Category Archives: Animals

Katydid? What did Katydo? For dVerse Poets

Click on photos to enlarge. Can you find the katydid in the  third photo?

 

Katydid? Just What Did Katy Do?

If you were in a salad or a stir fry, I would have taken you for a pea pod,
crunched you right down with the next forkful.
But instead you stand in bright green relief against the gray trash can lid,
stroking your proboscis with your curious hand shaped like a snake’s tongue.
Your six legs in graduated pairs:  long, longer, longest
bend constantly in 360 degree angles
as each moves in turn to your anemone mouth
which plays each like a piano
trying to stroke music from the keys.
As hand after foot after foot
vanishes into your mouth––
front flap like an apron hanging down––
I wonder if you are perhaps feeding
on nourishment too minuscule for human eyes.

Your broad chest expands and deflates like a bellows.
Praying mantis, grasshopper, leaf-hopper, pea pod––
Whatever it is you most resemble––none have your talent or your wing power.
Your alien protuberant eyes like small yellow beebees.
Now trapped in my jar, you define your glass prison with leg after leg, like a mime.
Colorful strayer from a world of green,
what do you make of this white world of mine?
I have stolen you for a closer look, and for this short hour,
You have enthralled me with your alien looks.
Your mystery.
So much I’ve been told of everything here in this new land strange to me,
each from a different point of view,
that now I feel the need to look at everything more closely for myself.
But you, in a jar, perhaps not knowing you are observed,
farm each foot in turn for something so infinitesimal,
then drum drum the glass.
“What is there?” you seem to ask.
“What is this new world?”
Nothing to nourish you here.
I sit staring in at you.
That artichoke mouth doesn’t look made for singing,
opening like petals of a flower as you put your foot in it.
Like an old man pushing himself backwards
from piece of furniture to piece of furniture,
you limp around the glass on geriatric legs and padded feet.

We move to the terrace,
where I put you down
On the leaf of a geranium
in the crumbling pot up on the wall.
Putting your heels down first,
you test each new leaf for it’s ability to support or give.
Each hand and foot is like a tiny forked penis hanging from green testicles–
the penis one forked finger, mining space
then gripping the leaf, fore and aft as your
anemone mouth
moves over it like a slice of watermelon
held the wrong way––
not side to side like a calendar illustration,
but front to back, even bites
increasing its inside arc.
In five minutes, one-fourth of the leaf is gone.
and you move to another
like a child with a cookie in each hand.
My ink run out, I leave you
And when I come back, you are invisible
against the potted geranium that I have set you down in.
Your mouth like a different insect
reaches tendril arms out for the leaf edge,
takes sharp bites–like a leaf cutter ant.
The white front flap of your mouth
sweeping the diminishing leaf edge like a vacuum cleaner.
One-quarter of the leaf gone in five minutes.
You fly to the tree branch next to me, startling me,
as finally we stand eye-to-eye at the same level.
You stand more clearly defined,
for you are the yellow green of geranium,
not the dark green of this tree.
Here you are more blended in shape than color

As you change your diet––
eating not the leaves, but stems of leaves––
you rock on a hobby horse of legs.
Your chest like bagpipes
expands and releases,
rippling like an air balloon.
Now that so many of your mysteries have been revealed,
I solve your only secret left––
the origin of your song.
You play “Las Mananitas” for your lady,
with your compadres joining for the chorus,
one wing your violin,
the other your bow.
My night newly passionless,
fills with the sounds of yours.

 

To hear Katydids, you can go HERE. And for a fascinating closeup video of what I experienced first hand above, go HERE.

This is a poem I wrote about a katydid many years ago.Go HERE to read other poems written for the dVerse Poets prompt to write a poem about an animal. If you want to see the prompt, go HERE.

Cows and Coos, for Monday Portraits

Okay, I just got last Monday’s Portrait published and here comes another Monday Portrait post from Jez entitled, the “Soggy Coo.”  His was of the bovine variety, but here are my coos of two varieties, bovine and avian:

Click on photos to enlarge.

And here is an earlier post I did on Coos of the bovine variety: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/04/21/cows-i-have-known/

Elephants Now and Then

Here is my recent acquisition of elephants hand-crocheted by women in my village.  Much as I do not need any more objects in my house, I couldn’t resist.

