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Overview
* The other is Stories for Animals, available at fine bookstores and from woodland creatures everywhere.
Recommended for Homo sapiens age 12+
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781462001996 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | iUniverse, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 03/15/2011 |
| Pages: | 152 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.35(d) |
Read an Excerpt
Poetry for Animals
By I. H. Smythe
iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2011 I. H. SmytheAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-0199-6
Chapter One
The LizardYoung Stanley was the sort of boy
That you would never guess,
Would get himself, his mom, the Earth,
In any sort of mess.
He said his prayers, he combed his hairs,
His room was span-and-spic.
He'd shovel snow, the lawn he'd mow,
He never once was sick.
He'd always clean his plate, preferring broccoli to sweets.
He gave alms to the poor
Whilst helping nuns across the streets.
In all his ways and deeds he shone – "angelic" is the word,
In math, in death, in lunch, in life,
Young Stanley never erred.
And into beastly mischief Stanley seldom was enticed,
How strange, then, that he's now known
As the Little Antichrist,
And all because the once he was a slightly naughty boy,
Who spent his pocket money on a plastic, packaged toy
Instead of butter, which his Mother'd sent him out to get,
For evermore (so not that long)
A choice Stan would regret.
The trouble started when young Stan
Went to the store to buy
The butter, but instead another item caught his eye.
He laid his eyes, then laid his hands,
Then laid his butter bills
Upon the counter, for a lizard,
Green, with thorns and frills,
And two-pronged tongue and flaming eyes
That bulged as big as quarters,
("No mere child could fight its charms!"
He later told reporters.)
Its tiny size, its bloodshot eyes, and overpowering smell,
Convinced him it would be a hit
At next day's show and tell,
So slipping both the butter and the lizard in his pocket,
He bolted from the crime scene
Like his pants contained a rocket.
Arriving home young Stanley put away the booty butter;
"I'll be upstairs with ... nothing ..."
His poor mother heard him mutter.
And with a flashlight, under cover, in his trundle bed,
He emptied out his pockets
And then from the package read:
Welcome you to growing pet,
he you will be surprising,
Now dream of lizard-owning
happy joy you realizing!
This funny strangely toy
extend ten times familiar size,
When please exposed to children
it increasing for your eyes.
For best enjoyment texture
slimy icky please you liking,
But beware chung yung fu fat fung,
or woeful fengshui striking.
And insert not in children
or to doctor have a chat,
He happy not a source of
transubstantiated fat!
With this young Stanley opened up
The package and withdrew
The lizard – and his love, just like the lizard,
Grew and grew.
And by the time he fell asleep that night upon his bed,
That lizard was much bigger than a box for holding bread.
Its shape was roughly lizoid, like a huge Komodo dragon,
But massive, like a thing that you would climb
And stick a flag in.
And when he woke next morning
What did Stanley find was there?
A twenty-five ton lizard where there normally was air!
It crushed him to his mattress!
Stanley couldn't breathe for slime!
But he slithered out his second-story window just in time,
And fell kersplat in lizard gunk, in green reptilian flows,
Exuding out the windows like some mucus from a nose.
And Stanley had to claw his way
Through oozing, greenish goop,
Like something just emerging
From that first primordial soup,
And creeping free he ran to tell his mom,
But then he thought, if he
Told her, then for that one buttered crime
He would be caught.
And so he went to school attired in jammies most informal,
And hoped his mother wouldn't notice anything abnormal.
That day was long for Stanley
Since he stank like rotting trout,
And his schoolmates held their noses,
And a few of them passed out.
At show and tell time Stanley was unnerved
But kept his head,
Since he didn't have his toy,
He shew and told his pants instead.
With eloquence, like it was planned,
He spoke of jammie britches,
With waistband of elastic
And with hems of running stitches.
He spoke of washing labels
And of stripes of white and brown,
And showed how he could pull them up,
And then could pull them down ...
And showed that even if you're in pyjamas you can stand,
In a corner – with a dunce cap – at Teacher's command.
But finally the home-bell rang and leaping from their seats,
They flowed like bubbling liquid
Out the doors into the streets,
All so relieved to get away from Stanley and his stench,
Because he stank like merde in the sol, excuse my French.
And as for Stan he shuffled home,
Afraid he'd be in trouble,
For possibly reducing hearth and home to rock and rubble,
For wearing jammies, skipping breakfast,
Smelling kind of weird,
But these were just the least of all the things
He should have feared ...
He should have been afraid,
Because he'd surely had some warning,
His house might well expand
And then explode that very morning,
His lizard might keep growing giving everyone a shock,
Crushing cars and houses flat within a city block.
He should have feared that by his lizard
Folks would be molested,
And that in only moments he was going to be arrested.
And that the press would shortly shove
Their mikes into his face,
And that it all would end in tears and permanent disgrace.
He should have feared it since, in fact,
It happened in this way,
The headlines read:
Boy, 10, Wrecks House, Mom Grounds Him For One Day.
And well he knew that "mischief"
Shouldn't be the only charge,
The headlines read:
Some Butter Stolen, Culprit Still At Large!
Oh foolish boy! If only Stan had been a little quicker,
To see and peel off from the box
The Made In China sticker!
For underneath the sticker on the lizard's plastic wrap,
Were words that clearly showed
This little toy was just a trap!
The package claimed the beast would grow
"Ten times familiar size,"
But obviously such a claim was just a pack of lies!
The truth below the sticker
Might have stopped this foul T-rex,
Because it read, as plain as day,
"Ten times ... a googolplex!"
Quite possibly the scariest of numbers e'er invented,
Without which this catastrophe
Might well have been prevented!
