Dinosaurs in the Hood

Dinosaurs in the Hood

Related Poem Content Details

BY DANEZ SMITH

Let’s make a movie called Dinosaurs in the Hood.

Jurassic Park meets Friday meets The Pursuit of Happyness.

There should be a scene where a little black boy is playing

with a toy dinosaur on the bus, then looks out the window

& sees the T. Rex, because there has to be a T. Rex.

Don’t let Tarantino direct this. In his version, the boy plays

with a gun, the metaphor: black boys toy with their own lives,

the foreshadow to his end, the spitting image of his father.

Fuck that, the kid has a plastic Brontosaurus or Triceratops

& this is his proof of magic or God or Santa. I want a scene

where a cop car gets pooped on by a pterodactyl, a scene

where the corner store turns into a battle ground. Don’t let

the Wayans brothers in this movie. I don’t want any racist shit

about Asian people or overused Latino stereotypes.

This movie is about a neighborhood of royal folks —

children of slaves & immigrants & addicts & exiles — saving their town

from real-ass dinosaurs. I don’t want some cheesy yet progressive

Hmong sexy hot dude hero with a funny yet strong commanding

black girl buddy-cop film. This is not a vehicle for Will Smith

& Sofia Vergara. I want grandmas on the front porch taking out raptors

with guns they hid in walls & under mattresses. I want those little spitty,

screamy dinosaurs. I want Cicely Tyson to make a speech, maybe two.

I want Viola Davis to save the city in the last scene with a black fist afro pick

through the last dinosaur’s long, cold-blood neck. But this can’t be

a black movie. This can’t be a black movie. This movie can’t be dismissed

because of its cast or its audience. This movie can’t be a metaphor

for black people & extinction. This movie can’t be about race.

This movie can’t be about black pain or cause black people pain.

This movie can’t be about a long history of having a long history with hurt.

This movie can’t be about race. Nobody can say nigga in this movie

who can’t say it to my face in public. No chicken jokes in this movie.

No bullets in the heroes. & no one kills the black boy. & no one kills 

the black boy. & no one kills the black boy. Besides, the only reason

I want to make this is for that first scene anyway: the little black boy

on the bus with a toy dinosaur, his eyes wide & endless

                                                    his dreams possible, pulsing, & right there.

Found here:  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/57585

Pterosaurs

Pterosaurs
TERR-oh-sawrs (winged lizards)

The pterrifying pterosaurs
Flew ptours the ptime of dinosaurs.
With widespread wings and pteeth pto ptear,
The pterrorized the pteeming air.
They were not ptame.
They were ptenacious--
From the Ptriassic
Pto the Cretaceous.


By Douglas Florian

Found here:  http://missrumphiuseffect.blogspot.com/2011/04/poetry-in-classroom-diggin-on-dinosaurs.html

Small, Smaller

Small, Smaller
by Russell Hoban


I thought I knew all there was to know 
Of being small, until I saw once, black against the snow
A shrew, trapped in my footprint, jump and fall
And jump again and fall, the hole too deep, the walls too tall



Found here: http://stancarey.tumblr.com/post/108995343323/small-smaller

Microscopes

Microscopes
by Bill Cohen

I looked into my microscope, and saw some wondrous things.
I saw a fruit fly standing there, with six legs and two wings.
And on its back I saw some stripes, and on its head, oh gee!
I saw the fruit-fly's big red eyes a-staring back at me.

I got a better microscope, to see what more was there.
And then I saw that everywhere the fruit fly had some hair--
On its legs and on its wings and even on its eyes,
Which turned out to be organs made of eyes of smaller size.

I got a better microscope, to see these things so small.
And when I looked at my fruit fly it seemed not there at all.
But in this place on the fruit fly's face that I could see so well,
There was a tiny little sac, a living fruit-fly cell.

I got a better microscope, to see what was inside.
The cells were full of organelles, some narrow and some wide,
Some round, some flat, some thin, some fat, but what I was afraid of
Was that I wouldn't get to see what things these things were made of.

I got a better microscope, to better see this stuff.
And now it looked like curlicues and lollipops and fluff,
And springy, clingy, stringy threads unwound from tiny spools,
And beady blobs with little knobs: All fruit-fly molecules.

I got a better microscope, and looked inside once more.
The molecules wre bigger -- oh, much bigger than before.
And they were all just full of balls of very different sizes
Organized in wondrous ways -- the biggest of surprises.

I tried to get a microscope so I could look right at 'em.
But I found out that every ball was just a single atom.
And though there are some big machines to smash and crash and break 'em,
Microscopes to see inside? Well, they just don't make 'em!


