Best Marmoset Poems
Marmoset directs traffic better than monkeys or sloths.
He stands in the highway and walks his feet off.
We have hired other species. but they do not hold a candle.
To Marmoset who can do it at every single damned angle.
He is demanding a raise, sixteen more meals a week.
For he has plenty of mouths to feed, and his offspring squeak.
It behooves us to give them to him, and I will tell you why.
If he trains all his children, we have a replacement if he doth die.
The way he stands in the middle of the highway each day.
Is the absolute craziest mess, and I doubt that marmosets pray.
So let's cough up those extra meals, while he is still alive
Before he demands a ridiculous amount like thirty or forty five.
Grandma's Pets
My granda went away to sea
For many months on end
He'd travel on a fishing boat
With his brother and a friend
He used to write home regularly
And tell some quite tall tales
About being in a far-away place
When he was actually in Wales
Once they actually went to Africa
He wrote he was bringing Gran a pet
When he came home with a small cage
He'd brought her a marmoset
He opened up the cage
And up the curtains it did run
The curtains tore, granda laughed,
Grandma didn't think it fun
She said it had to go
So to the pet shop Granda went
He returned without the Monkey
And to ‘Coventry’ he was sent
Granda apologised and said
that he would compensate
Next day he bought Gran Tip,a cat
Bimbo, the budgie, feared its fate
He'd run up and down his ladder
And his cuttlefish he would gnaw
He took one look at Tip and thought
'I've not seen you before'
One day he pecked his bell so hard
The clapper fell out onto the floor
No matter how much he pecked it
That bell would ring no more
Bimbo, I’d known since a little girl
He lived to a good age
I still remember that fateful day
I found him lifeless in his cage
Tip lived till he was seven
Many kittens he would father
Mrs Thomas would bang on the door
And get in a right lather
“Your Tip's been paying visits
To my precious tabby Pip.
If you don't keep him in
I'll see to it he has ‘the snip'”
After Tip came Ruff the dog
A cairn terrier with his papers
We would laugh so many times
At his little doggie capers
There were two unbuttered teacakes
Sitting on a plate
Mum went to fetch the butter
She came back to an empty plate
Ruff was looking sheepish
Crumbs all around his chin
The cute expression on his furry face
I could swear it was a grin
We lost Ruff when he was eight
Poison in his canned dog food
If that had happened now
The manufacturer we'd have sued
Grandma put her foot down
And told Granda “No more pets”
She missed them all
Well most of them
But not the marmoset
It’s all about my home
Home, sweet home,
Home of my ancestors
Land of the hills and valleys of happiness
It’s all about Bamumbu, the land of the famous gorillas
It’s all about my roots, the origin of my quest for knowledge and wisdom
It’s all about Bamumbu, the mountain surrounded and beautiful loam
It’s all about my fatherland, land of the yet to become great
It’s all about Bamumbu; the African unique habitat of the marmoset
Its all about my native land, specially favored by the Lord
It’s all about Bamumbu; land of abundant food.
It’s all about my homeland, land of peace lovers
It’s all about the land of the most brave century hunters
It’s all about Bamumbu; land of the most protective and solid rocks
It’s all about my home; abode for the defenseless
It’s all about Bamumbu; though forgotten, the mother of tomorrow leaders
I dream of small mottled rabbits
Sleeping in silver caves under snowy river banks;
I step stone by slippery stone
Across the clear ice-flecked water,
Shall I waken?
Dreaming of marmoset and beaver,
Dreaming Native dreams
Of small, bright-eyes,
Scurrying or cruel but always Bright. . .
A vulture boarded
A jumbo jet
Carrying two dead
Marmoset
The stewardess said
"I'm sorry sir,
Only one carrion
Per passenger"
Monkeys make the world go round
The world go round, the world go round
Monkeys make the world go round
They make the world go round.
Vervet, howler, capuchin
Marmoset or tamarin
Their ooking and their screaming sound
Can make the world go round.
Monkey-monkey-monkey-monkey
Monkey-monkey-monkey
Monkey-monkey-monkey-monkey
Monkey-monkey-monkey.
I know I should not whine or frivolously fret,
but I believe I have lost my pet marmoset.
I have also lost a blue barrette, a red tea set,
and a beautifully carved purple aigrette.
They all went down in the drain,
putting me in a particularly uncomfortable cold sweat.
I did not mind losing Jeanette,
a snake who was never an exceptionally kind or loving pet,
I am sad about losing my baby’s bassinet
and a tiny edge of my bathroom’s finest moquette.