But no! Too late! Police and soldiers
Found their efforts crippled,
By the fact that, every hour, the lizard's size was tripled!
They tried to stop it growing and secreting vile jelly,
They dropped atomic bombs
While all the children kicked its belly!
They set the thing aflame
While on it fireworks were dumped,
But on it grew till every herpetologist was stumped!
And so were SWAT teams, so were ninjas,
Psychics, gurus, vets,
And motivational speakers who like motivating pets,
And lawyers who had tried to stop the lizard with a law,
Which didn't work, so people stuffed
The lawyers in its maw!
But still it thrashed and crushed and bashed
While from it sewage squirted,
Till true believers lost their faith
And atheists converted!
And so it wasn't long till the community was choked –
The headlines read:
Boy, 10, Wrecks Town, Allowance Is Revoked.
And soon the number of the towns he'd wrecked
Surpassed a million!
The headlines read:
Boy, 10, Wrecks Earth, Age 4.54 billion.
And so on till the Truth appeared in headlines that all said:
Butter Thief, 10, Wrecks the Cosmos, Everybody Dead!
What happened next? I'm sure that you
Don't need the details filled in,
Remember what the package said
When "please exposed to children."
But since the children met their doom
It's really no surprise,
The hateful lizard dwindled till it reached its normal size.
And there it sat upon the Earth dejected and forlorn,
Till history began again and you, of course, were born.
And now it waits upon a shelf for someone else to buy it,
It waits to turn another kid into a butter-pirate,
And thence into a scapegoat as it grows and squirts its goo,
The question is, I wonder – will that someone else be you?
Study Guide
1. The label on the lizard's package says, "Chung yung fu fat fung" which is obviously a warning of some kind, written in Chinese. Do you think these are real Chinese words, or did the author just make something up because she was too lazy to do any research? If they are made-up words, do you believe that in the age of the Internet this sort of inattention to detail can be forgiven? Do you believe it makes it funnier if the words are made-up, or has the author accidentally insulted about a billion people and should probably leave the country until things cool down a little?
2. Regardless of whether or not the words are made-up, what do you think the warning is? Do you think a simple warning is enough, or should infinitely-expanding lizards be outlawed? Do you believe that such a ban would infringe on your basic human right to own whatever you want to own, even if it is a danger to other people? If you agree that it does infringe on your individual rights, should you also be allowed to own a large dog who eats only anthrax-and-razorblade kibble and will explode on command? What about a nuclear powered tsunami generator or an active, portable volcano? Should you be allowed to own and operate a killer bee circus? If you have a secret lab, should you be allowed to stitch together a killer whale, a malaria-carrying mosquito, and a box jellyfish into one hideous monstrosity, and then bring it to Bring-Your-Pet-To-School Day? Do you believe that your teacher would think this was entirely reasonable as long as the other students were armed with nunchucks in order to defend themselves?
The question is where do you, personally, draw the line? Do you think that you should be allowed to own dangerous things but other people shouldn't? Do these other people include your brother or sister? Elaborate and defend your position with a poison dart frog or avalanche gun if necessary.
3. In the course of your childhood adventures, have you yourself ever almost accidentally destroyed the Earth? Were you punished for this or are your parents both mad scientists who intend to conquer the globe and use it for their own sinister purposes, and so they patted you on the head and took you out for ice cream?
4. You may be wondering what a scapegoat is and why it's a goat at all and not, say, a skate or a snake. (Of course, the likely reason is because a person can't say scapesnake or scapeskate really fast even just twice without stumbling, and people in ancient times, who already dressed and talked funny, were sensitive about looking even dumber.) A scapegoat used to be an actual real live goat that got blamed for everything – like Mr. Nobody, except that he doesn't eat the labels off tin cans and bleat. In olden times, if you sinned by breaking your mother's best china serving dish, or stole millions of dollars off people through corrupt business practices, it was perfectly acceptable to just blame the goat and let him get in trouble instead of you. "The goat did it" was probably a very popular phrase and eventually, after the goat had done enough, the people would drive it off into the wilderness so they wouldn't have to think about all the broken dishes and Ponzi schemes that had gone so horribly wrong.
Nowadays, a scapegoat is a person who gets blamed for everything even though it isn't that person's fault, and here you know I'm talking about you and that time in class when – well, there's no reason to rehash all the ugly details here. The point is that scapegoating is very wrong and that blaming a goat for stealing millions of dollars from people is also extremely silly. I say blame goats for stealing millions of dollars from people only if they've actually done it. Then you can drive them into the wilderness if you like, but at least they'll be able to afford a nice limousine and a chauffeur.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Poetry for Animals by I. H. Smythe Copyright © 2011 by I. H. Smythe. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Preface....................xiiThe Lizard....................1
Study Guide....................9
Little Love 'ems....................15
Know, Know, Know!....................16
Study Guide....................28
Algebra....................35
Lederhosen....................36
Bonus Hosen....................40
Mister Miserly....................45
Study Guide....................46
Mrs. Misery....................47
Study Guide....................48
First Contact....................49
Study Guide....................61
When Mummy Tucks Me In....................67
When Daddy Gives Me Uppies....................68
When Auntie Takes Me To The Zoo....................69
When Uncle Takes Me Into Space....................70
Chant....................71
Study Guide....................75
The Story of Noah's Ark....................77
Study Guide....................82
Touching....................87
Study Guide....................104
Cheery Bonus Section....................109
Christmas Magic....................111
Easter Magic....................117
Postal Magic....................119
Viral Magic....................121
Dental Magic....................123
Epiphanic Magic....................125
Study Guide....................127
Setting Traps for Santa....................131
Acknowledgments....................135