Found here. 

The Naming of Cats

The Naming of Cats
T.S. Eliot

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey—
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter—
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover—
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.


Hear T.S. Eliot recite this lovely poem here. 

A Ritual to Read to Each Other

A Ritual To Read To Each Other
by William Stafford

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.


Found here.  

The Horses

The Horses
by Edwin Muir
 
Barely a twelvemonth after
The seven days war that put the world to sleep,
Late in the evening the strange horses came.
By then we had made our covenant with silence,
But in the first few days it was so still
We listened to our breathing and were afraid.
On the second day
The radios failed; we turned the knobs; no answer.
On the third day a warship passed us, heading north,
Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day
A plane plunged over us into the sea. Thereafter
Nothing. The radios dumb;
And still they stand in corners of our kitchens,
And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms
All over the world. But now if they should speak,
If on a sudden they should speak again,
If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,
We would not listen, we would not let it bring
That old bad world that swallowed its children quick
At one great gulp. We would not have it again.
Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,
Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow,
And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.
The tractors lie about our fields; at evening
They look like dank sea-monsters couched and waiting.
We leave them where they are and let them rust:
‘They’ll molder away and be like other loam.’
We make our oxen drag our rusty plows,
Long laid aside. We have gone back
Far past our fathers’ land.
And then, that evening
Late in the summer the strange horses came.
We heard a distant tapping on the road,
A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again
And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.
We saw the heads
Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.
We had sold our horses in our fathers’ time
To buy new tractors. Now they were strange to us
As fabulous steeds set on an ancient shield.
Or illustrations in a book of knights.
We did not dare go near them. Yet they waited,
Stubborn and shy, as if they had been sent
By an old command to find our whereabouts
And that long-lost archaic companionship.
In the first moment we had never a thought
That they were creatures to be owned and used.
Among them were some half a dozen colts
Dropped in some wilderness of the broken world,
Yet new as if they had come from their own Eden.
Since then they have pulled our plows and borne our loads
But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.
Our life is changed; their coming our beginning.





https://middleschoolpoetry180.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/190-the-horses-edwin-muir/

Swallows

Swallows

by Leonora Speyer

 

They dip their wings in the sunset,
They dash against the air
As if to break themselves upon its stillness:
In every movement, too swift to count,
Is a revelry of indecision,
A furtive delight in trees they do not desire
And in grasses that shall not know their weight.
They hover and lean toward the meadow
With little edged cries;
And then,
As if frightened at the earth’s nearness,
They seek the high austerity of evening sky
And swirl into its depth.


http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/swallows

Wild Geese

Wild Geese 

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things. http://www.onbeing.org/blog/mary-oliver-reads-wild-geese/5966

To a Mouse

 To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough
by Robert Burns

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty
Wi bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murdering pattle.

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth born companion
An' fellow mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
'S a sma' request;
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
An' never miss't.

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's win's ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld.

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still thou are blest, compared wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!


I suggest listening to the poem to really get it. I like THIS video, and you can read the text on the same page. 

THIS website includes hyper links to a scots glossary that will help make sense of some of the odder parts of the poem (for us English speakers, anyway)

Eletelephony

Eletelephony

Laura Elizabeth Richards

Once there was an elephant,
Who tried to use the telephant—
No! No! I mean an elephone
Who tried to use the telephone—
(Dear me! I am not certain quite
That even now I’ve got it right.)  

Howe’er it was, he got his trunk
Entangled in the telephunk;
The more he tried to get it free,
The louder buzzed the telephee—
(I fear I’d better drop the song
Of elephop and telephong!)

Found on Academy of American Poets website here. 

The Dentist and the Crocodile

The Dentist and the Crocodile

By Roald Dahl

The crocodile, with cunning smile, sat in the dentist's chair.
He said, "Right here and everywhere my teeth require repair."
The dentist's face was turning white. He quivered, quaked and shook.
He muttered, "I suppose I'm going to have to take a look."

"I want you," Crocodile declared, "to do the back ones first.

           The molars at the very back are easily the worst."

 He opened wide his massive jaws. It was a fearsome sight––

 At least three hundred pointed teeth, all sharp and shining white.

 The dentist kept himself well clear. He stood two yards away.
 He chose the longest probe he had to search out the decay.
 “I said to do the back ones first!" the Crocodile called out.
 "You're much too far away, dear sir, to see what you're about.

 To do the back ones properly you've got to put your head

 Deep down inside my great big mouth," the grinning Crocky said.

 The poor old dentist wrung his hands and, weeping in despair,

 He cried, "No no! I see them all extremely well from here!"

