Beavertown in Egypt

The Beaver is making his digs

Indirectly assisting Hippos ferrying over 

Desert Dunes near the banks amongst twigs

What? A new pipeline crossing, Dude!

Floating on the Nile the 

Beaver slaps its tail

It booms 

The sound from that slap sends 

Fear across its neighbours

A tail always ready to whack

A tail threatened can overreact.

What to do?  What for? 

Spit out some Cold Peanuts -or just any plain ol' nut 

Step and crunch on it

There's a buzz overhead 

Just by the shore.

Fire! Bang Bang! Let's even the score.

We are south of the Straight of Hormuz

This courageous beaver,

Swims underwater -without a snorkel

Bubbling, artfully making a comeback to the shores

Drones above hardly take notice

Hey! Was it their noise, that merited the slap?

Good swimmers, beavers learn to steer and navigate with their tail

And on land, they "tail up" to gain a few inches to gnaw down a tree

Or just gnaw to gnaw

When in Ancient Egypt beaver damns flooded the 

Bathroom of Queen Cleopatra

And plumbers didn't know how to deal with the

Glug, glug, glug.

It was said weeks were needed 

To debug her drain that was full of slugs

Today our Beaver  paddles through oily  waters 

In a military zone where

Hydrocarbons seep into its thick fur.

At night this industrious Egyptian mammal 

Dreams 

Not of green forests nor polka dot mushrooms, 

Rather of large pipes seeping black oil on the sand that reflect a dark sky 

Dreams of oil tankers without

Transponders going Ping! Ping! Ping!

The beaver hears a splash and  squints its eyes 

It sees an upside down black duck

Dunking its orange beak into the murky waters

The usual

Then it edges towards a metal door emitting a low sounding buzz 

It's an uranium cache, 

a good place to spend the night

And snuggle against the desert's cold

Yet weeks later the beaver's tail glows in the darkness

Even the silent hippos take notice of the freaky scenario

The hard working  beaver knows there is a price to pay 

Hormuz, a household name, is a nightmare

The furry vessel knows it is traversing a critical line 

Eat, eat, its Mum would say

Some crispy scarabs and chewy worms will do

Kismet has it that this mighty animal is always 

Humble of its achievements.

Just examine its teeth shining from having chewed through a recent pipeline.

 

The Croissant on the Fence

 

I lived in a house

A fenced in house 

That gently divided me from my friendly neighbour Anne

And since so friendly she was

On Sunday mornings

I

Swung by the bakery 

Always picking up  and extra croissant for Anne

For Anne delighted in each delivery 

Flowering me with French expressions of gratitude 

"Oui, vous êtes trop gentil, monsieur!"

This lasted some years till one day Anne was gone

An unexpected move that nobody saw

Her back yard that she always attended to was empty

Her cat, Mimi, that she always watched over and 

Went on little walks with as if it were a dog

Was nowhere to be heard or seen

A winter season after Anne's departure

I was set to leave on my bike

(The Sunday croissant was never a question

Crispy and light, with a fine slab of butter and jam)

And there, low and behold

Was a Croissant

Poked between the fence's stakes 

No Anne

No Mimi

Just a fresh Croissant waiting to be loved and chewed.

Cleopatra and Alysa Liu

I Cleopatra! 

The daughter of Ptolemy the 12th

Known by many for I rolled myself up in a carpet to get to meet the Emperor Caesar 

Who? These days I dream of Alysa Liu!

Her spinning on ice

Her broader than cat smile

Her squiggly golden tiger stripes

Making waves in her hair

Why should I ever accept being my brother's heir? 

Tempestuous, fulminating bastardly brat 

That 

Ptolemy XIII 

Boring as a doormat! 

I Cleopatra! 

The Queen of Kings!

Need something cool like

Skating

Around the Giza in the form of Pie

Skating with

Alisa Liu 

Just stick a blade on my shoe

And lets shove off onto 

This mammouth deposited Siberian Ice 

My priest says

He's afraid I shall fall

Sprain a vein and cry

For healing before Horus's House

This Queen only prays

To follow Alysa to the dance hall

And smile her smile

And scoop up Caesar 

And Mark-Anthony on the way.

