Elephants Are Not Afraid Of Mice

An elephant regarded a mouse
Who'd found a seat upon his trunk.
"My trunk is not a mouse's house,"
The paciderm exclaimed, and -- thunk!
He bashed the mouse -- red guts on bark;
A passing dog enjoyed a chew.
A pair of black flies cried -- Hark! Hark!
There is a lovely feast in view.

Had Darwin come upon this scene
He might have learned a handy lesson,
That elephants are rarely mean
But can't abide a second guess on
The subject of elephants and mice:
The mouse that roars won't roar twice.

Dear Speaker:

Demands that Congress buy you wings
Suggests the Speaker's love for status,
A lack of concern for budgets 'n things,
And tendencies to overrate us,
Those voting folks who live below
Your stratospheric, nonstop path.
You evidently do not know
That voters sometimes show their wrath.

Forgetting people underneath
Are citizens can have a price.
They'll draw a ballot from its sheath
And vote. The Speaker should think twice:
For politicians there's a tonic
The day their tastes turn supersonic.

The Alien

It tried to make a joke, but fought
To get out words and often fumbled.
Then, ears up, bug-eyes starting, hot
That there were witnesses who mumbled
That it could stand lessons in grammar,
Do more than read about how jokes
Are made, it lifted up a hammer
Demanded respect and measured yokes.

The natives quickly learned to laugh,
Pretending that its bumbled lapses
Made it wittier than them by half.
The years that civilization collapses,
And other planets send patrols,
They are so often thugs and trolls.