as I ride.


II

As I ride, as I ride
To our Chief and his Allied,
Who dares chide my heart's pride
As I ride, as I ride?
Or are witnesses denied— 
Through the desert waste and wide
Do I glide unespied
As I ride, as I ride?

III

As I ride, as I ride,
When an inner voice has cried,
The sands slide, nor abide
(As I ride, as I ride)
O'er each visioned Homicide
That came vaunting (has he lied?)
To reside—where he died,
As I ride, as I ride.


IV

As I ride, as I ride,
Ne'er has spur my swift horse plied,
Yet his hide, streaked and pied,
As I ride, as I ride,
Shows where sweat has sprung and dried,
—Zebra-footed, ostrich-thighed— 
How has vied stride with stride
As I ride, as I ride!

V

As I ride, as I ride,
Could I loose what Fate has tied,
Ere I pried, she should hide
As I ride, as I ride,
All that's meant me: satisfied
When the Prophet and the Bride
Stop veins I'd have subside
As I ride, as I ride!