Today I travelled deep inside my head
Where thoughts cavort and play:
Mind-creatures, you might say.
The enigmatic cat
Kept her thoughts to herself,
But the servile dog,
Ever eager to please,
Pretended my thoughts were his thoughts.
The zebra thought in black and white
And the hippopotamus
In different shades of grey.
The ostrich tried to bury her thoughts in the sand,
While the flamingo meditated on one leg like a yogi.
The sloth and slug had sluggish thoughts,
The moth and bug had buggish thoughts,
And the rottweiler and pit bull terrier had, well, thuggish thoughts.
The cow's thoughts always ruminative,
The glow-worm's quite illuminative.
The giraffe's thoughts high and elevated,
The chimpanzee's sophisticated.
The eagle's thoughts were bold and soaring,
But the wild boar's thoughts were, frankly, boring.
The owl had very wise thoughts,
The chameleon disguised thoughts.
The rabbit had only one thing on his mind,
And that was to replicate more of his kind.
The March hare had mad thoughts,
And the wolf big, bad thoughts.
The elephant pondered a life of longevity,
But the mayfly one of brevity.
The raven had thoughts of death and dying,
While the lemming went over the edge without even trying.
Later I herded up my thoughts
And caged the whole menagerie,
But they escaped into the vortex
Of the cerebral cortex.
And now I have no thoughts at all.
So tomorrow I will explore the heart.
A dangerous terrain. I have no chart.
A place where great white sharks patrol an ocean
Of submerged feelings and drowned emotion.
When are you going to publish this one!!!!
ReplyDeleteI think it would make a wonderful illustrated book for children and adults. Although I'm not a big fan of the Animalia series by Graeme Base, his illustrated books come to mind when I read this.
You have definitely spurred me on. I'm sending it to a children's book publisher I used to work for asap. They may know a suitable illustrator. If they like it, that is. Wish me luck!
ReplyDeleteYes! I am a total amateur with poetry but this one is so appealling - delightfully playful with the a sense of the ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteHow wonderful it would be to be published.
Do you know Graeme Base's work...he is hugely successful with kids and parents with his books which are often full of the animals in your poem. He writes his own stuff and naturally I am thinking too grand but I wonder whether he would go into collarboration with a writer and do illustrations ...gee, I'm sounding like I know something about publishing when I don't and I know you have worked in the business...anyone, good luck and keep us all informed!