Evolution made its best pitch
for a new ecological niche.
Without so much as a fuss,
behold the duckbill platypus.
The other day I saw a platypus
Licking the feathers of a real-live goose
Goose honked something fierce
Platypus’ heart pierced
Tomorrow it’ll smell a north woods moose
I
A dragon, platypus, and unicorn,
drank in a bar and soon locked horns.
The air was tense - would it come to blows?
The unicorn spoke, "Which one knows
a truth which he dares to conceal?
One of us is... disgracefully real."
II
"It's a sad state of affairs - is it not,"
said the dragon, "when one of us is caught".
Sweat broke out in little beads
on the platypus forehead of evil deeds.
In a fate worse than he had feared,
the platypus simply disappeared.
Seen as a collection of spare parts
swimming in close formation
neither fish nor fowl
from a southern hemisphere nation
sewn together as if torn asunder
the amphibian antipodean
from way Down Under
is the odd-looking bottom-feeding
no muss nor fuss
otter-footed beaver-tailed
egg-laying duck-billed platypus
the males of which are venomous
an excellent swimmer
whenever it dives
it closes its ears nose and eyes
altho' a riparian carnivore
electroreception is how it survives
Beaver, mole or platypus? It waddles like all three.
I watch the creature scoot along, wild, weird and free.
If she pauses along the way to leave some tiny eggs down
I will call her Platte City Platypus, named for my uncle’s town.
The platypus excels at evolution
And displays a super cool solution
For making his way amidst the muck,
He don't run aground. He don't get stuck.
Of this, the platypus would never dream
As a self-respecting monotreme.
Indeed, a platypus of station
Will employ electrolocation.
A couth poetic platypus,
Choosing words that are never rude,
Carries a heavy blunderbuss,
And softly croons a platitude.
It’s true, we both swim through the muck,
But don’t compare me to a duck.
No, I wouldn’t do that until
You’ve reckoned my rubbery bill.
I wanna be a wallaby
And not just a wanna-be,
Not a kangaroo or
Silly platypus
But, if I can’t be a wallaby
I think that I would wanna be
A plump and dumpy
Hippopotamus!
You're such a pretty platypus, as pretty as can be
There is no other platypus, as beautiful to me
More beautiful than all the other creatures in the zoo
That’s why I'm so glad that I'm a platypus like you
Make room for the platypus and echidna
Only found in Australia, cha cha cha!
With body temps lower than other animals
They are the earth’s only egg laying mammals
Move over, for they are waddling through.
Here is one, two, seven, eight, sixteen, twenty-two
They have such a small face, and hair on their back.
They waddle right over, without politeness or tack.
Make room for the platypus and echidna my friends.
They are living down under, where loveliness never ends.
We like watching them lay their eggs, they do not mind a bit.
But if we dare disturb them, they would have a fit!
A duck-billed platypus
Is bathing on the bus
She left her favorite stream
To join our swimming team
She did so well last year
Her lane was free and clear
Until the final leg
When Platy laid an egg
The hippopotami
Don’t eat the platy pie
Because the hippo bake
Is better served with cake
The platy pie who pluck
Are eating Peking duck
Because the ducks that pry
Are dinner by and by
I knew a platypus
Who shared her duck with us
My dinner pals were thrilled
Because the duck was billed
O what a cunning creature
To don a double feature
The mammal with a plus
A duck-billed platypus.
on a sunny shiny day sitting outside in the garden
sipping nectar on a chair at a round outdoor table on the lawn
with my mom, someone else becomes interested in me
I'm only 3 and Fuzzy is my best friend
a stuffed platypus her companionship I didn't want to end
the sweetness of my lips was what attracted my new enemy
he berrated me and I used my hands said "go away"
he continued to persue my soft and juicy lips
when I hit he stung me and I cried
mother started laughing as I sobbed
I didnt understand why she and him were being cruel
until she led me to a mirror and I looked just like
a duck billed platypus
The echidna and the platypus were friends.
They both had a teeny tiny secret, one and the other.
The sweet platypus had venom on his ends.
He was told to keep this hidden by his mother.
The short-nosed echidna could lay eggs as well as a wren.
She was told to keep this under wraps, by her brother.
Their love for eating worms and insects made them friends.
That was something they could talk about with each other.
Echidna’s spikes were dangerous on the ends.
Most certainly out in the open, not hidden from platypus.
Platypus’s five sharpie claws helped make them friends.
He could dig insects up for his mate, Echidna, without fuss.
The platypus’s venom reveal might have meant no friendship,
He retained this secret; he kept it under lock and key.
Echidna’s secret would have given them another reason for kinship,
If she had discovered that Platypus can lay eggs like me.
The platypus
creation committee
Who’d God put in time out?
John G. Lawless
©8/22/2018
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