Once upon a time there was this primeval slime or biological soup
then all these animal crackers started to crawl out of it:
frogs, lizards, mosquitoes, wombats, bush-babies, alligators; capuchin monkeys, turtles, zebras, and naked apes – later came scientists, gurus, traffic wardens; famous actors, housewives and Bob Dylan.
The frogs stayed close to the marshlands
while the lizards went off to venture new perspectives.
The mosquitoes turned anarchist
but the wombats became herbivorous marsupials -
which means to say they preferred minestrone to oxtail
and borsht to chicken soup with barley.
The bush babies burnt their candles exclusively
at the other end while the alligators developed
unusual phobias for shoes and handbags.
The capuchin monkeys concentrated on growing grapes
for superior varieties of plonk and spent the rest of the time
illustrating sacred text messages.
As for the inspired zebras, they made startling breakthroughs in the field of optical art, while the naked apes having formed a liaison with the turtles, revolutionized knitwear manufacture.
Around this time the scientists began
to cut everything up with scissors.
The Gurus however came to the rescue.
With sticky tape and glue they patched things up
but then the traffic wardens spotted them and slammed
parking tickets on all their rickshaw windscreens.
Famous actors meanwhile shamelessly pretended to be what they were not and housewives everywhere fell in love with them - that’s when Bob Dylan was invented.
