Best Pachyderms Poems
The elephants were feeling down
As pachyderms oft do.
The cockatiels were quite depressed
The chimpanzees were too.
The mood among the jungle crowd
Was in short quite low,
When a young Hyena yelled,
“I’ve got guys, I know!”
We should throw a dinner Party
To stop us feeling dismal,
But please don’t ask the vultures round
Their manners are abysmal.
“Splendid!” called the warthog,
Very much excited,
“How will we let the others know
That they’ve been invited?”
“Easy!” cried a young gazelle,
Getting rather heated.
“Tell the parrot who should come,
He’ll find them and repeat it.”
“What shall we eat?” exclaimed giraffe,
“I tell you, that’s the question.
‘Cos if I have the tigers grub
Then I’ll get indigestion!”
“Who’s invited needs more thought.”
The wildebeest all said.
If we ask the lions round
They’ll eat us up instead.”
“What ssshall I wear I asssk you all?”
They heard a grass snake cry.
“The monkeysss might all fit in ssssuits,
But how on earth will I?”
“We’ll never find the table cloth.”
“And who will do the dishes?”
“We’re running short of cutlery.”
“Where will we sit the fishes?”
They argued on all through the night,
But came to no conclusion,
And in the end forgot their plans
Amidst all their confusion.
If I were an elephant, I'd lumber around
Gracefully plodding on my stomping ground
If I were an elephant, I'd flap my ears
High above the savannah with no equals or peers
If I were an elephant, I'd cover myself in mud
I'd clash with other bulls, especially during rut
If I were an elephant, I'd cause a great stampede
Crushing all the poachers before they could succeed
If I were an elephant, I'd collapse all circus tents
And I'd save all pachyderms from being in such events
I wouldn't be arrogant, but elegant and eloquent
I wouldn't be petulant, but prevalently excellent
I wouldn't be negligent or hesitant or feculent
I'd be so affectionate and have an even temperament
I'd be the most eminent in my thought development
I'd never be a detriment to a human settlement
I would be the most intelligent and it would be self-evident
To the peasant and the president if I were an elephant
12-5-2016
Living in the wilds of Africa,
with my Mom and aunties by my side,
following the herd to the watering hole,
as we looked out for the lion pride,
We got our fill of water,
and played and squirt our enormous selfs,
cooling off from the hot African sun,
that was beating down on us twelve,
Then we got some dust in our trunks,
and blew it all over our backs,
as a precaution for our skin,
for less sunburning and less cracks,
We proceeded to go to a grassy spot,
where we started to munch and eat,
when I heard shots rang out,
and my herd family's assassination was complete,
I stood behind some bushes,
so the poachers could not see me,
as they hacked off my families ivory tusks,
so they could be sold eventually,
Then the poachers took off in their large truck,
and I slowly came out of the bushes to look for Mom,
finding her I began to weep like a baby,
the tears for the next couple of days like a soothing balm,
Being a baby elephant I started feeling weak,
thats when a nice human being brought me something to eat,
loading me up on his large African Wildlife Foundation truck,
he drove me to an elephant conservation area where I'd be protected
and grow up.
12-7-16
Addendum: These beautiful intelligent pachyderms are almost extinct because of poaching.
From the Elephant's diary
You find me giantly like Gulliver, huge and obese
but I met my doc, he said take it with ease....
for you big is more beautiful so eat more cheese
I am on my diet of sugarcane juice,
lush green grass n' tons of bamboos
Mammoth was my forefather not anymore seen
Now I know being gigantic is in my genes
Instructor at the gym shooed me away
for I broke his treadmill with my single step I say
We love to have our bath in nature's pool
We dabble water with our trunk till we are all cool
A relaxing shower for all friends after hectic schedule!
In our forest club, trophy for best music band,
we won last week for our trumpet troupe!
Large is our family my Jumbo uncle says,
Old and wise he is in our tuskers' herd
He says our eyes are small, to see
only little good left in this big bad world
And our ears are large to fan away
the gossips and bad we hear
Thick skin we do have so called pachyderms
to shrug off the hurling vices of the woods
but we have a large heart to spread
loads of love to all species widespread
In history, we have a place reserved
for in wars and royal processions,
we were used as pride symbols he says
Revered animals we are since eons.....
In country called India, heritage animal we are
and even worshipped in religious places he says!
Huge boulders or logs ,mankind used us for transport
We even entertain them in zoos and circus
But he regrets that we are poached, killed by men
to pull out pair of our incisors called tusks
who polish to make precious ivory to earn bucks
So useful and harmless friends to humans we are
I asked my uncle why so cruel the men are?
He said men show their power
of being Nature's superior creature
we elephant folk are helpless giants
We can do nothing but to pray that
we be valued for our selfless services and
be saved from going extinct from this world!
