Bonobo Sex Is Never Outasite

No Promise Security Among Bonobos

Bonobos, Bonobos

Bonobos are all-forgiving creatures.

They really, truly love to forgive all.

It's the most special of all their features

They all join in and seem to have a ball.

When one bonobo offends another,

they all apologize, kiss and make out.

Sex, which mostly makes for all a bother,

makes Bonobo bonding what's all about.

We now return you to something completely different . . .

Gorilla My Dreams

Better to plan ahead before your gorilla moment comes . ..

Gorillas, Gorillas

Gorillas are huge, well-muscled creatures,

ten times as strong as a muscular man,

so strong their muscles count as two features,

so strong the first time I saw one, I ran.

The best place when a gorilla's nearby

is far, from said gorilla, to be quick,

so if you can, then spread your wings and fly,

but if not, you've got no good choice to pick.

Actually, gorillas are really gentle, except when they're feeling territorial, which is too much of the time . . .

Review of a Previous Emanations

Carter Kaplan draws our attention to an unusual review of Emanations: Chorus Pleiades by Philip Somozo.

Chimp Off the Old Block

Always take care around the higher animals.

Chimps, Chimps

Chimpanzees are obstreperous creatures.

They're mighty fine company, till they're not.

They'll rip off your fine facial features,

stay footless and never ever get caught.

No justice in this world, you seem to say?

Go talk to God -- that's over my pay scale.

He made this world, then formed us out of clay.

He can arrange it all, and without fail.

Changes fly in on the wings of the wind.

Orangutan Wisdom

Orangutan wisdom is not finished, but is a work in progress.

Orangutans, Orangutans

Orangutans are quizzical creatures,

who pose themselves a question every day,

such as why the moon, with heavy features,

falls never to the earth, but floats its way.

The answer of that august group of apes?

"It does not fall, for nothing holds it up."

Many were the jaws dropped, many the gapes!

As if to say the sun, for much light's up.

Orangutan education needs your support. Send your monetary contributions to Gypsy Scholar . . .

Where have all the Neanderthals gone?

Why there aren't any Neanderthals still around these days:

Neanderthals, Neanderthals

Neanderthals are glorious creatures.

They're stronger, smarter, and better than you.

Despite these and other special features,

they haven't got a farther-mucking clue.

They don't know they're better, smarter, stronger.

They're innocent as lambs and cause no harm.

But they can't stay this way for much longer.

Let's act before there's cause for great alarm.

A fallen world is a risky place for unfallen creatures.

Pushmi-Pullyu

This had to happen, as you well know; it was, so they say, inevitable.

Pushmi-Pullyu, Pushmi-Pullyu

The Pushmi-Pullyu recounts two creatures,

but I leave for you to imagine how

these could impossibly get such features

as belong in Meinong's jungle now!

No ax-in-dental work, no heavy dents?

No winsome gusts that plow sea air?

No lightening storm blustered o'er offence?

No wins of chains sent free from care?

Had I but world enough and time, this verse could be a better rhyme.

King Penguin

Behold! Breaking the rules and when the rules break.

King Penguins, King Penguins

King penguins are civil-lies creatures.

They've had to tell lies to survive,

for one truth of their lives' stranger features

is that each is a king in their tribe!

Each king is an absolute monarch,

but a wheedling diplomat, too.

Each lie serves the old regime's realism dark,

and each fact serves the opposite true.

I never knew there were king penguins until now. I had thought only the emperor penguin to be the royalty of Antarctica.

Ravenous Ravens

And now for something completely different . . .

Ravens, Ravens

Ravens are such mysterious creatures.

They perch in lustrous silence on a branch.

Their glossy black feathers are their features.

And they range over forest, farm, and ranch.

But they smile in their grim, occult beauty,

iridescent, incandescent, smoking hot,

and still darkly burn in ways that suit thee,

and love lost in a grave will be their lot.

These don't sound like ordinary ravens in the end, but rather a subset of ravens put to dire aims. Pretty dark. Where did this come from?

Shrewd Shrews?

We learn today about the aggressive shrew.

Shrews, Shrews

Shrews are the most hideous of creatures!

They'll eat twice their weight from day to day!

There's that poisonous bite of their features!

And echolocation takes them away!

But they're so tiny, with nothing their size,

though nothing would be size enough for them

if they were only willing to surmise

and give the truth a thought before, ahem.

What more can one say about such small creatures?

Hamster = Ham from a Steer?

I'm learning a lot about little creatures merely by writing a poem per day on them.

Hamsters, Hamsters

Hamsters are some kind of weird pet creatures.

Like with guinea pigs, I know not what they be.

