I have fought against the poodle with his gory, deadly paws;
I have faced the fearsome kitten, wild and bony,
And somehow I’ve evaded the enormous chomping jaws
Of the frighteningly ferocious Shetland pony.
My triumph o’er the rabbit is now sung throughout the land,
And men still speak in whispers of the day
When, attacked by twelve mosquitoes, with my one unwounded hand,
I killed nine of them and dove the rest away.
I have faced the housefly in his lair, I have stalked the ladybug
And the caterpillar, grim and fierce and hairy;
That trophy there is bumblebee, and this, my favourite rug,
Has been fashioned from the hide of a canary.
I have dove into the ocean to do combat with a shrimp,
I have dared the hen to come on out and fight;
I have battled with the butterfly (that’s why I have this limp),
And I slew a monstrous grubworm just last night.
But this evening I must sally forth to meet the savage moth,
And if I don’t come back in time for tea,
You shall know that I fell gallantly, as gallantly I fought
So please be gentle when you speak of me.

—————

The End

And that’s the End of the Poem

© Poetry Monster, 2021.

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Some external links: The Bat’s Poetry Cave. — Fledermaus’s poetry site. Talking Writing Monster. — the irreverent and irrelevant chatter on subjects both serious and not quite. A free for all board. You can scribble anything on it without registration (but it doesn’t let spammers in). You can even post your poems. Qwant.com. — a search engine from France. It’s an alternative because there are a few alternatives, like Bing, Duckduckgo, and Ecosia. And there is Yandex, the ultimate language-oriented search engine for the Russophone world. Commercial Links: Russian Commerce – the foreign trade assistance agency Other links: Poems and poetry in Russian (if you are reading this in English, as you obviously are, then you’d have to switch the language, the language switch is on the menu. More on languages)

Shel Silverstein
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