They both fell down the storm drain,
when I paused to look at my rapidly disappearing tea set
Way down deep in the bowels of the sewer,
and I am especially sad to lose my pet marmoset.
Here comes another person.
She has lost a briquette, diskette,
and a sliver of yellow georgette.
Written 2-28-2019
Contest: Down a Storm Drain Gone Forever
Sponsor: Eve Roper
My neighbor has a marmoset
a most unusual urban pet
His monkey has a silken coat
and a non-prehensile tail
Which helped my neighbor not at all
~ when off he went to jail
The summer fog has not yet lifted from the enclave. The candyfloss glow of the sun suspended above the horizon of the valley in the Jock of the Bushveld Concervancy where I have made my new home reflects on the ghostly blue of the dam in front of my house.
early morning
dense fog blanket--
burn off reveals
One of the nesting pair of fish eagles does a low flyby. The distinctive call of the fish eagle is synonymous with Africa, pulling on my heartstrings like no music can. A primordial longing fills my very soul. Banished to purgatory for the best part of my life, this paradise is my just reward in my autumnal years.
young fish eagle—
shadows cast by papyrus
teem with silver carp
An African Jacana teeters with its long toes on the emerald green leaves of the pink water lily flower. It pecks delicately at something at the edge of the flower, before taking flight; long legs dangling behind it like superfluous appendages—its sharp, ringing tone cleaving the morning silence.
a black mamba
slithers off the jetty—
tropical winter
I am not alone; a blouapie (marmoset) with his distinctive cobalt blue and crimson genitals surveys my progress along the path to the jetty. Damp, golden leaves carpet the pathway, the pungent smell assailing my olfactory receptors, alerting me to the many unknown vegetation growing in abundance on the embankment—names of which I need to learn and applications I need to discover.
long winter of
dormant passions—
spring stirs in loins
Give me back my pie little monkey said the ape man.
I wish I could said the pygmy marmoset, waving a fan.
You can! Said the ape man. And I want it done now.
You don’t have to have a fit, said marmoset. Don’t have a cow!
But it is my pie, I baked it this morning the ape man said.
It is full of juicy cherries, all sweetened and red.
If you don’t give it back, I shall beat you on the head.
Marmoset stuck out his tongue and ran off with it instead.
Oscar was from Argentina,
Buenos Aires city:
his “go to” word was “lindo, lindo”:
Spanish word for ‘pretty’.
‘Lindo’ if you use big words,
‘lindo’ if you cuss:
´lindo’ is the garden gate,
‘lindo’ is the bus.
Oscar went to buy a pet,
to keep him company:
he walked into the poodle shop –
“how much for a bee?”
“One moment please. We don’t sell bees.”
The clerk heard Oscar speaking.
Perhaps his English needs some help
to get the pet he’s seeking.
“Chihuahuas, dachshunds, corgis too:
simply place an order:
we’ll get a husky, if you want:
we’ve friends across the border.”
But Oscar didn’t take the bait.
He didn’t want a puppy,
or marmoset or guinea-pig,
or parakeet or guppy.
“I’ve seen the bee that’s just for me:
he’s lindo, lindo, lindo:
here’s my money – get it done –
he’s right there, in the window!”
BEHOLD!!! I am!!
Silence.
The vocal minority grip at our sensibilities
and demand our attention outwards.
Monkeys, our smaller cousins that, though looking alike,
are alien in their outlook.
The apes are few and far between,
great spectacles of nature insultingly compared
to that of a simple marmoset.
Doth thou see a leviathan in a shrimp?
For this is the absurdity of equals.
A king sits on the throne, he is reading.
His loyal subjects surround him and his strange binding of sheets.
How dare the king pay more love to this ink and parchment
than the struggles of his land?
The crown is heavy as he looks around,
why do they see him as wrong?
The words of the page grow his mind,
and a new man is born in every sentence.
Is the bird selfish for flying merely because the fish cannot?
Is gold stubborn for not allowing silver to meet its value?
To think as such is to not think at all.
Unfortunately in this sandbox of us
we cannot all be diamonds, yet we can hide in the glass.
The big shards have cut too deep and stained us all.
Now value and harm are interchangeable.
I am better.
I am more.
I am sorry.
The issue isn’t you, it’s not your fault.
A treatment is needed, I could have some fun.
I’m sorry you became this, a product of a failed societal cult.
You deserve the cleansing power of the sun.
Your suffering is ending, hallowed be thy name.
The world will be reborn, a phoenix made by my flame.