Best Cassowary Poems
I saw a big bird today at a local zoo.
Its habitat is akin to that of a kangaroo.
It was glaring at all as if to say,
"Okay! I saw all, now go away!"
Its digits can agonizingly kick,
As if hit by a ton of brick!
It is not a darling bird at all,
And I cannot stand its blaring call!
I know nothing of its ornithological stock.
I do know it's too big to fry in an Asian wok!
I was at a loss as I stood stroking jaw.
Was it an ostrich or a cassowary that I saw?
I can't think of anything worthy for that bird to say,
So I shall lay down ballpoint and call it a day!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
(© All Rights Reserved)
First Place In Nikko Palmario's "Without U & ME" Contest' - July 2010
PS: This was a contest where the use of the letters E, M & U was prohibited.
The bird I spoke of was the EMU!
My bill you can't forget
My feet always wet
Hodge-podge of many likes
Walker of many sikes
My stork or cassowary-like body
My wide wings flapping steady
Legs trekking from Sudan to Zambia
My feet spanning like a tortilla
I can play hide and seek
I'm soft-spoken and meek
Chasing my prey with my bill digger
Coughing like a jack hammer
Three decades I can survive
Sounds I can create to jive
Please be careful with my heart
Yours I don't want to break apart
I only look like a shoe
Bigger than a shrew...
A bird!
I am at my very beginning old shelter,
Yet I feel very lonely,
Is it something which missed my heart?
Churn'd my smooth heart.
I am like a cassowary bird
Chunk'd from flying.
I lay down on my cot with closed eyes,
Yet a pair of twinkling eyes never leave me,
Is it something which missed my heart?
Oh I yearn for you.
A home to my heart is far away
As if vanished in the deep blue sea.
I tried to sit and write,
Yet a speed calligraphic hand crossed my mind,
Is it something which missed my heart?
I knew my future lays await.
Someone who is waiting for my homecoming
Whose in his heart is my home.
There are many beautiful parks in the world
Each is a wonder to behold
Selous game reserve is special for me
Because not only of a number of bird species one can see
Not only the wild dogs, hippos, and crocodiles to see
But rare giant African cat there might be
Not far from there mngwa did they see
And this demonic cat there still might be
Queensland Australia cassowary lives there
And many national parks this area share
Salto the Angel in South America is place to see
In Canaima National Park it dazzles with majesty
There are many regions of mesmerizing beauty
Being from Poland Park of Table Mountains is amazing to me
But one park has something that one normally can’t’ see
But once one opens one’s mind expression of the soul there will be
Arches in the arches Park in U.S.
It is the park that I bless
One normally sees same thing inside the arch
As it is outside the arch
But to me
This arch is symbol of being free
Ones in right frequency the mind will be
Deep inside the soul through the arch window one can see
The rare equation of the mind
And without it we are blind
And once humanity this equation will see
It will be able to fulfill its destiny
World War 3
And now as the generation that remembers how bloody
a world war is, and how many millions suffered and died,
is forgotten a distant past and again the black winged
Bird of war is flapping its wings.
I will go to Papua New Guinea, buy a big piece of forest
and plant more trees when needed, I will keep pigs that
soon will be wild and invite people to kill them with a bow
and arrow. I pig head on the wall and a trophy wife in
the bed, idiots will pay a lot for that.
By preserving the forest, I will help save the world from
carbon emission, if it is not too late and the world cannot be
saved from the colossus NATO and those with no memory
who get excited by demagogues and are ready to make
the wrong decision and eradicate them.
I will also keep cassowary as pets, but not indoors as they
do crap a lot, and like to sleep in your bed.
I will sit here and wait till radio signals are silent and I know
War is over, and the world far away is a smoking ruin
Incinerated bibliotheca, obliterated literature and we shall
not know about our short but illustrious time on earth.