©Copyright Anulaxmi Nayak,2015
For contest: Giant animals
Sponsored by: D.Nathan
Date: 2nd September 2015
The lush green forests
Mighty pachyderms lived in serenity
Now fields rich with grain
Where do we expect the elephant to go?
The lush green undergrowth
Beautiful leopard in harmony survived
Now black glass high rise stands
Where do we expect the leopard to go?
The lush and thick jungle
The prime habitat of the tiger
Now villages overgrown with people
Where do we expect the tiger to go?
The elephant raided homes
The leopard took the child
The tiger attacked the man
Are our expectations met?
These shy beautiful creatures
Looking for a way to live
Labelled as dangerous beasts
Are our expectations too high?
Elephants get cold, like us
So what, then, could be better
Than putting on a colorful
And hand-knit jumbo sweater?
Some villagers in India,
When temps got down to freezing,
Began to knit so they’d prevent
The pachyderms from sneezing.
The sanctuary photos,
Just in case you don’t believe,
Show a fashion-forward elephant
With each leg in a sleeve.
I say hats off to those knitters!
They deserve to win a prize
Just for counting all those stitches
To create that jumbo size.
I need to win the Powerball
For my house is getting small
It's not exactly what I prefer
It's just the size of my elephant herd
Ceramic, glass, plaster and wood
Plush, wax, cloth and plastic
The number of my herd is fantastic
My pachyderm collecting is understood
At first it wasn't about me
I enjoyed the symbol of the GOP
But slowly, but surely there became a need
So gathering elephants became a happy deed
Family and friends send them to me
And I delight in their generous deed
Birthdays, Holidays any occasion
I accept pachyderms of all persuasions
Pictures, carvings, pillows and dolls
Statues, figures, candles and canes
Brooches, clocks, elephants of anything
Can't stop at one so I get them all
My elephants are happy, some are sad
But I never met an elephant that was bad
Trunks up for good luck make me glad
Small elephants, large elephants more to add
My house was once room enough for me
But my pachyderm's population now exceeds
To say my space has been disturbed
No, I just need a larger house for my elephant herd
each thing living on
Murdth ‘sorbs water chiefly wet
backards of arid-
zona an’ the holmby hills’
chlorine romp ponds drawing the
scant as blue blood for
the thirsty altar as a
mercedes to the
mccam bridge carwash on
la cienega for the
hundreds…each living
thing like coke water classic
from botswaniam
pools It’s the real thing walking
miles like dropdeadery girl
camels for a drink
sugary & refreshing
like rape…we miss the
nyc streetsweepers
for the bristletanks nosing
& hosing down street-
sleepers in the dross It’s a
lawn time in the ‘burbs
between iced long island teas
cold as charity water
from their potable
portalets…to scorches of
torrid pachyderms
...global conflict wars
for water not indeed
be in the solution!...
elephant you say tnaphele say I to
your circus mind say
is that your real nose bulbous
red like a churl beyond the
watering hole drunk
frolic’d sunned an’ bathed with the
peaceable kingdom
not less than once have you been
to thought fraught thirst to ‘nother
trunk?
H.e.m.-H’H.
12.15.MMxi.
ST
RAIN FORESTS
by
JOHN M. ARRIBAS
When I consult my pillow each night
The question is how to solve this planet’s plight
I’ve narrowed it down to a fork in the road
Take the left, utter destruction full overload
Take the right, prepare to take drastic action
Need to reduce the populace to a mere fraction
The left will allow us to proceed to the end
With little or no resources left to spend
The right will require rigid limitation
Of the worlds ever burgeoning population
We’ve poisoned the rivers and smallest rill
Contaminated the soil with chemical spill
Made places unliveable with hazardous waste
Treated the water altering its color and taste
We dump raw sewage into the ocean
To the struggling marine life a fatal potion
Mismanaged ventures exploring the flora
Has brought us viruses, hiv and ebola
We cut down the rainforest in the amazon
In a hundred years it will all be gone
Populations will continue to rise
So will sea level no great surprise
Two feet of ocean rise will surely displace
A billion members of the human race
It’s a given fact that we cant deny
Each human displaced will cause two to die
There will be chaos and hungering strife
Millions slaughtered seeking a new life
There is a trend easy to recognize
Fauna is disappearing according to size
Rainforests(2)
Dinosaurs were the first then pachyderms
Elephants, lions, tigers and giant earthworms
It should be easy to draw the line
Can the *****sapiens be far behind
Did I mention that every year
Inches of topsoil disappear
The world will face incredible need
Shrinking crops yet more mouths to feed
There is only one way mankind survives
Reduce the populations by billions of lives
Eventually governments will put niceties aside
Conducting programs including mass genocide
Nations will conspire in covert compliance
Eliminating each other in open defiance
No need to employ weapons of mass destruction
Dispatched germs and viruses will do the reduction
Privileged groups will have access to vaccines
The rest will vanish in unending streams
While the thinning is in its many stages
We’ll call this time “the new dark ages”
OPINION (multiple Haiku)
did you see the show
“america has talent?”
where the hell was it?
it was a circus world
but minus the elephants
spare the pachyderms
oh where in the world
can singers with 5-note range
go to hollywood?
i’ll give you a clue
“america has talent”
hey! give me a break!
