The Dinosaur Poems
Back from the days my kids were into dinosaurs
Now I—and even they—are beginning to be the dinosaurs ourselves. But I stumbled on these from their childhood while cleaning out a file cabinet and then we all got together a couple of weeks ago and went to the Museum of Natural History for the first time in many years. Not sure these were ever too accurate in the first place and there seems to be a lot of new information. I made a few little changes but not many and here goes, creatures in alphabetical order:
****** Archaeopteryx ~ At first your claws Looked so outsized Flight seemed absurd How we guffawed “No, no,” we cried You can’t be a bird. ~ Then near those claws, More bones we spied New thoughts occurred We hemmed and hawed For their look implied They might be a bird’s ~ Despite those claws To our surprise It was inferred That limbs like straw Might flap through skies Much like a bird’s ~ So although your claws Once gave us pause We at length surmised That you could fly And are concurred You were a bird ***** ***** The Brachiosaur’s Lament ~ I went my way without a hitch In my environmental niche. I fed and fed and grew quite fat In my congenial habitat. ~ I grew and grew to ample girth Until some changes rocked the earth. Jurassic times I found quite splendid But I died out before they ended. ~ A meteor struck; I lost my mirth Of nourishment a sudden dearth My stomach growled, then grew distended As furry things for food contended. ~ Ash filled the sky; the climate switched What shrubs remained new fauna snitched Plants shrank but my hunger stayed intact. The free meals stopped and that was that. ****** ****** Brontosaurus ~ Alas, my brain’s no bigger than a fiddle And yet brass bands could walk across my middle: Reptilian scales and no mammalian fuzz; I’m the biggest piece of flesh there ever was. ~ For me it is no easy thing to run. I’ve four flat feet, and each one weighs a ton. And should Olympic sprinting cross my mind It takes all day to relay word behind. ~ I never gave much thought to being fleet For mostly I was put on earth to eat And so you’ll find in all this mass of lizard That part that’s well developed is the gizzard. ~ I am the quintessential herbivore. If I had brains, what would I use them for? I masticate tree tops and chew my cud And generally am happiest in mud. ~ But lately now it’s hard to find the marsh I’ve noticed that the climate’s gotten harsh. I’d urge my limbs to lower latitudes But I just got the message they’ve turned blue ~ One must expect a few such lapses When one has millions of synapses There is this problem with a small brain pan: It’s fine for eating fronds but slow on plans. ~ With nerve ends long and ganglia immense, It seemed a modest problem to be dense But now it’s cold. The swamps are skating rinks. My tail’s an icicle. And I can’t think. ****** ****** Coelophysis ~ Some lizard this The Coelophysis ~ A modest thing Not like the tyrant king ~ A toy physique For dinosaur unique ~ A tiny frame Much shorter than the name ~ A creature small When monsters shot up tall ~ A shape condensed When reptiles grew immense ~ The very least Of all the bird-hipped beasts ~ Some lizard this The Coelophysis. ***** ***** Corythosaurus ~ Was your duck bill A nose of frill? What was it for, Corythosaur? Did your crest smell O just look well? ~ Perhaps air filled That hollow shell And , though ungilled, You still swam well. ~ Or was that bill Just one bone more With purpose nil Beyond décor? ~ Experts grow ill About that frill. They’ve tried like Hell But they can’t tell What it was for, Corythosaur. ***** ***** Dimetrodon ~ For reasons that we can’t divine You had a long and fan-tailed spine Although its use we can’t define It was most cunningly designed. ~ Your limbs stayed small, your features fine, When lizards swelled to heights Alpine; Your kept your shape; remained refined When other beasts grew asinine. ~ Your teeth, though sharp and well aligned, Were smaller than my pet canine’s. You fed on flesh, on meat you dined, But daintily, like my feline. ~ You were not Faust, did not incline To heights above the porcupine’s In days of growth you toed the line And kept your head down in the vines. ****** ***** Diplodocus ~ Plod on, plod on, diplodocus As heavy as a Greyhound bus Each time you moved you caused a fuss Your proportions were so ponderous ~ You rumbled like the IRT As you lurched on from tree to tree How many branches scratched your knees When you attained velocity? ~ Diplodocus, the double beam, Your head much higher than Kareem’s, How furry creatures ran and screamed Once you built up a head of steam ~ Diplodocus, great beast extinct, You lumbered on by sheer instinct While off to eat your eggs did slink Some enterprising fox or lynx ~ Great reptile, you grew obsolete As your kin became a thing to eat And you never could compete With animals with body heat ~ Diplodocus, of heavy tread, We mammals look on you with dread For if on your eggs no ferrets fed, Why, you’d be here, and we’d be dead ***** ***** The Pterosaur’s Debate ~ Soar off, soar off, old Pterosaur, That’s what those leather wings are for With claps and flaps and shrieks galore, Take flight, my meaty meteor ~ But stay, but stay, strange aeroplane, You can’t get far on thin membrane And to navigate, you lack the brains Don’t rocket far from known terrain ~ Take wing, take wing, repulsive thing Your claws can fly as well as cling Lithe bones; sinews of super string You can do some first class zephyring ~ Alight, alight, ungainly sight, You’re scarce as sturdy as a kite Your bones are hollow, body slight, You’re meant for short glides, not real flight. ~ Do tricks, do tricks, you bag of sticks That’s why your bones are like pipe wicks Limbs neither heavy nor too thick, Soar off, my saurian Sputnik ~ A word, a word, you almost bird, Your beak is long, your build absurd, It is enough that you occurred; Don’t fly to France; you’re no Lindbergh ~ Take off, take off, you bag of bones You’re no Airbus, more like a drone But you’ll be in the sky alone Where nothing else has ever flown ~ So off you went, prehistory’s pet, The wind was right; the course was set— With clatter, clatter, fret, fret, fret You sure weren’t any Whisper Jet ~ Extinct now as the French Concorde But how it soared, the Pterosaur, On wings no thing had used before The Pterosaur, when off it soared. ***** ***** Sabre Tooth Tiger ~ When I roamed forests with my fangs The men looked like orangutans I was the meanest thing that could be seen Back in the good old upper Pleistocene ~ No one used orhodonts on me Back in the years before B.C. No one who prized his hairy skin Told me I had a toothy grin ~ I roamed the world from hill to heath Scarce dreaming that I had buck teeth I licked my lips and felt just fine About my prominent canines ~ Cavemen were easy to devour I met my end when culture flowered; Neanderthal discovers fire And I grow hungry and expire ~ I roamed the world for years untamed My only phobia was flame What good to me were teeth downturned When all my food was being burned? ***** ***** Smilodon ~ Smile on, smile on, my fat feline, You’ll dine on mastodon anon And then you’ll sink your big long tusks In some forerunner of Dean Rusk ~ Be gay, be gay, my saber tooth, You’ll munch on moose to tell the truth And for desert you’ll chew the kin Of Kissinger and Acheson ~ Do grin, do grin, my striped kitten, A wooly mammoth just walked in, And as the piece de resistance Some ancestor of Cyrus Vance ~ Feed on, feed on, my fat feline, On elephant and elk you’ve dined And somehow still find stomach for The world’s first diplomatic corps ***** ***** Copyright James B, Kobak, Jr. 2025