Ode to a Monitor Lizard - rhyming doggerel

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Ode to a Monitor Lizard

 

I saw a picture of a monitor lizard

Its skin is scaley and its tongue is scissored

I’d back away from that wrinkly old wizard -

I don’t want to be ground up in its gizzard!

What Do Little 'Possums Dream Of? - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

What Do Little ‘Possums Dream Of?

                            (I know, I know - Of What Do Little 'Possums Dream?)

My resident ‘possum was curled up cozily

Deep down in a stump over by the fence

Asleep, and like a little dog or cat

A-twitching happily in his ‘possum dreams

 

Of dung-beetles and corpses of dead birds

Dog food left carelessly outside overnight

Whatever awful offal the cat yakked up -

A buffet of delicacies for well-brought-up marsupials

 

Crawly-bugs and poops and snails and rattlesnake tails

Those surely are what little ‘possums dream of

The Cosmic Inertia of a Six-Pound Dachshund - short poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The Cosmic Inertia of a Six-Pound Dachshund

 

Why is the resistance factor

In shifting a six-pound dachshund

Who does not want to be shifted

Greater than that of tons of iron?

The Window Frog - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Window Frog

The human and the tree frog say good night
The human inside and the tree frog out
Sharing a pane of glass but little else
For frogs maintain their standards, don’cha know

And sticky pads and frontal lobes don’t mix
Not in polite reptilian society
Since humans, you know, they’re not really green
Nice enough in their place, of course, but still…

Good frogs dismiss the human as a lazy jerk -
For sleeping while all honest creatures work

The Robin's Christmas Dinner - a merriment (a bit rough on the worms, though)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Robin’s Christmas Dinner

(ripped from the pages of the Middle Ages – “Sumer is icumen in”)

Merrily he eats the worms
Pull them from the ground!
Their heads pop up
On them he sups
As they squirm around
Chirp, robin!

The squirrels are eating all the seeds
The cardinal’s head’s a-bobbin’
The doves are cooing
The cows are mooing
Chirp merrily, robin!

Robin, robin
How well you chirp
Now eat the worms and burp!

Burp, burp, burp!


On seeing dozens of robins, a squirrel, a woodpecker, a cardinal, and a dove outside my window on Christmas morning.

Two Kiddie Pools in the Back Garden, with Honeybees and a Dachshund - doggerel with a real dog

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Two Kiddie Pools in the Back Garden,

with Honeybees and a Dachshund

The dachshund loves her kiddie pool
The honeybees love theirs
The dachshund splashes to get cool
The bees mind their affairs

(Honeybees cannot launch from water, so I keep freshly-cut leafy limbs in their pool.)

High Noon at the Bird Feeder - a Dachshund and a Squirrel - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

High Noon at the Bird Feeder

A little dog, a streak of dachshund red,
Across the grass speeds to a squirrel’s doom
She wants its blood, she wants its flesh, she wants it dead;
Ripped, shredded, and torn; it will need no tomb.

The fat old squirrel, a fluff of forest grey,
Is unimpressed by doggie dementia;
To Liesl’s grief he leaps and climbs away -
Never underestimate the Order Rodentia!

Liesl’s squirrel clings to a low-hanging limb
And rattles abuse at the angry pup
Who spins and barks and spins and barks at him
Laughing among the leaves, and climbing higher up.

So Liesl snorts and sneers, and marks the ground;
She accepts not defeat, nor lingers in sorrow;
For Liesl and squirrel it’s their daily round;
They’ll go it again, same time tomorrow.

Cats and the Office of Prime - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Cats and the Office of Prime

With the dignity of an abbess the cat
Enthrones herself upon the morning fence
To welcome with due solemn liturgies
The daily rising of the given sun

Her slow lavabo accomplished, she turns
Offering the peace of Cat to the assembly:
The lesser cats, the even lesser dogs
The night-chilled lawn, the dewy leaves, the light

She blinks her blessings there upon the day

     And all is complete

When happy children then come out to play

Cats are Iambic Pentameter - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Cats are Iambic Pentameter

Light-footed cats are nature’s iambics
Each subtle feline step unstressed to stressed
Across a lawn, a counterpane, a heart
As a tail-twitching cat ballet, all grace

But dogs are four-beat Anglo-Saxon1 lines
Galumphing heavily and clumsily
Across a moor, a sleeping-bag, a heart
As a tail-wagging country reel (gone bad)

Soft-footed cats are nature’s iambics
And dogs are four-beat Anglo-Saxon lines

1Old English Anglo-Saxon (approx. fifth-twelfth century). Applies to four-stress hemistichal alliterative verse, e.g. Beowulf.

- Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within

The Death of a Good and Faithful Spider - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Death of a Good and Faithful Spider

A good and faithful spider lived its life
In spinning and dusting and catching pests
In the ikon corner among the saints:
Kyril and Methodius, Seraphim

Tikhon the Wonderworker, Vladimir
Anna of Kashin, Nicholas the Czar
Zosima, Xenia of Saint Petersburg
And all the cloud of holy Slavic witness

Whose images were guarded worthily
By a little spider who served God well

Cats are Iambic Pentameter - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Cats are Iambic Pentameter

Light-footed cats are nature’s iambics
Each subtle feline step unstressed to stressed
Across a lawn, a counterpane, a heart
As a tail-twitching cat ballet, all grace

But dogs are four-beat Anglo-Saxon1 lines
Galumphing heavily and clumsily
Across a moor, a sleeping-bag, a heart
As a tail-wagging country reel (gone bad)

Soft-footed cats are nature’s iambics
And dogs are four-beat Anglo-Saxon lines

1Old English Anglo-Saxon (approx. fifth-twelfth century). Applies to four-stress hemistichal alliterative verse, e.g. Beowulf.

- Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within

Oh, Possum! - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Oh, Possum!

or

Marsupials in the Mist

or

Didelphimorphia Park

Well, there you are, snarling behind the mesh
Of a steel humanitarian trap
For the crimes of digging under the fence
And encouraging the dogs to escape

Stop hissing, now, through rows of dragon-teeth
And listen to human words you won’t believe -
Late summer grapes have tempted you to this,
So absolution is granted; ajar is the door

Your executioner stands down: Go forth!
And be a better ‘possum forever more

Oh, Possum! - poem

Oh, Possum!

or

Marsupials in the Mist

or

Didelphimorphia Park

Well, there you are, snarling behind the mesh
Of a steel humanitarian trap
For the crimes of digging under the fence
And encouraging the dogs to escape

Stop hissing, now, through rows of dragon-teeth
And listen to human words you won’t believe -
Late summer grapes have tempted you to this,
So absolution is granted; ajar is the door

Your executioner stands down: Go forth!
And be a better ‘possum forever more

Death of a Country Gentlemouse - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Death of a Country Gentlemouse

In a golden cloak and a white waistcoat
Reposes an elegant little field mouse
Neatly laid out for the visitation
Attended not by aunts now, but by ants

Luna-Dog, separated from her kill
Poses prayerfully at the back-door screen
Or predatorily, as it might be, before
With work-gloved hands the mouse is bade farewell

Tossed respectfully over the garden fence
In a golden cloak and a white waistcoat

A Saturday Morning Wall-Eyed Hissy-Fit - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Saturday Morning Wall-Eyed Hissy-Fit

On a rainy Saturday morning, two cats
For reasons known to them alone, round off
(For cats, being more circular than angled,
Can never square off) – a catty cacophony

Of yowling, growling, prissing hissy-fits
In mutual feline outrage, their tails
Twisting like scorpions, or furry snakes
Threatening death – or at least disapproval

Much to the delight of the back porch dogs:
On a rainy Saturday morning, two cats

A House Without a Dog - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A House without a Dog

Socks will not disappear
Shoes will not be chewed
Christmas ornaments will not be eaten
The floor will remain clean

But socks do not look at you with love
Shoes don’t cuddle
Christmas ornaments don’t kiss your nose
And floors don’t chase their tails

Animal Sanctuary

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Animal Sanctuary

An ordinary lawn, an old oak tree

Beneath it at dusk baby bunnies hop
An island of peace in a suburban sea
Blessed by Saint Francis of the Garden Shop

Sweet little birds pause at the feeder there

To gossip loudly over their breakfast seeds
This Eden where all creatures play free of care,
Well-tended, mown, and free of prickly weeds

A delicate deer has been known to browse

The grass at dawn, and creatures great and small
Know that the yard around our little house
Is a happy haven, safe for them all

But today we saw, in this pretty world,

Buzzards devouring the corpse of a squirrel