 Just then, in burst a lady, in her hands a golden chain.
 She cried, "Oh Croc, you naughty boy, you're playing tricks again!"
 "Watch out!" the dentist shrieked and started climbing up the wall.
 "He's after me! He's after you! He's going to eat us all!"

 "Don't be a twit," the lady said, and flashed a gorgeous smile.

 "He's harmless. He's my little pet, my lovely crocodile."

Found here on NPR's review of the book Poetry Speaks to Children. 

Rabbit

Rabbit
by Mary Ann Hoberman

    A rabbit
             Bit
 A little bit
An itty-bitty
   Little bit of beet
    Then bit
        By bit
        He bit
     Because he liked the taste of it



Found through a Writers Digest article here.

A Wolf is at the Laundromat

A Wolf Is at the Laundromat
By Jack Prelutsky 

A wolf is at the Laundromat,

it's not a wary stare-wolf,

it's short and fat, it tips its hat,

unlike a scary glare-wolf.

It combs its hair, it clips its toes,

it is a fairly rare wolf,

that's only there to clean its clothes—

it is a wash-and-wear-wolf.

 

 

Found at the Poetry Foundation here. 

Poem (the god of dirt)

Poem (the god of dirt)

 

by Mary Oliver

 

The god of dirt

came up to me many times and said

so many wise and delectable things, I lay

on the grass listening

 

to his dog voice,

crow voice,

frog voice; now,

he said, and now,

and never once mentioned forever,

 

which has nevertheless always been,

like a sharp iron hoof,

at the center of my mind.

 

One or two things are all you need

to travel over the blue pond, over the deep

roughage of the trees and through the stiff

flowers of lightning—some deep

memory of pleasure, some cutting

knowledge of pain.

 

But to lift the hoof !

For that you need

an idea.

 

 

 

found here at Morning Earth dot org

 

 

Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens

by Jack Prelutsky

Last night I dreamed of chickens,
there were chickens everywhere,
they were standing on my stomach,
they were nesting in my hair,
they were pecking at my pillow,
they were hopping on my head,
they were ruffling up their feathers
as they raced about my bed.

They were on the chairs and tables,
they were on the chandeliers,
they were roosting in the corners,
they were clucking in my ears,
there were chickens, chickens, chickens
for as far as I could see...
when I woke today, I noticed
there were eggs on top of me.

Found here on Poets.org 

No One Wants to Run Through the Woods Naked Under a Full Moon Anymore

No One Wants to Run Through the Woods Naked Under a Full Moon Anymore


by James S. Dorr
 
Well, first off the woods were cut down last year
for land to build the new subdivision,
and while they are nice houses, asphalt and sidewalks
are tough on bare feet, whether wolf-formed or human,
and while one can cut through yards, fences and pools
not to mention rosebushes make such ruses dangerous.

Then there are dogs, whose barking and racket
tend to ruin ambiance,
not to mention that some slip their leashes,
but killing them even if forced to seems futile—
they die too easily which ruins the sport of it—
and either way they tend to frighten off game.
Worst though is the walk back, the moon having set,
paunch-bellied and middle-aged,
clothes doffed of course prior to the transformation,
now skulking through gauntlets of giggling schoolchildren
awaiting buses, braving the glares of late commuters,
only to return to wives back home seething
in their own embarrassment.






Found here at Star*Line magazine, Jan-Mar 2012.

Recipe For A Hippopotamus Sandwich

by Shel Silverstein

A hippo sandwich is easy to make.
All you do is simply take
One slice of bread,
One slice of cake,
Some mayonnaise
One onion ring,
One hippopotamus
One piece of string,
A dash of pepper —
That ought to do it.
And now comes the problem…
Biting into it!

 

 

found here on All Poetry dot com

A House is a House for Me

excerpts from A House is a House for Me 

by Mary Ann Hoberman

A hill is a house for an ant, an ant
A hive is a house for a bee
A hole is a house for a mole or a mouse
And a house is a house for me!
*** *** ***
 
And if you get started in thinking,
I think you will find it is true
That the more that you think about houses for things
The more things are houses, to you…
*** *** ***
 
How peaches are houses for peachpits
And sometimes are houses for worms;
How trashcans are houses for garbage
And garbage make houses for germs.
*** *** ***
 
And once you get started in thinking this way,
It seems that whatever you see
Is either a house or it lives in a house,
And a house is a house for me!


Found on YouTube here and in my childhood bookshelf  :)

A Noiseless Patient Spider

A Noiseless Patient Spider

by Walt Whitman
 

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul. 

Found here on the Wondering Minstrels blog