Zoo #48 – Red in Tooth and Claw

A sideways look at age, Colin McQueen - writer, Getting Older, Humour, My Life, Poetry, Real life through the kaleidoscope of age 1 Minute

Nature executes her duties,
Fills the world with savage beauties
Sharp of tooth and fierce of claw –
Mighty is the carnivore.

Creatures which are most beguiling
Merely furnish stomach-lining:
Nothing in the world as edgy
As animals both small and veggie.

This earth was never meant to be
A place of equanimity:
Reality, it seems, is bleak
The strong will always eat the weak

Might and muscle, fast and sleek,
Feast on fluffy, cute and meek.
Fortunate the favoured few
Nature paints in vivid hue.

Red provides a broad suggestion,
‘Eating me gives indigestion’ –
Always saved a savage mauling
Anything that tastes appalling.

Hunters know that prey dressed kitschy
At very best will leave them itchy
And those that wear a peacock suit
Are seldom worthy of pursuit

Creatures written most prosaic
Merely join this earth’s mosaic
Fate and future clearly wrote;
Listed under Table d’hote.


A few double entendres and a scattering of preposterous rhymes.  I look out of my window as I type this and the countryside is currently beyond beautiful.  Everything is in full leaf, most is in colourful bloom; everything that bloomed in early spring is full of fast-ripening fruit.  Nature provides the most stunning backdrop to the most gruesome of fates…

Published by colinmcqueen

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18 thoughts on “Zoo #48 – Red in Tooth and Claw”

  1. Brilliant. However, as you say, that it was written whilst looking out of your window and marvelling at the beauty of nature and knowing where you live, then I’m surprised that you aren’t now looking out over a vast modern housing estate! Or at least the foundations of one!!

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      1. I was bemused by the fact that you were a muse and I was confused. And amused.
        I expect (based on your avatar) that you two got up to some monkey business on occasion.

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  4. (How do I clarify that I meant Zoo #48 was the poem I referred to and not Mr. Underfelt’s poetic comment, which was quite good, without being rude?)

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  5. ‘Stomach lining’ is a loverely absurd take on it. And is not the end of summer a time of simple thankfulness, a time to take a quiet moment to reflect on the workings of the Good Lord Above, and his myriad miracles he bestows on us, his sunny-eyed uplifted of face followers? Then, of course, He wipes that smile off your face with an unseasonal hailstorm. Then it’s ‘oh crap, my crops,’ followed by much rural blaspheming.

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