The Ambulocetus Song
Thorin N. Tatge
To “The Hippopotamus Song” by Flanders and Swan
One day on the Tethys in the Eocene lurked
Two Ambulocetus natans!
The smell’d knock you breathless as their huge jawlines jerked
Like a pair of cantankerous swans!
While one sat defending his posh riverbed,
The other attacked from the bank!
And, raising their feet high, the Ambuloceti
Sang out with ineffable swank:
Mud! Mud! Glorious mud!
A plot of this size turns a wimp to a stud!
So vacate this sliver of my roaring river
And poison your liver with glorious mud!
The bold Ambulocetus, not wanting a bath,
Entrenched himself fast in his place.
The fact is that no seat is quite safe from the wrath
Of a guy who’s about to lose face!
He barreled his snout through the muck of the bank
Thus proving himself amply strong!
But lest things turn gory in his territory,
He wielded the weapon of song:
Mud! Mud! Glorious Mud!
This bunch is mine; you’d best move along, bud!
So vacate this sliver of my reeking river
And poison your liver with glorious mud!
The unseated challenger then clumsily rose
From the mire in which he’d been interred.
But lacking a phalange or opposable toes
Could not flip his rival the bird!
He did his utmost with the webs of his foot
Then slipped like an ostrich on ice!
This Ambulocetus was no Heraclitus
And fell in the same river twice!
All covered in mud! Mud! Glorious mud!
Oceans of slimy craptacular crud!
So vacate this sliver! Get out of my river!
And poison your liver with glorious
mud!