all creatures great and small

With thanks to the Mushruminator, a kindof-stranger whose blog i came across because it was linked to a friend's blog. (Oh the ties that bind, even in cyberspace...)

It's a cute poem, conceptually, and i think it does make its point very clearly - though it is a bit heavy-handed, and goes on for far too long. Still, you could do worse than to read some political satire on a lazy Sunday afternoon.


The Animal and Insect Act

Finally in order to ensure
absolute national security
they passed the Animal and Insect
Emergency Control and Discipline Act.

Under this new Act, buffaloes
cows and goats were
prohibited from grazing in herds of more
than three. Neither could birds
flock, nor bees swarm...
This constituted unlawful assembly.

As they had not obtained prior
planning permission, mud-wasps
and swallows were issued with
summary Notices to Quit. Their
homes were declared subversive
extensions to private property.

Monkeys and mynahs were warned
to stop relaying their noisy
morning songs until an official
Broadcasting Licence was issued
by the appropriate Ministry.
Unmonitored publications and broadcasts
posed the gravest threats
in times of National Emergency.

Similarly woodpeckers had
to stop tapping their morse code
messages from coconut
tree-top to chempaka tree,

Java sparrows were arrested in
droves for rumor-mongering.
Cats (suspected of conspiracy)
had to be indoors by nine o'clock.
Cicadas and crickets received
notifications to turn their amplifiers
down. Ducks could not quack nor
turkeys gobble during restricted
hours. Need I say all
dogs - alsatians, dachshunds
terriers, pointers and even
little chihuahuas - were muzzled.

In the interest of security,
penguins and zebras were
ordered to discard their
non-regulation uniforms.
The deer had to surrender
their dangerous antlers.
Tigers and carnivores
with retracted claws were
sent directly to prison
for concealing lethal weapons.

And by virtue of Article
four, paragraph 2 (b)
sub-section 16
under no circumstances
were elephants allowed
to break wind between
the hours of six and six.
Their farts could easily
be interpreted as gunshots
might spark off a riot...

A month after the Act
was properly gazetted
the birds and insects started migrating South,
the animals went North,
and an eerie silence
handcuffed the forests.
There was now Total Security.


(Cecil Rajendra)


The author is a Malaysian lawyer, poet and human rights activist. You can read more about him here.
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how like you... this?

i swear, this is the sexiest poem in the English language. And i'm not just talking about that 2nd stanza - the sensuality lies in the rhythm of the lines, in the breathy starts and stops of the meter.

Swoon......


They Flee From Me

They flee from me that sometime did me seek
...With naked foot stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle tame and meek
...That now are wild and do not remember
...That sometime they put themselves in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range
Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune, it hath been otherwise
...Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
...When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
...And she me caught in her arms long and small;
And therewithal sweetly did me kiss,
And softly said, Dear heart, how like you this?

It was no dream, I lay broad waking.
...But all is turned through my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
...And I have leave to go of her goodness
...And she also to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served,
I would fain know what she hath deserved.


(Thomas Wyatt)
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Easter musings (2)

It's the Cordelia complex at work again - i cannot heave my heart into my mouth. Instead, i'll let someone more articulate do the talking for me.

(And, just to prove that i am not always Cordelia, that sometimes i do find my tongue, here are last year's Easter musings, still fresh in my memory because they were so carefully thought through.)

Have a joyous Easter!


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i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)


(e.e. cummings)
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only mad dogs and...

...poets on the PFFA.

A poem a day for 30 days.

i think the word is 'kamikaze'. Let's sit back and enjoy the show.
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