Monkey’s Tractatus
(after a philosophical argument between
Ludvig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell)
When monkey sees a hippopotamus in the temple grounds
he knows it is grounded in fact.
We really must get rid of it!
It obediently vanishes.
There is a silence in the temple cells
broken only by the broom’s clean sweep
as insects are swept away from the footsteps of the unworthy.
Monkey sees the hippo trapped beneath a chair.
He can feel it struggling to set itself free.
Now hippo gets tangled in monkey’s hair.
Monkey will have its hide for a shield against dark thoughts,
an unbroken umbrella to guard him from this rain of teardrops.
Hippo bathes in a hip bath of crocodile tears:
Sunt rerum lacrimae.
He wallows in philosophical sorrow.
When the hippo leaves the temple,
there is a silence as the unspoken word returns,
a silence broken only by the hum of the hoover,
and the beat of a condor’s invisible wings.
rogermoorepoet 
Hippo and rhinos, where has the unicorns gone?
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“Oh lord I’m so forlorn, I just forgot those unicorns.” I think they drifted away with the tide.
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Poor unicorns
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And now, as you explained to Meg, I have hippos (and monkeys) on the brain…Lol
Awesome, Roger!
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I know: and they are so difficult to get rid of … don’t forget the rhinoceros! So glad you are enjoying these!
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They are tremendous fun! Thanks for sharing them.
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I’m afraid I’m out of my depths here!
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That’s why nobody likes Bertrand Russell. It’s a simple proposition: if I tell you NOT to think about something, then you automatically think about it. It’s something like the elephant in the room. It dominates the room, but nobody can see it and nobody can get rid of it … it’s just there. Ionesco did the same thing with his Rhinoceros and here we have a hippopotamus. You see, now you’re thinking about a hippo: watch out, it’s under the chair! There: did you see it? Meanwhile, back at the temple, you can hear the beat of the invisible condor’s wings … what condor? There, Meg, behind you … Duck!
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Aha! Ok I get it!
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Great: now you can explain it to me, because I don’t have a clue what it means, if it does in fact have any meaning. The poem actually follows fairly closely the Bertie – Wittie discussion (I seem to remember).
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Ha! I meant I get the reference! The philosophical debate? Not so much!
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Yo tampoco, as they say in Spain, me neither. I think Monkey has a little bit of tongue stuck in is cheek.
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For some inexplicable reason, which escapes me of course, after reading that, I began to think of ‘existentialism’ and the meaning of life, but then I was also reminded of that Dahl poem on the cerebrative pig. I’d better stop, there.
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I wondered what that e-mail of yours was all about! Now it makes sense. Us Glamorgan boys … we’re all Welsh Wizards. The meaning of life: sunt rerum lachrimae — tears are in all things … that’s the meaning of life.
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