Hey there, greetings. I wanted to post something special today to give thanks to my eighty paid subscribers and many followers to whom I feel such gratitude. Anyway I had a grim non-covid cold all week and couldn't get it together.
But I did write poems. So here’s a free post, like I post on Alternate Saturdays. Three more poems of the world’s most threatened creatures. I’ve now written 38. I’ll write all 100 by this New Year’s Eve. I will do this. I am going to call them:
Extinction Songs.
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34 - Largetooth Sawfish
pristis pristis
Crop. Crop. Shark-fin soup. Oil of my liver. Trophy. Scoop. Traditional medicine. Prize on the wall. Prop. It’s a rostrum What you call a saw It’s the pride of the market Nailed to a stall. I was known as the Common Sawfish. Lol. Spikes on the ankles of Battling cocks. Beauty. Religion. Better sex. Time for my mugshot. Crop me, do. Crop so I seem To be smiling at you. Crop me, leave only My eyes and my smile. That’s not where my eyes are That isn’t a smile But go ahead, crop Till the saw’s not there Till I look like your neighbour Shorn of her hair.
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36 - Macaya breast-spot frog
eleutherodactylus thorectes
After my mother passed in mid-November, me and my brothers began to empty the house. This meant throwing out many things that really weren’t our mother’s at all, she didn’t keep much, they were all our father’s things we’d not got round to. One was his coin collection which had stayed there boxed under the stairs for decades, change from business trips to European countries, francs, marks, pesetas, forints, kroner, all time’s smithereens. He’d organized the coins in labelled compartmentalised long trays, dusty and clear or cloudy and red. As a child I’d gaze at the room made red through the red plastic. He died before I gave up telling people his working life was in plastics. It was me who tossed the trays to smash in Skip Fifteen (Plastics) though I know I should in fact have used Skip Seven (Metals) too but sod it, the thing was done. It wasn’t done with me. I had a dream I was walking in a warehouse open to the starry skies, a stupendous citadel of looming crates and trunks all towering out of sight. I was seeking something, and sure enough I found them, an old couple, humans with the skulls of pelicans, a gnarled and ancient pair, they had collected every coin from me and without speaking were sorting them according to their colour, silver, brass, bronze, copper, gold, the moonlight ravaged the rough surfaces, each face was made a moonscape, each coin was enormous. When I got back from the walk they waved me off on, the coins were stacked in scintillating towers all tottering to the stars and I could go now. The size of every coin to these two creatures – and to me too – was the size of a US quarter to, say, a Macaya breast-spot frog, in case you don’t know what the hell I'm dealing with.
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37 - Giant Pangasius
pangasius sanitwongsei
One, two, three four five Once I caught a fish alive Six, seven, eight nine ten Then I brought her home and then Fee fie foe fum She went in my aquarium Winter spring summer fall Which wasn’t very big at all Charles Darwin William Blake Nor was she for heaven’s sake Run softly till I end my song Christ she was two inches long Will you, won’t you, join the dance A world of majestic elegance With the Paroon Shark Hi-Fin Pangasius Sanitwongsei [LINK BELOW] to your doorstep, coast to coast Buy now! This striking species boasts Who snoozes loses, who dares wins! Elongated bodies and stunning high fins The past isn’t dead, it’s not even past That captivate any aquarium enthusiast But then again too few to mention These sharks require meticulous attention ‘The woman is simply cut to pieces’ Avoid housing them with more passive species Hell is empty and all the devils With moderate aggression levels All I see is little dots Providing ample hiding spots Jessica Deborah Diana Unity Ensures a harmonious aquatic community Ín the nightmare of the dark Unlock the allure of these magnificent sharks And elevate your aquarium with grace and grandeur Bandeur, candeur, anyway here’s that link https://simstropicalfish.co.uk/ product/paroon-shark-hi-fin- pangasius-sanitwongsei-4-15/ twenty quid plus food if you’re keen
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