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K Balachandran Mar 2013
Cover of morning mist, treacheous
bring them face to face,
in the depth, green darkness of a forest.
A porcupine and a pangolin,
armed to the teeth,
ready to start a war at short notice,
both are not pleased to the least,
this encounter shouldn't have happened,
that thought crosses the minds of both,
the mist is the culprit,
but how do they know that?

If porcupine is equipped with missiles and lances,
pangolin is  protected with armour plates,
both come to understand, in a second,
they stare, with no emotions in display
sniffing the air for even the faintest of signals,
they stand still, rock like, take stock.

A spell of forest seize them, tell a few things
in soft whisper, that humans fails to listen always.
Nature tell them in quick time,
the secret equation of them, in this terrain-
in smells, sounds and a hundred myriad things.

Each one reads the other's face, watch expressions,
then, in a moment the prompt of the nature is clear
Voice of the forest speaks
"Don't waste the spikes, you need them later,
Fighting with a pangolin is a wild goose chase"
"Why fight porcupine, the ant kingdom awaits"
Porcupine and pangolin, listening to the voice of wisdom,
move away quick, as if hit by a lightening
the cover of the mist lends a clever helping hand.
Never ever call me that name again ever

Understood, poacher ?

You know ! This is one reason

I mark my territory,

I don’t give my flesh out easily

I have too much pain associated

With my birth name.

Write it down in capital letters

My name is PANGOLIN MUSE !

Want me to spell it for you ?

P – A – N – G – O – L – I – N  M-U- S - E !

PANGOLIN MUSE!

Stress on the first syllable just as mandolin, please !

That’ll be it for phonetics !

And don’t call me ever something else

whatever, will you ! I’m serious !

Weaned I am not yet !

Or I’ll Flame you with my stinky fluid,

Secretive scent from way over down there,

From my solitary underground burrows !

Or I’ll flame you with my sticky tongue,

Whoever you are

Under the bark !

Or I’ll flame you with eyes wide shut

You know I can hypnotize !

I’m no nocturnal Delicacy

I’m no red hot ant !

Wanna please me ?

You know what ?

Call me just Muse

And put yourself in position;

One Two Three

Scales in

Four Five Six

Scales out

Seven Eight Nine

Curl up

Ten Eleven Twelve

Roll baby roll

Let do the ant and pangolin dance

Stick that tongue out

And try to reach the furthest you can

but first are you willing to hear that old lullaby ?

Eyes naked

Claws Naked.

We have just started the initial steps.

Step one :

We are fully dressed still.

You’re the ant, I’m the pangolin, today !

Tomorrow, vice versa ! Or you’d rather try the contrary ?

Or you’d rather toss head and tails ?

On top or under the bark ?

Horizontal or vertical ?

Perpendicular or Parallel ?

We’re both the visitors of the same bark

Faraway Feathers of the same Wild Wordsmith

Who dreamt once ant and pangolin

So let’s start that ant and pangolin dance.

Now let me slide into you

Like a thirsty moon-mosquito

At the nape of your neck !

Or you’d rather have me

Dive into the very abyss of your niples ?

Let me soothe you softly with my wings of fire

Oh I’ve been yearning for so long

For those pomegranates of you

To quench my thirst

On those purple pillows.
FiguringItOut Jul 2021
Now, this is a story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down
And I'd like to take a minute
Just sit right there
I'll tell you how I became the most non-human trafficked animal for my keratin hair.

In the west Philippines, born and raised
In the burrows of hollow trees is where I spent most of my days,
Chillin' out maxin' relaxin' all young
Eatin' some bugs with my elongated tongue.

When a couple of guys who were up to no good
Started poachin' everythin' in my neighborhood.
My homie got hunted, but my mom made it through
She said 'You're movin' with your auntie and uncle in the zoo.'

I whistled for a conservationist and when they came near
Their license plate said “IUCN” and they had brothers in the rear.
If anything I could say they should drive me too,
So I hopped in the back - 'Yo, homes to the zoo.'

