Santa's Lament

Once slim and trim I used to fly
With just one Reindeer in the sky.
I'd slip down ev'ry chim'n'ey
And leave the presents ‘neath each tree.

Cookies, milk, and little treats
The kids would leave what Santa eats,
I got so fat I'd shake like jelly
A jolly Hippo-pot-a-belly

A bigger suit, no longer svelte
I can't describe how fat I felt.
One day I couldn't see my shoes
But yet my shape I couldn't lose.

I followed every fashion diet
If one came out, I had to try it
For in the sleigh, I filled the seat
Down a chimney — an impossible feat.

My Reindeer, I increased to eight
So as to haul the extra weight.
I switched to toys of lightweight plastic.
My classic belt became elastic.

But this all fails on Christmas eve.
If I don't eat, kids won't believe.
I greet the mirror with a sigh
For what a Hippo-pot-am-I

Copyright 2004 Richard J. Budin

The Initial Challenge

September 22, 2004

To all and sundry,

I have been challenged by a friend (Dick Budin) in PINAWOR (Pinellas Authors and Writers Organization (FL)) to write a piece using the word "hippopotami".
With friends like these... However, I did put some effort into writing a poem using that unrepeatable word. It arrived with some rhyme but little reason.

I hereby pass that challenge on to you. Hee hee hee.

If you wish to take up the glove and enslave yourself to this fiendish slap, go write ahead.

If, however, you do not, you churlish cad, and would like to see what I came up with... click on this link:
http://www.geocities.com/cdron97/WHATAMI.doc

Now, aren't you ashamed of yourself for not even trying?
If you did right something... let me see it. I won't laugh... much.

Ron

Ron Eklof
cdron97@hotmail.com


We welcome you to submit your creativity

My effort

What am I?
A hippopotami?
Strolling thru the rushes?
One of us Hippopotamuses
Is used for Fuller Brushes.

But the plural of the rural
Horses of the water
Ends in I instead of us
Like I think it otter.

Who's plural may be Oteri
Tho' he's a San Franciscan lawyer.

Confusing and amusing,
Our language, cunning,
Sometimes coyer.

Here are some replies (Valiant Efforts All):

Last year I was a very sluggish dog,
I walked about like sleepy hippopotami;
But then a druggy got me hooked on speed,
And now I fear a hyper pet am I.
graal

*
I had a girl friend once named Tami who had a father that was really a sharp guy. She called him my hip pop. I of course called him the hip pop o tami.
Jack

*
A Dilemma
Some say hippopotami rhymes with “There’s a lot’a me”
While other’s say the sound is like “What a sot am I “
Hippopota-mee, hippopota-my; the dictionaries can’t agree
So “:Here’s mud in your eye”.
Gary

*
Large and toothy hippotomusses
are not your average river wusses
Lions, and Tigers, and Bears, Oh My!
won't mess with hippopotami
Maynard

*
A Sad Day at the Mudhole

Gathered round a fallen friend
Three hippopotami
Bemoaned his fate
“So young, so strong - why did Jack have to die?”

Lying there, upon his back
His legs gone all awry
Jack twitched, then winked, then stood and laughed
At the speechless hippopotami.

“April Fool, my silly friends!
You really looked preposterous
You should have seen your faces when
I was a hippo-posthumous!”
Judy

*
The Hippopotami ? by Henry Gibbon

Languidly down the river came two hippopotami
on a morning so clear, not a cloud in the sky.

Said one to the other, I'm so bored I could yawn
So he did, as did she, their jaws blocking the sawn.

Let us do something different, let's float on our backs
and pretend we are sleeping until something attacks.

We'll flip over quickly, grab and gobble 'em up
and finish 'em off with a slurp and hiccup.

So they floated and floated, with eyes at half mast
but nothing came near, nothing went past

but a bird, which flew down, crapped on their noses
and took off skyward grabbing fish in its toes'es.

The day turned to dusk, both hippos a'snorin
falling asleep while adrift because life was so borin'.
Jacquie

*
I never dreamed "hippopotami",
would stimulate the thought of my
relatives both near and far
to shine out like the brightest star.
The thoughts that I did pique
were great and each unique
I'm glad I raised a great big fuss,
with plural hippopotamus
Maynard

*
As I sat & looked up in the sky,
I saw some flying hippopotami.
Pink, yellow, blue, green, gray-
Guess I better put the vodka away!!!
Jean

*
"Grandpa, Grandpa, Tell me why
Don't hippopotamusses fly?"
I pondered, then I said with sigh,
"God, in her mercy looked around
At mortal humans on the ground
With all the ills that we decry
Like tattoos, rap, and other scars
And pigeon poop on hoods of cars
Helped us in our hour of need
And mercifully She decreed
Said, with a tear (Yes Gods do cry)
No flying Hippopotami."
Maynard