V.Krishnaraj
Mus and Rus and the pious cat
There was a house mouse by name Mus; he called his future spouse Rus.
It was mush at first sight; he gave her a big rush.
Mus and Rus went on a date, fell in love, and soon exchanged vows
In front of a mischief of mice and timorous cows.
Sentinel mice kept a watch because of catnips in the field;
The local cats came there for a splash of catnip cologne,
And lunching on mice, frogs, reptiles, or birds and munchy blades of grass.
They took postprandial catnaps with one cat watching out for catnappers.
Crapulous cows made fressing forays on tender leaves, stems, buds and flowers,
Became bold and boisterous and suffered from a case of munchies.
Surly sentinels knew the cows were doping on THC.
Further out, loping horses were exercising their muscles.
In the nearby zoo, mooning koalas sat motionless on the V of the trees.
They snored, belched and bellowed out of proportion to their size.
The monkeys snickered at the koalas, screeched, scratched and smooched.
The birds in the nearby cages, disconcerted by the monkeys,
Flapped their wings, and cawed, crowed and cried.
This set in motion the polyonymous calls of the wild in the zoo.
The swots among the visitors made onomatopoetic sounds,
Identifying them with the wild vocalists.
The ducks moved in water without causing a ripple,
As their paddle feet were set to cruise control.
Dabbling ducks in the shallow marsh, lakeshore and golf course,
Were wobbling along and feeding on plants, grass, seeds and crops.
Their tails upped, as their bills dipped;
The tails never failed to tip up at every dip of the heads.
Diving ducks dove to fill the bills with mollusk.
The doves were billing and cooing, when they were not pecking on rusk.
The Great Ape House and Garden housed chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans.
The orange-loving orangs stayed mostly on the trees except during lockup.
Orangutan, the wild man of the forest, sports orange and red shag and shock.
They brachiate from tree to tree where the boughs and bowers
Of neighboring trees meet, smooch, kiss, rustle and rastle.
They are really the gentlest brutes of the rainforest.
In the zoo, on his birthday he gets imported durian, a can of peas, canapé, and fruits.
In the thick of jungle, he eats durian straight from the tree, shoots, leaves and fruits.
In the wild, he places a long call for a mate over the airwaves that travel over the canopy.
His big cheek flaps and loud long calls are some of his virile assets
Inviting a female for mating, who is a shrewd judge of flaps and calls.
Rus and Mus lived in a house flush with carpet, cheese, nuts, and grains.
They invited neighbors from other houses for cheese and crackers
And gnawing on wood and fibers to keep incisors snip-sharp.
The lonely church mouse who ventured out very little
Was invited as the guest of honor for his humility and piety.
A night of gaiety and levity would serve him well, they thought.
His oft-told story line in parties is, “I sat pat on a mat and fought a fat cat,
A bat, and a rat, wearing a hat, whacked their slats and put them in a vat.”
He was a modest mouse from Modesto, Ca, who hitchhiked
In a truck and landed in the present locale. The long-tailed alehouse mouse
Who was hale once, was pale from too many cocktails.
The Modesto mouse put him on a diet of Fe-fortified cereal.
The alehouse mouse is a paradigm of ruddy health now.
The field mice doused and soused the jaunty penthouse mouse in the punch bowl.
Another alehouse mouse came to the party in a tipsy lurch.
He tippled liquor spills and ate crumbs at the pub.
The house mice tipped plain soda on him to sober him up.
The sentinels stopped a bandicoot from East Indies.
They bandied explosive words like popping corn kernels on fire.
He expressed peaceful intentions and gained entry upon dousing their ire.
He was neither a bandit nor a coot, he asserted.
He didn’t come with a toot or a lute for the party.
He was so huge the partying mice thought of taking a ride on his back.
He made the long trip across the seas as a stowaway
And escaped by jumping off the gangway.
He looked a lot like a pig and a little like a rat,
A physiognomy only a bandicoot has.
He had to bear the ignominy of his moniker, pig-rat.
He tipped the scales at two pounds.
He presented his credentials to the mice, “I, like you, belong to the same Order
Rodentia; Your genus is Mus and my genus is Nisokia.
We were brothers once, long time ago.
We became big and you small by a quirk of gene mutation.”
The mice were happy to know they met their mutant cousin.
A dozen mice brought a basket of raisins, a noggin of milk
And a nubbin to their newfound cousin, as a sign of new friendship.
One thing bothered them about their distant fusing cousin.
The mice asked him whether he was a mouse eater,
Though they were impressed with his credentials and cognate descent.
He assured them he came in peace; he ate only cheese, peas and rice;
He was vegan from whiskers to tail;
He never killed or teased any mice, not even lice;
His given name is Nice; his only vice was being nice with mice.
The boys and girls waltzed well into the shrill night,
Trilling and trolling, whirling and whistling,
As a dozen mice kept a watch for intruders.
Behind a curtain, five large mice sat inside a thingamajig
Which looked like a feral cat to scare off unwelcome visitors.
Three mice wove their tails into a neat pigtail.
Some youngsters hung topsy-turvy by their tails.
All spectators piled high a cheerful hail for their acrobatic feat.
Some mice tickled their feet with wet pickles.
The acrobats held tight like bats.
Pickles they liked to eat; what they got were tickles.
They cheered them on and promised popsicles
And pumpernickels if they hung there until popsicle melted.
The spectacle lasted until the melt; they felt a mighty fine fettle.
Their curly tails slowly unwound sparking hails from onlookers.
They heard a deathly screech of a mouse and the bandicoot was absconding.
It dawned on them the bandicoot conned them with tales.
When the mouse party was over, they squirreled away leftovers safely.
All of them had a good time including the church mouse.
The penthouse mouse came to the church mouse to repent and seek forgiveness.