I
       pulled      
                       up to a building about seven or eight
And I yelled to my savior 'Yo homes, smell ya late'
I looked at my kingdom,
Where the poachers couldn’t get to,
As I sat in my enclosure as the Pangolin of the zoo.
Fresh Prince theme but It's a pangolin.  Pretty self-explanatory, I think.
Jayanta Apr 2014
A grass land was there,
Birds use to dance around,
Their song echoed around,
Snake use to wonder around!
A grass land was there,
Porcupine, Rabbits, Pangolin........
Tidy around!
A grass land was there,
Raindrop meanders around!
*
Now only building and terraces are here!
Car and two wheeler running around!
Noise of human voice and machine thunderous around!
People use to say, everything is developing... in and around!

Still I am searching around
The elegant
Birds, their song,
The gorgeous
Snake, their beautiful scroll,
The Splendid raindrop on grass!
Still I am belligerent,  
Powerless to remove my childhood memories!
*
Still searching..........
The grass land....
Birds..............
Snake...................
In the town where I was brought up, a grass land was there, that was our wonder land, now everything replaced by human settlement
K Balachandran May 2012
I am against finding fault
with the Mongolians,
for feeling incongruously-
partial to pangolins.
Muse Reine
Tu veux et tu exiges que je me retienne
Que je ne m'exhibe pas au tout venant
Et que je ne bande que sur ordre exprès de toi
Le cachet de la poste faisant foi
A la minute heure seconde que tu t'es choisie
Pour me déguster à distance.
Tu dis que c'est la présence et non l'absence qui te stimule
Et tu me dis que je te manque
et que ma présence volcanique
Te couvre de toutes parts
en dépit de la distance.
Moi je m'interroge
Et je pense que c'est cette absence qui te met en transe
Et je veux t'aimer profondément dans cette distance
Comme tu n'as jamais été aimée. désirée, choyée, goûtée, savourée
Léchée, embrassée, pénétrée, visitée, hantée, caressée, avalée, touchée
Consommée, étreinte, engrossée, jouie, priée, chantée, dénudée
Comblée, tétée, mordillée, mouillées, aspergé, respectée
Mais pour cela il faut que ton âme et chair soient à nu
Et la nudité dans la distance passe par la photographie ou la vidéo
Et si tu veux que l'oiseau te respecte
Il faut que tu le fasses voler et siffler d'aise à ta vue
Car il n'aspire qu'à cela soir et matin :
Voler au-dessus de tes collines et tes plaines
Plonger dans tes lacs et rivières
Nager dans tes eaux poissonneuses
Plonger son bec dans ta chair ouverte et complice
Et en tirer des petits poissons multicolores et chanteurs
Chuchoter à ton oreille
Les mots qui te font fondre de rires et de désir
Ma muse précieuse et généreuse...
Alors pour t'être agréable ma bien-aimée
C 'est promis juré craché
Désormais je ne banderai plus que des yeux
Je ne banderai plus que des lèvres
Tu pourras me bander les yeux et me bâillonner les lèvres
Tant que tu voudras
Je banderai encore
Et si cela ne suffit pas
Pour te prouver mon amour
Je banderai aussi des oreilles et du nez
Je banderai des mains et des doigts de pieds
Je banderai de ma langue
Mi pangolin mi orphie
Je banderai de mon ombre
Une fois deux fois trois fois
Autant de fois qu'il le faudra
Ce ne sera jamais dans le vide
Car je banderai en toi
Et même l'air qui t'environne
Le soleil et la lune banderont de concert
Jusqu'à ce que nous soyons orphies nues, chair et arêtes en rut,
Sublimement réunis pour notre danse farandole et tantrique
Enfin retrouvée.
Francie Lynch Apr 2020
While cruising Corona on the net,
I saw pangolins not eaten yet.
Many, you see, believe its scales,
Are cure-alls to cure whatever ails.
And its meat festoons the rich Asian table.

Who ate the pangolin from head to toe.

China lauds its laws to say they save
The endangered pangolins,
At home, in Asia;
Yet in Wuhan, locked live in cages,
In wet markets like our Dark Ages,
The scaly pangolin is sold.