All is good Alysa Liu

Who

at 22 

Could sashay her gold medal 

Doing a routine

As tricky as the most complex Egyptian tattoo

Too, too, you deserve a cereal box with your

Name on it too.

Positon for the Directer of Human Torture

 In Ancient Egypt

On papyrus 

A job opening for a director of human torture

Was deciphered 

To restore a lost sense of pride from the previous director

Who contented himself with stuffing something like 

100 Q-tips up the nose

This temple cleaning resulted in the hiring of 

Amenemhat, a truly self-important supporter of

the Pharaoh 

Mind you

A type who came home chiming

"Honey, I found a new nail to drive through adult skulls"

(This is when he was an intern, a greenhorn at the job. )

Hence Amenemat was a progressive chap

Slaves had to be harnessed

Broken but not too much

Threatened yet offered a little light

A chance for their freaky misadventure 

That would lead them to become avatars

Represented on stone reliefs for millennia 

Amenemhat prepared for the interview

He knew a bad showing could commit himself to being a slave

He conjectured it was worth it

Even if it meant ending up in a pigs grave.

He spoke in the highest terms with regard to Horus

He made a drawing of a new torture device 

And the job was awarded with a nod from

Anubis

 The contract was signed even though the job didn't offer

Health care 

And under the blazing Sun

He walked out of the temple feeling like a 

Billionaire.

Cowbells on the move

 

Unthaa Albaqara Daisy is a Syrian cow whose eyes are said to glow

Some say it's unusual because it moos in a falsetto. 

What's even more unusual is that its  cowbell it wears dates back to 1914

A Swiss cow named Diamantine was working in Verdun

A bomb sent by the enemy blasted from bottom to  top of the 

Tree line and 

Shrapnel scattered all around. 

Diamantine should have suffered grave injuries except 

Her cowbell deflected a large object destined for her throat

Over many years, Wanda, the  owner, ranted about this miracle

But beyond a doubt, Diamantine couldn't have cared less

She was the kind of cow that lived with little stress.

Decades later, in a French flea market the cowbell was sold

It made its way to Syria near Aleppo, I'm told 

Unthaa Albaqara Daisy became the next bearer of this bell

But one day a bomb exploded in a nearby field

And the sound of the blast was tenfold 

Unthaa Albaqara Daisy

Didn't need a sales pitch

It hit the ditch

A nearby chicken pen was decimated

A year of repairs were estimated

God willing Unthaa was fine

Thanks to her cowbell her injuries were benign

Such a wonderful story 

Sounds circulatory 

And may only affect your if you're open to

All things bovine.

Square the circle, to live the impossible dream.

 

"Daddy, will I ever be as square as you?"

Said the son to father

"For starters, you need to square your shoulders"

"And the I can carry 'em watermelons?"

"It takes balance to carry watermelons"

"Even square ones"

"Son, don't rock the block"

"Dad, mom says to stay away from circles. Why?"

"Cause circles 'ain't square."

"Dad, at school the teacher  says I'm outta square."

"You're talking about Ms Quadratto?"

"Yeh"

"Learn to get square with her."

"Yeh"

The Hook and the Hat

The Hook and the Hat got along

If one day the hook would be hooking the Hat

The other 

The Hat would over Hook the Hook

There was no opposition

The fit was by definition

A way a hat wearer can 

Make that transition from

Having the hat on the head to the Hook.

Ha Ha, one day the Hat was gone

The Hook awaited and waited

Yet even if it tried it could never be withdrawn

Yet it longed

For a hat  to be deposited from Kazakhstan, Teheran, Marrakesh or anywhere

Which kept the sun from burning a dark tan line on the wearer's forehead

It longed for 

A real Hat 

Nothing fleeing or hovering 

A Hat with a passport and a valid ID from the land of Sombrero

A proper Hat, not a Cap

In other words

Nothing a Tomcat would yawn at

If the Hat fell flat off the Hook

Unresponsive

The Hat would say it was the fault of a Democrat

Or a Wombat

Just get used to the floor, it's your new microhabitat.