They likewise seem lacking piggish features;

Their name alone suggests of pig to me.

But "hamster" also sounds refined for pig.

We're dealing with a category here

of the pig as a narcissistic prig,

with behaviour just a teeny bit queer.

Another bumpy ride along our lonesome highway. Keep an eye out for those detour signs. It's a muddy road ahead.

Terrapins?

"Terrapins" was what we in the Ozarks called the land turtles that crawled about in the dust, though I think the proper term is tortoise (for I have read, I believe, that the terrapin is water-dwelling, and therefore a true turtle, and that the name "terrapin" comes from one of the northeastern Indian tribes' languages and thus not from the Latin "terra," or land).

Terrapins, Terrapins

Terrapins are incurious creatures

that you might well as well call "homebodies,"

for one of their too few funny features

is not to leave home without home to seize!

Don't misunderstand, not home disease or

homesickness, but that they take home along,

when good and ready to go out the door,

with a sing-it-in-their-hearts wordless song.

I hope that this one isn't too bumpy a poem to be read aloud. That might disturb the grumpy.

Note to Recall: All turtles are homebodies! (Pass it on!)

Ranting on Rats

We use rats to study human psychology. Isn't that odd. (Note: Question mark left off intentionally.)

Rats, Rats

Rats are highly intelligent creatures,

though we've mocked them for many a year,

and they've mimicked the worst of our features,

feigning shock to crave food for fake fear.

There's the big black box of education:

of mice and men, then all the more of rats.

There's the darkness of our situation:

a shadowland wherein creep shadowcats.

We live in this shadowland . . . Not in Beulah Land.

Of Mice and Manners

Back to real animals! Even the pipsqueaks!

Mice, Mice

Mice are just not very special creatures; 

they're tiny balls of grey paper mache. 

They lack therefore truly special features.

They look the same if good, if bad, each day.  

Their faces are too small for emotion. 

"They're mousey-faced," you might adjudge outright. 

They retain at most a half a notion, 

and bare their teeth and threaten then to bite.

What animal comes next? Rats! I can't remember. . .

Pet Rock: Animal or Not?

Rocks by agreement can be pets, though one might disagree on that.

Pet Rocks, Pet Rocks

Pet rocks just aren't any sort of creatures,

for always are relations on the rocks,

so expect no fascinating features - 

you only ever find what stands and mocks.

You ask returned the mock-it-in-return,

but rocks are without feeling, yours or theirs, 

and rock-ribbed racks of reason merely burn

as they up-rise the escalating stairs.

If rocks can be declared "pets," then a pet rock is by extension an animal and stands approved as the subject of an animal poem. Not that I approve this point. I merely apprise you of these hard facts.

Timid Tarantulas

I know, I know. Scorpions have tarantulas for breakfast. I'm not doing natural history. I'm writing poems.

Tarantulas, Tarantulas 

Tarantulas are very strange creatures.

Each step they take is tentative and slow.

This is one of their defining features.

You'd never think them spiders on the go.

Expect them not to dance tarantellas.

These two words are bound tight in irony.

They're more like a couple of goodfellas.

You stick with one, you better stick with zee.

Makes little sense, some rhyme, but no reason? It's all in good fun, eh? And read correctly, it also has some reason. In the rhyme.

Scary Little Scorpions

I hope this poem works out right; I worked on it all afternoon.

Scorpions, Scorpions

Scorpions are scary little creatures.

I wish they were not little, but were big,

for one of their scary little features

is to look like a harmless tiny twig.

Maybe being bigger would be better.

They'd find far harder hiding in a home.

No more would you have to 'look the debtor'

to lizards let in eating as they roam.

For the most part, writing these poems has been easy, like walking downhill, but today, nary a step was easy.

By the way, I do know that the world does have some big scorpions in it, but the ones I saw in the Ozarks were rather small. And we do have some pretty big lizards there.

Glade lizards, for instance. The adult glade lizard can be more than a foot in length.

Leaping Lizards!

We now reflect upon the lizard, who did not sin, unlike the serpent.

Lizards, Lizards

Lizards are fine upstanding creatures,

and they have legs to stand upon, too!

They stand up for the finest of features,

and stand down when it's time for toodle-loo.

They thus stand as the serpent's reminder

that on no leg stands the snake in his sin.

He long ago lost that transport kinder

and slithers through the dust he lives within.

He also eats that dust, which I think is not meant literally, for of what nutritional value is dust?

Serpent most subtle?

This poem stuff is tough.

Serpents, Serpents

Serpents look like sly, slippery creatures,

and they're as sly as they are slippery,

but slip'ry is not one of their features,

so here is slyness naught but frippery.