They ventured out into the cornfields for late-night cutting of the ears of corn,
Always on the lookout for snakes, foxes, owls, birds and bandicoots.
When other animals were yelping at the moon,
They were nibbling and kibbling the ears.
One day Mus looked at Rus and said, “Honey, you look fat.”
Rus retorted, “You fool, I am not fat; I am pregnant.”
A week later, Rus gave Mus, a gift of twelve pinkies, all girls.
Rus and Mus gushed and fussed over the kittens, ten and two in all.
They named them Ruslet one to twelve.
They loved them dearly; Rus suckled them by turn.
They grew into lovely girls with long tails, twice as long as their bodies.
The pinkies soon wore fur, which looked russet and weaned to solid food,
And one day ate soap, which gave them liquid scat;
Rus and Mus warned them against eating soap.
Mus said, “Girls, soap is neither sop nor soup and noodles;
Go out into the fields and dine on oodles of insects,
Because you need a high protein diet for strong muscles
To outrun the cats, dogs, squirrels, children and poodles.
Scampering with and riding on a ten-inch tall pampered toy poodle is a dangerous art.
Don’t let his size hamper you in any way.
It can be done with practice, and safety for both,
If you are faster and more intelligent than he is.
Master the art of diligence when it comes to his body, food and play habits.
Place the poodle food where he plays and watch him from a perch with a peephole.
If he eats it, offer it to him conspicuously and run to the high perch.
Circle around him within the ambit of his eyesight and smell;
And keep your eyes peeled for any charge towards you.
If all goes well, go behind him and feel the pompom on its tail
And rosettes on the hocks; make sure you don’t scratch his skin.
If all goes swell, take him to a puddle or roll with him in a shoal.
Follow him on the truffle and duck hunt and rub muzzles with him.
Caress his docked tail and bracelets and sit behind his withers
And take the ride of your life hither and thither.
A mush of cornmeal and milk will give you the needed rush.
Munch on crunchy lush grass for vitamins and minerals.
Between goober and almond, I prefer the latter,
Because almonds have a fund of essential oils.
Listen, you must run zigzag; otherwise, the rascals will make a meal of you.
You must hush up in a flush, when you hear a rush of feet.
When you see a clowder of cats, don’t cheep in panic.
You peep, you die; a cat won’t steep you in a heap of love.
Keep it in mind there is no such thing as a kind cat.
A cat on a mat is not a Yogi but a cagey killer.
A cat with a hat is a genteel killer; a fat cat is a connoisseur of mice.
A cat in the vat is waiting to zap an errant mouse with a zip.
A cat with a tote is not a shopper but a zapper.
Don’t trust chowder-slurping felines; make a beeline out of there.
When you stare a royal cat eye to eye, swish your tails,
Fluff your fur, roar like a lion, leap like a hare over the cat,
And run into a chink in the mail; or else you won’t live to wail your demise.
A good cat is a dead cat; feline love is for the birds.
When there is a rustle in the grass, hustle out of there,
And rush into a small hole under the bush.
Keep your tush and tail in the hole where you keep your victuals
With eyes looking out for the rascals.
Don’t smooch a nude mouse; it is a broach of death.
If you face a pooch, run into a jar empty of hooch.
Do the cooch with the mooch and rob him blind.
Unaccompanied by an adult, don’t go to the zoo
Because you want to see Winnie the Pooh;
Most animals there are acrobatic musophobics;
Musophiles smile, while phobics are peevish poops.
Ignore the foppish Myna, though he curses in seven languages.
Elephant, rhino and hippo belong to The Big Tush Family.
Don’t climb up their tail; an avalanche of scat and acid rain
Will take you down, bury you alive, and blanch you.
If you see a ringed tail, you are tailing a tiger cat, ocelot.
Trot away in the other direction and scare a clot of cows.
Ocelot can scent a mouse a mile away; don’t go near its house;
If an ocelot chases you, make haste, climb on a tusker
And sit on its back, out of reach of its tail, trunk or tusk;
No ocelot ever climbed on a tusker.
A husky tusker always keeps the pesky ocelot at trunk’s length.
Don’t become the whoppers of harmonic dancing whoopers.
When you hear a whoop and a poke of bill in a marsh, go deep into the hole.
The Ruslets took the advice and went out into the fields,
And dug some russet potatoes just for fun.
All pups fiendishly fed on insects; later they were diddling and dawdling.
A stray cat saw the little pups playing in the field, running in jerks.
Instead of lunging at the mice in a trice, he watched them play.
He came from a long line of pious cats,
And ate only fruits, nuts, vegetables, and roots!
He shunned milk because it came from cows: a vegan from whiskers to tail.
With his erect tail and blinking eyes as signs of universal friendship,
The cat complimented, “O mice, your children are your pride;
You are all wise; when your wisdom taunts me, I swallow my pride.”
The mice thought they had a feline poet and a vegan to his teeth amongst them.
They chorused, “Hail to the chief; no more wailing because of cruel cats.”
Soon the birds and all mice took refuge in the cat, the protector.
The pious cat murmured to the mice, “I am weak from austerities.
Take me to the river for ritual ablution.”
Thus, daily the mice carried the cat to the riverbank.
The cat was becoming heavier and heavier.
Shrewd Rus saw something unusual;
The cat’s scat was very hairy; Ruslet two and three,
And many mice were missing; Rus and Mus were hissing with anger.
All mice held court in the fort away from falcons and falconers.
The mice court gave authority to Rus to render proper justice.
Rus said to herself, “ I will do mouse justice.”
I will do tit for tat for this cat; I will cook his goose.”
Rus buried a large cracker with a long fuse under the cat’s goose down pillow.
The fuse was lit; ka-boom, there was no more cat, not even the remains.
No one knew where the cat was; it was possible he left town.