There's more than just size to the elephant,
they do do some things that the others can't.
Many stories show these acts as valiant;
in the wild, grand gestures seem elegant.
Their wisdom is "ear-ily" evident,
nothing too pithy or given to rant -
like wry witticisms from Oscar Levant.
Or, Ogden Nash whose stanzas are extant,
not the rhymes of some silly sycophant.
Pachyderms make empathy "rel-e-phant"!
Long ago upon the shore, the last remaining Stegosaur
A chill wind blew where ferns once used to sway
And this may not be topical, but dinosaurs were tropical
Yet now the sky was overcast and grey
This Stegosaur would not grow old, his land was getting dark and cold
Volcanoes making ash clouds every day
The Stegosaur could not survive, he lost his fight to stay alive
So Stegosaurs are not around today
And when the atmosphere was clearer, in a far, far later era
A rock from outer space lit up the sky
The dinosaurs were out of luck, even those that tried to duck
That boulder didn't simply pass on by
Cretaceous world... incinerated, ice age came... refrigerated
Though there were quite a few years in between
The sabre tooth, a bully, ate pachyderms all wooly,
And snow lay thick where ancient ferns had been
And cavemen wearing mammoth skins, unkempt hair and bearded chins
Only went by foot or log canoe
Yet in a climate cold and cruel, never burnt no fossil fuel
Producing very little CO2
Then the sea reclaimed the land and mammoths made their final stand
The world a little warmer every day
No factory, no aeroplane, no diesel car which might explain
The fact that climate change was underway
So dinosaurs and stone-age man and wooly mammoths roamed this land
And sometimes it was cold and sometimes hot
Yet now we’re busy making plans for planes to run on rubber bands
Perhaps it’s just a load of Tommy-rot
For now it’s hotting up again and we’re all told that we’re to blame
And none of us can disregard the facts
We’ve got it wrong in lots of ways, including fancy holidays
And by the way we want a bit more tax!
So, Extinction Rebellion just splash a little smelly on
Get out and have some fun before you die
For whilst it’s true, I must confess, the climate’s in a royal mess
But who’s to blame may not be you or I.
Nine Lives Removed From Royal Dig Nitty ©?ß
(alternately titled: lion eyes hide sharp claws)
Aye attest tubby reincarnated
from one male Russian Blue
species Felis silvestris catus
named Morris if that gives a clue,
and during my fuzzy past
hence, asthma “Cats Cradle”
segued into kitten hood
fur hum lee established
type cats as (tin pan) alley cat,
a rather litter boxed gritty debut
t'wood become (later in life) tabby
quick as greased lightening
snatching in the air,
when tender vittles flew,
technically got fired (acquiring
appropriate nick names)
as fame (like a bushy cat tail) grew
viz perfect back up crooner
for “Cat Stevens”,
or lead singer for
the "Stray Cats" oddly
coupled, featured, and
incorporated with the guru
Horton Hears A Hoo,
yes him Elephant resembling
a humungous mandrake
from the, "Animals"
whose body heat could
easily melt an igloo,
whereby Eskimos accepted charity from
Korean philanthropists named Joo
(founders of Palaces for Pachyderms)
these lumbering creatures possessed
an exemplary photographic memory
(rivaling that of the amazing
deceased idiot savant
Kim Peek) knew
practically every detail
incorporating trunk their lines
(and could track missing link,
when felines shared common ancestor
but,...such petty files would most likely boar
and go way off course, and hence
will shy away being extempore
favoring a deliberate fore
ray padding around basically ignore
ring any rhyme or reason
suddenly ending this persiflage,
and thence to thee bon jour.
We rode on a bicycle made for two,
While on vacation, to visit a zoo.
Where we strolled around, enjoying our view.
Of North America's, wild caribou,
To friendly llamas, from far off Peru.
And an African antelope, the gnu.
Then watching pachyderms, while in the queue,
We observed birds, and a flightless emu.
To big cats and reptiles, farewell adieu.
11 / 9 / 2022.
Sponsor Hilo Poet.
For the contest. Monomixorhyme poetry contest.
A peacock becomes non-violent
keeping the warheads
in his tail. In bird hour
who wants to blink ?
The chicken runs amok.
Lying motionless was
painful for being slaughtered.
Subversion was more acceptable-
than falling in love. The bare
chest shows a gored scar.
They have started a dance
to entice a herd of pachyderms.
Bleeding ? No. They have
cobbled an army of bedbugs
to start a violent protest
against the moon.
Satish Verma