But Revenge,
We know,
Is a dish best served cold.
nivek Apr 2021
Man will trade in almost anything
or maybe that should have read, everything.
Nos chemins se sont croisé et décroisé
A distance
Nous étions pèlerins de jeux antédiluviens.
Nous nous sommes envoûté de mots
Et de rêves d'ombres et de chair
Et seuls nos mots peuvent désensorceler
Nos sangs et nos dieux archaïques.
Nos mots sont des onguents, des potions magiques
Des philtres et des pommades
Dotés de pouvoirs incomparables.
Ce sont des déictiques et embrayeurs
Ils accomplissent par la seule force du Verbe.
Instantanément.

Nos mots sont des poudres miracles dont nous baptisons nos envies
Et ils sécrètent leurs propres antidotes.

Il ne nous restait plus qu'à les mettre en scène,
Titiller nos mamelons lubriques,
Mordiller le creux de nos nuques et aisselles,
En dansant la danse des dugongs ou des pangolins
Mais chacun a sa propre lecture
Son propre phrasé
Et le déhanchement des Muses Dugongs
N'est en rien celui du Poète Pangolin.
Rendez-vous posthume, donc.
Aujourd'hui j'attendais ma muse
Sans trop me faire d'illusions
Comme chaque matin de mes jours
Je lui ai préparé son café et ses billets doux
Mais ma muse boude depuis quatre jours et quart
Ma source d'eaux charnelles s'est desséchée
Ma muse n'est plus ma muse
Pas même un filet de muse chez le poissonnier ou le boucher
Ma muse ne fait plus mumuse
Ma muse tarie ne frissonne plus
Ne viendra pas jouer mon ombre
Ne jouira plus de mes délires d'orphie.
C’est un fait accompli, mûri, implacable
Et je me rends aux évidences.
Mais l'oiseau est têtu et bande encore de joie
Sur l'élan magistral qu'elle lui a impulsé :
Je mordille, je griffe, je câline,
Je bois, je lèche, je grignote,
La distance qui nous lie désormais
Lentement comme une corde raide
Un pacte d'amour courtois
Inébranlable,
Irremplaçable .
Jessie Schwartz Feb 2018
Forgotten Patriarch…by Jessie 2/07

Forty seasons twice removed
A single snowflake falls
Colorless days, in shades of gray
Trapped within four walls
No one visits; no one cares
Forgotten patriarch
Tiny room; drab and cold
Sterile, white and stark
Crystal clear half the day
Empty all the rest
Many times, lost in transition
Finding life a test
Once a month a note is sent
Seemingly to care
Hours pass, staring at the words
In optimistic stare
On the wall behind the bed
Hanging is a clock
Marking time religiously
As the pangolin swings and rocks
Time has slowed to trap this soul
Won’t release it to its fate
Stuck within this stasis
At an agonizing rate
Ken Pepiton Feb 2022
LORD said, These have no master:
let them return every man to his house in peace.

From <https://biblehub.com/kjvs/1_kings/22.htm>

There came a time,
when none found peace,
on any channel there is war, and old tropes
from when aldous
huxley was running suggestions past ivy lee and freud's
nephew, new-thinking, yes, resonant, isn't it
eddy bernays, yes, the sizzle sell. And,
get to the yeses, all the promises
are yeses

lovely, lovely, lovely,
how easily we seem to live on TV, if it gets too gritty,
-oh fool me, once, hahaha
it has, it has gotten too, many grinding high friction,
on backsides warmed with old time religion,
-woodshed discussions were never discussed
nor was curiosity praised,
for asking if the grown ups knew what Miss Kitty's
girls did, down at the Long Branch, in Dodge City,
when it was wet,
and streets were muddy,
and had wooden side walks…. on the radio
Gunsmoke
Spurs into the saloon,
why sure, some fool's would.
But once.
You know, wanting to make the sound
of Marshall Dillon, coming through

old cobwebbed swing doors, as accurate as any
on black & white TV, the sound
of his spurs
on the boards,
made my grandma laugh.

