Ode to the Rhinoceros

Ode to the Rhinoceros

        --侯国金



Oh! I am a big big very big Rhino.

My horn is sharp sharp very sharp.



It is endowed with the dangerous power

Of mocking and poking and pushing and tearing ---

Pigs and Monkeys and Donkeys and Zebras and Lions and Tigers

And all other conceivable self-important brutes fear and hate me.

They all shun and run at the sight of my horny language.

I despise them all and see no point of their dog-eat-dog philosophy.

True. Small is the mud mire yet I love this fine love Eden.

One of the crazy things I enjoy doing time and time again

Is rubbing my dark skin and long lollipop against the stones.

Here my fiancée, equally mud-clothed, and I make love daily.

‘Bonsoir Lily ma belle,’ commences the intercourse.

‘Vous aussie, my dear Mr Handsome, you are clean

And ten times more decent and dignified than the President.’

Yes, modest animals are lovely and they like Rhinoceros

And we stoop to give them the pleasure of our friendship.

Turtles and tortoises lick and make my nostrils itchy.

Colored birds perch on one foot on my high and proud back

Pecking open the dirt shell uncomfortably heavy with bugs.

I am a coy consumer, and yet a big producer, of night soil

And this alone feeds thousands, nay, billions of species:

Beetles, and cockroaches and bees and flies and mosquitoes

Who are in turn prayed upon by crickets and larger birds.



Oh! I am a big big very big Rhino.

My horn is sharp sharp very sharp.

I begin big, and grow bigger till that point.

No respect, nor fear --- I am a born mocker.