[Marion Shore]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

There's eros in rhinoceros,
and yet nobody I know
fantasizes late at night
about a naked rhino.

In making such a hypothoses
I think Mr. Slater forgets
without an impassioned rhinoceress
there'd be no rhinocerets.

[Marion Shore]

Whenever you see a rhinoceros,
don't take it for a hippopotamus:
the rhino has the big probosceres,
the hippo's more wide at the bottomus.

[Martin Elster]

WHENEVER YOU SEE A RHINOCEROS

Whenever you see a rhinoceros at large,
**stand before the creature,
and contemplate its celebrated feature.
**The herbivore won’t charge.

Whenever you see a rhinoceros, you’ll know
**you’re either dreaming or
watching an antiquated movie, for
**there are none left to grow

that thorn which was no aphrodisiac.
**If you see a rhinoceros,
you’ll soon enough awaken on a bus
**or a train on the wrong track,

a track which leads far back in time to when
**a creature weighing tons
could roam without the hazard of some guns
**in the hands of clueless men.

[Marion Shore]

Whenever you see a rhinoceros,
and you've gotten lost, my dear tourist,
you're probably not in the Galapagos,
more likely a tropical forest.


omigod! I can't stop!

[Roger Slater]

Originally Posted by Marion Shore

In making such a hypothoses
I think Mr. Slater forgets
without an impassioned rhinoceress
there'd be no rhinocerets.

Sex with a rhinoceress?
  They're big-nosed, fat and nasty.
I'm sure I would refuse unless
  they gave her rhinoplasty.

[Marion Shore]

Originally Posted by R. S. Gwynn

Doesn't "preposerous" come out of Bert Lahr's mouth in The Wizard of Oz?

Dorothy: Your majesty, if you were king, you wouldn't be afraid of anything?

Cowardly lion: Not nobody. Not nohow.

Tin woodsman: not even a rhinoceros?

Cowardly lion: Imposerous!

Dorothy: Supposing you met an elephant?

Cowardly lion: I'd wrap him up in cellophant.

Dorothy: What about a hippopotamus?

Cowardly lion: i'd thrash him from top to bottomus.

Scarecrow: What if it were a brontosaurus?

Cowardly lion: I'd show him who was king of the forest.


LISTEN

[Gail White]

I believe Sam is thinking of Ogden Nash:

Farewell, farewell, you old rhinoceros.
I'll stare at something less proposerous.

[Roger Slater]

DISAPPOINTED RHINOS

The dentists gave their top award
  and named the world's best flosser: us!
Behold two weeping tons of lard
  whenever you see a rhinoceros.

[Gail White]

Just for the record, I think the exchange between Roger and Marion should be preserved & submitted to next year's Umbrella. Really.

[Martin Elster]

LOOK UP AT THE DARK

Guess who went in a flying saucer? Us:
**a pair of ungulates. Weird creatures
ran tests to see what sort of beast we were.
**They scanned our horns, then let us go.
Don’t ask us, please, what they desired to know.
**The thing was too much of a blur
to tell you what they looked like. But some features
**had quirks of a rhinoceros:

Their skin was thick as a walnut shell, their smell
**bloodhound-keen, but eyes bat-poor.
Their glasses were as thick as redwood bark.
**But they used a cup and saucer. Us?
We drink from water holes. We cannot tell
**you more. We hopped back in their door
to tour the stars. So look up at the dark
**whenever you see a rhinoceros!

M. J. E.