We came exploring under the oath
of eternal hostility

and if need be, opposing force, prepositioned
in every way, upto 150,

and upto as well, if upto is not a valid preposition,
it is a position, I can conserve.
I take it all the time,
breathing upto and no more, no matter,
I can't explode, inhalation ceases
and I can't explode in rage,
by ceasing to exhale or ****.
-so
As to the power of oath it is seeming universal,
in the era of 5G unlimited plans, and shared
subscriptions,
publishers clearing house, trained sales force,
the biggest ever, at its height,
I was in that class, bright futures,
1962 Eighth graders in rural America sold more
magazine subscriptions than you may imagine,
as preparation for a future,
when sales is the only gig in town, and
nobody
is making any thing worth the pitch to patch the leaks,
it’s the same old story,
slowing down, settling for less, and saying that's enough,

but fully expecting too much on the backswing,
as we follow through, the amatuer guile, eh, act innocent

be one of miss kitty's girls, like on tv, but at Disneyland,
did they play the role, or
never know the whole, link to now from when,

the west was wild, big white men with guns,
came to tame it,
open many long branches… before Prohibition

Fifty more years, every body forget but AI, remembers,
Black Elk danced.

Backtalk to my professorial betters, ah
behave myself,
don't act like
ol' Johnny Apache, mockin' Annie Oakley wannabe
in Purple Santa Fe fringed leather jacket,
accented by rare Wuhan Pangolin
boots, belt, and saddle bag purse,
and a Caspel Twid straw hat, like Cher wore in People.

heh, hey Annie,
getcher gun, shoot me, I ain't good, I ain't dead,
or some such he said,
and he passed me his jug of Mogen David,
I took a pull,
just as no ****, a sheriffs deputy who had not
been shot, when he shoulda been,
in that Jamaica guy's song,
- Johnny's brother Jonah,  joined us in jail
- he was pretty bad shape, that night
- pukin' blood, and retchin'
the deputy at night was also oughta be dead, kinda man,
Johnny let me know later, that night in jail in 1970,
Cottonwood Arizona, I know,
I have told this story, too many times to make sense,

I also know Fred Douglas wrote his whole story
and published it, five times, as it rolled out….
over the years…
-thing reconnect, you gotta know the knots

so if I have the time and inclination,
and I happen to find a common sense, a mean measure,
- so much and no more,
- full of all thought about that and I agree

where all the rain that ever fell on me, at that time
once fell on someone you love, too, at the same time,
same rain,
some time, one time, I thought of that and thought of you,
because you read this line. And you thought so, too,
you said to yourself, life makes no sense,

if you feel you need to row your boat, or tote your weight,
this is an hour at the end of a happy life,

where cares were cast to mull over, wondering,
how did we get from then to now,
without being
normalized?
Mentally backtalking Victor Davis Hansen, as an old first earth day hippy, one year after Vietnam.
nivek Sep 2023
inhumane
images
of animals
being held up
by their tails
I wondered today if anyone was recording in high definition this World in caution? kisses banned, so’s holding hands, but wash your hands a lot or you might miss to ‘Out that ****’d spot’.

How apt, a spot, a circle, a corona, isn’t that a beer? Let’s all now cheer for key workers, clap for nurses the NHS, let’s forget what started this mess, was it China? A pangolin? A Mandarin?

Conspiracy theories abound, they’re all doing the rounds, oh look it snuck back in, abound, around, they’re all circular sounds, circle back to the start, wash your hands.....’Out that ****’d spot’.
© JLB
15/05/2020
20:41 BST
Jun Lit Mar 2020
Our story starts as the song began
to play, asking where should one begin,
astonished at how great a love can be.
‘Twas not as infectious as the Time of Cholera
not as romantic as Marquez’s novela clásica,
or perhaps it is, in its own right, our own right.

Those were the days of living dangerously
in these islands fair, an archipelagic country
our chains were shorter and barking was difficult
as it was the first time, postwar, we’ve gone to the dogs
and the fake war hero proclaimed himself emperor
edifices hid the emptying of coffers by the great robbers
in the guise of benevolence, murderers drew terrors.

