Somthing fishy is going on!

It's time to say goodbye to patriots, traitors, and even a few ghosts and head down to the beach.  Virginia Beach, to be exact, where there is a lovely aquarium.  This post will be picture heavy and word light...enjoy the photos and accompanying light verses!  Most of the poems are anonymous except for those otherwise titled and the tongue in cheek verses of Ogden Nash, written to accompany Saint Saens Carnival of the Animals.  And I'll close out this week by wishing you a Fantastic Friday!





Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center





It sneaks and slithers,
It growls and hisses.

It has the teeth of a crocodile,
The venom of a cobra,
The strength of an elephant,
And the stealth of an owl.

It flicks it's tounge,
To find it's prey.

It stalks the ground,
With it's poisonous saliva.

They prowl their islands,
They rule their worlds,
They are the children of primeval terror,
They're ancestors of the children of Fire,
They are a child's nightmare,
They are the Komodo Dragons.



Under warm waves

Where children are swimming

A magnificent structure is growing and brimming

Reef sharks and sponges and crabs call it home

It’s the place where some sea snakes and shrimp like to roam

Tiny creatures, called corals, live together, entwined

When they die they leave hard, stony limestone behind.

 



Aquarium

Some fish are minnows,
Some are whales.
People like dimples,
Fish like scales,
Some fish are slim,
And some are round,
They don't get cold,
They don't get drowned.
But every fishwife
Fears for her fish.
What we call mermaids
They call merfish.





O under the ocean waves
I gallop the seaweed lanes,
I jump the coral reef,
And all with no saddle or reins.

I haven't a flowing mane,
I've only this horsy face,
But under the ocean waves
I'm king of the steeplechase.





Soaring on wings that cannot fly

scouring the sand for life

drifting over beds where treasues lie

living below the worldly strifeThe gentle undulation of sturdy wings

in grace beyond mere mortals

the joy of spirit within sings

with this glimpse of other portals

With colors of grey, or blue or green

the angels of the deep

glide stately by when they are seen

giving memories to keep



Tortoises

Come crown my brow with leaves of myrtle,
I know the tortoise is a turtle,
Come carve my name in stone immortal,
I know the turtoise is a tortle.
I know to my profound despair,
I bet on one to beat a hare.
I also know I'm now a pauper,
Because of its tortley, turtley, torper.





The Shark
by Lord Alfred Douglas
A treacherous monster is the Shark He never makes the least remark. And when he sees you on the sand, He doesn't seem to want to land. He watches you take off your clothes, And not the least excitement shows.

        The Shark

 

by Lord Alfred Douglas

A treacherous monster is the Shark 
He never makes the least remark.

And when he sees you on the sand, 
He doesn't seem to want to land.

He watches you take off your clothes, 
And not the least excitement shows.

My husband LOVES aquariums!

An Aquarium by Amy Lowell

Streaks of green and yellow iridescence,
Silver shiftings,
Rings veering out of rings,
Silver -- gold --
Grey-green opaqueness sliding down,
With sharp white bubbles
Shooting and dancing,
Flinging quickly outward.
Nosing the bubbles,
Swallowing them,
Fish.
Blue shadows against silver-saffron water,
The light rippling over them
In steel-bright tremors.
Outspread translucent fins
Flute, fold, and relapse;
The threaded light prints through them on the pebbles
In scarcely tarnished twinklings.
Curving of spotted spines,
Slow up-shifts,
Lazy convolutions:
Then a sudden swift straightening
And darting below:
Oblique grey shadows
Athwart a pale casement.
Roped and curled,
Green man-eating eels
Slumber in undulate rhythms,
With crests laid horizontal on their backs.
Barred fish,
Striped fish,
Uneven disks of fish,
Slip, slide, whirl, turn,
And never touch.
Metallic blue fish,
With fins wide and yellow and swaying
Like Oriental fans,
Hold the sun in their bellies
And glow with light:
Blue brilliance cut by black bars.
An oblong pane of straw-coloured shimmer,
Across it, in a tangent,
A smear of rose, black, silver.
Short twists and upstartings,
Rose-black, in a setting of bubbles:
Sunshine playing between red and black flowers
On a blue and gold lawn.
Shadows and polished surfaces,
Facets of mauve and purple,
A constant modulation of values.
Shaft-shaped,
With green bead eyes;
Thick-nosed,
Heliotrope-coloured;
Swift spots of chrysolite and coral;
In the midst of green, pearl, amethyst irradiations.
Outside,
A willow-tree flickers
With little white jerks,
And long blue waves
Rise steadily beyond the outer islands.