Through varied ocean habitats
Queer fish, shimmering, roam the range.
Bewildering diversity
To us, on land, appears quite strange.
From Goby to the great Whale Shark,
Their weight can rise to twenty tons!
Such queer fat whales—one might remark;
(but this offends the skinny ones...)
Some are bloodthirsty; others timid.
They burrow, swim, walk, fly, breathe air...
Do not irritate. Leave them placid
To their submarine affair.
Aquatic warning/parting wish:
Avoid the highly venomous fish.
There are more than 40,000 kinds of fish in the world.
Their habitats range from the profoundest depths of the seas to cold lakes and brooks on mountain timberlines.
They show a bewildering diversity in their ways of life.
The smallest of fish is a Philippine goby, less than a third of an inch long and weighing a fraction of an ounce.
The largest is the whale shark, found in all warm seas. Some individuals exceed twenty tons.
Some fish burrow in the mud, some swim, some walk, some fly, some breathe air.
Some are timid, some bold and bloodthirsty. Some are placid, some easily irritated. Some are highly venomous.
One, found in Australian waters, weighs nearly half a ton and has poison barbs a foot long.
Some of the deadliest are among the most beautifully colored.
PROMPT #4
write a poem in which you take your title or language/ideas from
The Strangest Things in the World. First published in 1958, the book gives shortish descriptions of odd natural phenomena, and is notable for both its author’s turn of phrase and intermittently dubious facts.