We survived the winters of Canberra
judged as mild by the lands of auroras
and back in the humid slopes of the tropics
perspiring to survive the inhospitable heat
and when respite’s within reach, suddenly
Yolandas of all sorts would pass by
and humbled, but still composed
we stood our ground. It seems the force
was with us, whatever that means.
Natural selection favored us, or did it?

These days are the times when little things
mean a whole lot more. Perhaps far more
than old friends and friends of Old
recount, Kitty Kallens of night shifts
and days of overtime work down under
in the land of gums and wattles
and jumping moms with their joeys.
Memories of the immense joys
that chancing upon an Aussie two-dollar coin brings
along the road to Civic – enough to buy veggies
to be mixed with instant Chinese noodles or some
fish and chips for a late brekkie. The grasses
on the friendly neighbors’ lawns are frozen
and could not be mowed and manicured
to yield ten dollars an hour. No weekend three hours.
And yet, and still, we lived. Had a life, our lives.

These days, indeed, little things
mean a whole lot more. Social distancing.
That’s the rule. And so we blow a kiss
from across the room. But tell me I’m nice
only after I’ve showered and changed my clothes
to decent office wear. We’re officially on work from home
so please don’t take a video of me sleeping on the couch
or singing a line or two on online videoke channel.
Can’t touch your hair, until I’ve washed my hands
with soap and water while singing ‘Happy Birthday’ twice
- no more alcohol nor sanitizer in the supermarkets -
nor pass near one’s chair. We’re on self-quarantine,
fearing unwanted previous exposure to the dreaded,
dreadful Wuhan virus, while shopping, and holding hands
while walking. The long-term asthmatic cough a suspect.
And we better be detained as no formal charge is possible
no trial could be done in a fair court, for we are the victims,
actual or potential, imagined or real, pauper or royal.

COVID19 is the villain in this so grandiose reality
of a horror booth show, and its molecules point to an ancestry
related to the bats or the pangolin or the engineering laboratory.
The plot is set with the sweet unraveling of our love – we need
not hoard this feeling, our hearts aren’t rolls of Oz tissue paper.  

Love has evolutionary history – the length of time’s an eon of we,
approaching senior years but still together, gracefully, lovingly
growing old in decades-long phylogeny – a novel, a love story
that will go beyond this Covidocene, this epoch, this age that’s crazy
and full of misery - brought to life human’s inhumanity.
But still no choice but to give another chance, patiently,
to the forever young Muse named Hope, shall we, shouldn’t we?
as the WHO preaches that ‘Solidarity is the Key.’
written for World Poetry Day 2020
James Floss Jun 2018
Once, a
Pangolin
Met a
Penguin
North or
South of
The Equator
You’re bird?
You’re mammal?
You’re funny!
You make me smile!
One waddled away
One rolled away
North or
South of
The Equator

THE END
Mon Alius

Et si l'on effaçait d'un saut dans le vide

Du chemin de la Caféière

D'un commun accord, la barrière de ce cimetière,

Dont l'écorce défunte déploie ses quatre-chemins

entre le pangolin et la fourmilière ?

Mon Alter,

Et si au lieu de se poursuivre,

A coups de **** bougie,

De se frôler à se confondre,

On enterrait la flamme tremblante de sueur qui nous hache

Et nous envoie valdinguer de terrier en terrier

en zigzaguant comme des crabes en déshérance

Dans des toiles d'araignées musicales?

Mon I

Si on signait unilatéralement de nos pas pour la xième fois

A la énième heure du énième jour du énième mois

Un énième armistice sur un air de calypso

Sous le haut patronage de Mighty Sparrow ?

Mon Ombre

Abolissons donc cette frontière de pulpe rouge,

Cette parche mince qui nous encapsule,

Plongeons ensemble dans l'eau torréfiée

De la rivière de rhum qui dévale du volcan

Et dansons notre calypso en couple sans meneur

Sans frein, sans selle, sans harnais

Soyons cavaliers et montures de nous mêmes ! Et vice-versa !

Menons ensemble notre transe

— The End —