But that sets this poem at odds with scripture,

for the Word says the snake was subtle-sly.

Perhaps we're meant to take this with snip-ture?

For Serpent ever mixes truth with lie.

Such is hermeneutics.

Winged Worms?

The only winged worms I know of are dragons.

Glowworms, Glowworms

We called them "lightning bugs," special creatures.

"Fireflies," said the outsiders instead.

"Glowworms," said some mad kids, as if features

like "glow" hid secret truths within each head.

And we've yet to solve the problem of how

these worms take leave of earth and take to air.

Let's leave it as a mystery, for now,

as though there were no emptiness still there.

Maybe the answer is dragons . . .

Bears with Wings?

Grizzly bears are terrifying beasts of great burden to us!

Grizzlies, Grizzlies

Grizzlies are enormous landed creatures,

but large enough to rule both land and sky,

so we're lucky they lack the two features

that enable one to lift off and fly.

They'd be the grisly terror from above,

swooping down to snatch us from the ground,

and crushing us in great bear hugs of love

so tight we wouldn't even make a sound.

I hope to stay far from grizzlies' grisly grounds!

Guinea Pigs?

What are guinea pigs? Or better, why are guinea pigs?

Guinea Pigs, Guinea Pigs

Guinea pigs are some sort of creatures.

I don't really know what they are.

But they seem to lack small piggish features,

though I squint from up close or afar.

Either way, they look not like a guinea,

the fowl kind I mean to say now,

nor the white be-winged horse with its whinny

nor the high-over-the-moon-flying cow.

For me, guinea pigs just don't go whole hog.

Turkey Buzzards?

You ain't talking turkey buzzard nohow!

Turkey Buzzards, Turkey Buzzards

Turkey buzzards are very fine creatures.

They can speak well some English, too.

Here's one of their special features:

"Ralph's hurling a wretched eschew!"

This might make you cough out a carpet.

This might make you wax a whole floor.

But this bird makes a wonderful bar pet

and brings in the patrons galore.

I used to lie on the ground at the farm and play dead to see if the turkey buzzards would circle down low for a closer look.

An Untruth of Turkeys?

A rumor of turkeys . . .

Turkeys, Turkeys

Turkeys are truly weird creatures.

I'm told that they die in the rain!

To snuff the air's one of their features.

Beaks skyward they drown to no gain.

Thus, turkeys are thought to be stupid,

and they are if they do as is thought.

But they might just be victims of Cupid,

and their minds with just love alone fraught!

Turkeys gobble everything . . .

Not a Tiny Tom Turkey

Guineas: The Gold Standard Among Fowl!

Guineas, Guineas

Guineas are really odd creatures,

as speckled as the great speckled bird,

but they don't share that other's great features.

Fact is, they look rather absurd.

A tad smaller in size than a chicken,

and its head, just a bit turkey-like,

it can fly since it never does thicken,

but keeps itself young as a tyke.

Life was harder when everyone had to use guineas as currency!

A match burns as brightly as its Doppelgänger . . .

Never trust a creature too beautiful for this world!

Swans, Swans

Swans are such beautiful creatures,

one marvels they belong here atall!

They have such graceful fine features,

like the greatest light-bearer of all.

We ought then to be quite suspicious,

keep our guard, taken not by surprise,

await worst since Satan the atrocious

can himself as light-angel disguise.

Our world is replete with traps for the unwary.

Goosey Goosey Gander

The Turn of the Screwy Poem?

Geese, Geese

Geese are great loud vulgar creatures.

They don't hide what they're doing up there.

With their huge, alphabetical features,

honking high, they vilify the air!

But we got counter-vituperations

and an active large vocabulary.

We unlock their locked-up machinations

because we got the secret cursive key.

If we haven't misplaced it again . . .

Duckling: A Momentary Nod of the Head

Duck season is here again (or maybe not), but where are all the ducks?

Ducks, Ducks

Ducks are incredible creatures.

They can fly, they can walk, they can swim!

And not only have they these features,

they swim surface or under at whim!

But they don't walk so well, I must say.

Their butts point first left, and then right.

This bespeaks indecision each way,

and all but unspoken delight.

Not only ducks waddle, but also geese, and even swans  (or maybe not swans).

Flying Foxes

With rhyme, but without reason, poetry ambles along its way:

Flying Foxes, Flying Foxes

Flying Foxes are frightening creatures

when they unwrap themselves from flayed skin,

and circumambulate those features

that led them toward mortal sin.

But what sin, for real, isn't mortal?

The Lord is quite tetchy on that.

At the unreasoned law, they did chortle,

the sinless, now skin-less, fruit bat.

These animal rhymes are getting a bit silly. More realism coming . . .