HARRY WEST
The Kadaitchi (Witch Doctor) Knight
Harry stood alone and sniffed the breeze
a pongy hay smell, Japanese
Harry sheltered there beneath a tree
a gum tree dripping sap
The Black Knight shed his lap lap
joined the natives from Rabaul
he took the weight from one sore back
when a native carrier fell
Samurai sadist with a sword
shouted at this poor man
The carriers head then went forward
Blood rushed out oer the sand
It was Kokoda 1942 our Harry West had seen,
the timeless trackless mountains all made of jungle green,
yellow peril so sadistic take a life with casual ease,
slaughter in a jungle where Aussies fought with Japanese
At nightfall all lay down their load
And drifted off to sleep
But Harry slyly watched the toad
Then upon the Jap did creep
The blunt pocket knife did cut
The yellow perils throat
The carriers then were free, but
No time to stay and gloat
Harry went back and got
sugar bag full of grenades
machine gun pit blown, the dead to rot
Harry reigned on their parade
You couldn’t follow Harry
He’d learned his craft too well
Cassowary moccasins would carry
Harry left no track or smell.
Japanese thought he was evil, when
He didn’t give em any chance
Just threw grenades amongst them
To watch em scream and dance…..Don Johnson
Harry’s best friend had died fighting and Harry swore revenge and went native
behind the Japanese lines, naked he carried a few hand grenades in a sugar bag.
The Japanese thought a black demon was stalking them in these green mountains,
On the Kokoda trail. Harry West an Australian Aboriginal Soldier from Goodooga got the
Military Medal, he should have got the Victoria Cross he earned it.
if i could
be a bird
i'd be
a cassowary
without
worries
that i
can't
fly
what are
these things
called wings
We begin the zoom call
I only look at myself
Most of me is taken up
With the bedroom window
I imagine a large
Serpentine creature
Of folklore at the window
That only I can see
I imagine a cassowary
At the window next
Then some boiled nudes
A Texas blind salamander
Without the moon
There would be no nighttime
There are some the size
Of washing machines
A friend sends me a message
He doesn't believe in spacewalks
He believes in three days at the gym
Followed by loud reading
Gushing garish grin greets God’s playhouse
Enthusiastic thrust roars cacophony chorus
Onyx walls leer clown mouth, splash pounce
Mountain morose bellows waterfall raucous
Forceful pools swirl, gentle raptor glide
Cyclonic claws tug a dunked daredevil
Pop up toast, poured tea tropical slide
Drop dagger deluge, strange fish swivel
Trapped in green marble pummel frigid
Tap of gurgling bubbles bores odsidian
Eye to eye with cruel cassowary, my inquiry
Why chase your young away, are you afraid?
Aghast grips his cobalt throat, furnace fiery
Answer slips from stone, thrown to cascade
4th July
Forceful Judge
I want to cry away my soul
Slowly and painful
I want to feel every drop
When it's touching the floor
I want each tear that drops
to be every minute till moment ago
I want it to be slow and long
I want it to be painful so my mind will finally shut off
I want to feel the pain
Only to be able to feel again
I want a silence in my head
And sleep inside a pond of tears
I want to spit any rotten part inside
And watch it wash away like day after night
I want to take out any foggy part
till I won’t feel a fear like a child trying to sleep under the darkest sky
And what kind of dreams I am going to have
When I’m washed away from pain
Would I finally be able to breathe
Would I be able to finish a knit
Would I find the same feeling
even when the sun rising
Would I be able to run away
And not just close my eyes and fool myself
would I be able to fly and fight a cassowary pretend to be a butterfly
I want to cry away my thought
Fast and soft
I want to forget every drop
When it’s touching the floor
I want etch tear that drop
To be a millisecond of thought
I want it to be fast and short
I want it to be soft as snow
So my brain will freeze off any other nick of thought
I want to feel the relief
Only to remember how it used to feel
I want silence in my head
I want a wind of a mountain
And the mountain is my brain
I want to spit any lava that was kept inside
Watch it fall and get dry
I want to take away any monsoon cloud
Till there's no other shade of blue and white
And I know all I can cry is words
But why I can't erase the ones who been written all along