You can see my earlier elephants in this blog: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2017/12/29/two-facts-most-significant-in-considering-the-elephant/

 

Posted for Monday Portraits: An Elephant  Aletta at Nowathome suggested this non-sponsored prompt. You can see her elephant HERE.

 

From the Horse’s Mouth

From the Horse’s Mouth

Since I come from where the horses live,
you’ll find these words superlative.

More than one savvy equine
has told me that it’s asinine
to expect a horse to dine
on hamburger or pork or fishes,
for it goes against his wishes.

If he gives in to your urges,
you can soon expect his purges.
Burger, hot dog, tail or fin
will soon come out where it’s gone in!
Don’t seek to change what horses eat,
for if you do, you’ll meet defeat.

Word prompts today are vivid, urge, asinine, defeat and superlative.

 

 

Bearcat

 

Bentley, Bearcat and Patti arrived at my house in the belly of their mother when I lived in Boulder Creek, CA in 1987.

Of the three kittens and mother cat who joined me shortly after I moved to our all-redwood house in the redwoods of California in 1987, only Bearcat was still alive when I moved to Mexico in 2001. Sadly, he drowned in my pool a few months later.  I was devastated.  This was his epitaph, written as a string of kennings for a NaPoWriMo prompt in 2014.

Bearcat
1987-2002
R.I.P.

back lofter
tail wafter
gray bearer
drape tearer
ball loser

lap chooser
bunny slayer
shoelace player
sofa climber
sleep mimer
shadow springer
dragonfly bringer
lizard de-tailer
spider nailer
basement searcher
window ledge percher
tree dweller
mouse smeller
dog chaser
bug caser
door crack peeper
sunbeam sleeper
woods walker
squirrel stalker
rail balancer
prey glancer
shadow catcher
love hatcher
body spinner
heart winner

 

 

for dVerse poet’s word-play prompt: Kenning
To read other word-play poems from those answering the same prompt, go HERE.

Escargot

Escargot

I am an ally of the truth, which lives the whole world over,
hiding beneath leaves of grass or hyacinths or clover.

A tiny snail detective, sliding slowly with no sound,
scoping out a food source over every edge and mound—

with its single jaw at work, nature’s innovation
cleans up all her messes with its constant mastication.

Cutter ants march by like time, disposing hour by hour,
of beauty we aren’t finished with, flower after flower,

but the snail goes gliding by, almost beyond detection,
eating everything in sight—less picky in selection.

From animal waste to fungus, and even other snails,
the appetite of gastropods seemingly never fails.

And then, ludicrous humans, knowing not what they do,
themselves devour these creatures who deign to dine on poo!

 

Prompt words today are snail,  innovation, detective, march, ally and clover.

Winter Provisioning

Winter Provisioning

The cows are in the pasture, plump but in the nude,
watching for their daily hay bales to be renewed.
My prestigious assignment is to drive the truck
while Daddy tips the hay bales off, for he has all the luck!
The cows think he’s their savior while I’m just the chauffeur.
So though my appearance does not cause a stir,
when they see his welcome face, they speed by in a blur
to break into the hay bales that my dad has spread,
and that is how in winter, daily, our cows are fed!!!

 

Prompts today are plump, renew, prestigious, watch, assignment and pasture. Image by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.

Mosquito Bump Blues

Mosquito Bump Blues

This strain of mosquito is so sanctimonious
because it claims its droning is indeed harmonious.
According to their drone master, they drone in harmony
depending on their sting site: ear or arm or knee!

They’re trying to get a copyright on harmonies they’ve written
according to locations simultaneously bitten,
but alas they don’t write music so they cannot win the rights
to music just recorded by the pattern of their bites!

Prompt words today are mosquito, strain, sanctimonious, according, copyright.  Image by Jimmy Chan on Pexel.

Doggie Drama


What are the chances that I would capture this action while I was exercising in the pool? But, I had noticed a large golden-orb weaver spider on my neighbor’s wall and although I knew it was too far away to get a good photo, I was listening to an Audible book and the phone was in reaching distance, so I thought I’d try. Coco and Zoe jogged over to check out my action and this is what resulted. Since i was holding the camera in my hands, I captured most of it, other than the recovery action which meant I had to set the camera down. Please click on photos to enlarge and read the story.