carnivorous nights


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HEY, YOU! WELCOME TO
THE AMAZING HAIKU ZOO
IT'S FULL OF STRANGE BEASTS

Poets around North America and beyond sent in hundreds of haiku about extinct, endangered, or cryptozoological animals (and ecological problems) to the Carnivorous Nights "Beastly Haiku Contest." Below are some of our most savage entries. To see the winners, visit the Beastly Awards Page.

Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys launched our contest with this original haiku titled "Lady Mountweazel's Lament":

sasquatch o sasquatch

stricken down with crotch rot; BOOF!

old yeti ya-ro

(For a deconstruction of this beastie bit, click to "You Gotta Fight for Your Right! To Haaaaaiiiiiiiku! in New York magazine.)

The following entries received honorable mentions in the "Extinct and Endangered" category.

Cactus pygmy owl
Only twenty of you left
But not endangered?
--Ann M. Boles, Librarian, Prescott, Arizona

"I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library"
--Jorge Luis Borges

O great mastodon,
Mighty tusk and awesome snout!
Care for a peanut?
--Rich Goidel, Decatur, Georgia

Headstone

A bird atop a flagpole soared-
Mind
skewered on a spinal cord.
--Zohar A Goodman, South Euclid, Ohio

The extinct Quagga
Named for the sound of its voice
May be heard once more
--Maggie Collins, Librarian, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Big Brontosaurous
With cerebellum so small
Now gas for Hummer.
--Dixie Theriault, Stoughton, Massachusetts

Tongue-flicking ora
Lizard king of Komodo
He might eat you up

Hoarfrost on branches
Ice palace for cardinal
Flashes of scarlet

Buoyed by updrafts
California condor
Suburbia now
--Janis Helbert, Pacific Palisades, California

Living fossil fish
Long ago I read of you
Oh, you coelacanth!
--Karl G. Siewert, Librarian, Tulsa, Oklahoma

My tiger tattoo
Cannot bring you back to life.
How Blake knew you'd burn. . .
--David Purdy, Sacramento, California

A paw print in dirt.
The only remaining trace ...
Of a once great cat.
--April Harvey, Chicago, Illinois

"I have always loved the Tasmanian Tiger and have always hoped it did not die out. It's nice to know, I am not the only one."

How many people
Think the fish in the water
Eat cigarette butts?
--Keira Gorski, New York City

bombing for oil
jesus drives an suv
american tags
--d.goth

Whales' melody
Mournful song warning of death
We need to listen
--Norma Thompson, Ward Cove, Alaska

Tiger stripe shadows
Forest magic fools the eye
Ghosts of genocide
--Hugh Deal, Montgomery, Alabama

Extinct: the word has
a bad smell, like a corpse or
a corporate smile.
--Sara Bailey, Colorado Springs, Colorado

African wild dog--
grandparent of many pets--
please don't leave us now.
--Anna Foote, St. Louis, Missouri

The following authors received honorable mentions in the "Cryptozoology and Beyond" category.

1.
Suddenly Sasquatch
Staring in the window there
How human the gaze

2.
In our court of law
Testimony will suffice
Not so for Sasquatch
--Joe Levit, Boston, Massachusetts

Thunderbird Scene

Pinched myself awake,
Thirty feet, a double take
The Lawndale Shadow
--Benjamin Moeller-Gaa, St. Louis, Missouri

A cryptic haiku
Mystic prose for those who know
We all seek answers

Felids from nowhere
Prowl the moors, then disappear
Shadows in the shrubs

Cadborosaurus
Elusive nightmare of old
in the lake's black depths

Jersey Devil's voice
Unheard as he leaps away
Wings scraping the night

Loch Ness is its home
Sinuosity unseen
Except for the few

Hair covered man beast
So silent in the forest
Oh that I could see

Extinct tiger wolf
Trying to stay out of sight
Did we kill them all?

Leatherwing nightmare
Soaring from the ancient skies
Into our grey air

Living animals
Enticing the researchers
Hiding from us all

Carnivorous Nights
A story of safari
gone slightly unhinged
--Fuzzy

"What a chimera, then, is man! What a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! A judge of all things, feeble worm of the earth, depositary of the truth, cloaca of uncertainty and error, the glory and the shame of the universe!" --Blaise Pascal

Three Crypto-haiku

The coelacanth smiles.
Extinction's a state of mind.
The thylacine grins.

We thought you were gone.
The arrogance of science.
The cryptid returns.

The fishing pole snaps.
Giant fin breaks the surface.
Rowboat rides the wake.
--Scott Beland, Tampa, Florida

Footprints in the dirt.
Shoe size over 25.
I have to go now.

Giant sloths are gone.
The moa is no moa.
Who will be the next?

Basketball champeen.
Eats up the competition.
I know bigfoot wears hightops.
--Katherine Morse, Inverness, California

Nessy's neck stretches
Peering eyes drive her below
She hides for winter
--Adam Traub

Stripes on Apple Isle --
German tourist's pic shows the
Status of species.

Sasquatch leaves large tracks,
And we all know what they say:
"A big foot means big ..."
--Preston Postle

The following haiku have received honorable mentions in the "Friends and Family" category:

Hey Ivory-billed
Welcome back from Extinction -
Tell us what it's like
--E.J. McAdams, New York City

people think deer are
cute, until too many invade
their McMansion zone
--J.W., Brooklyn, New York

Six Haiku

Bigfoot, as shown in
"Harry and the Hendersons,"
lacks a je ne sais quoi.

Take note, religions:
There aren't even smidgens of
Passenger pigeons.

I often think that
way back when, the dinosaurs
thought they had it good.

On an ice floe, the
Man who shot the last Great Auk.
He hadn't a clue.

The platypus is
My favorite animal:
The mutt of all time.

The legendary
Wee folk--Hawaii, Ireland:
Homo florensis?
--Paul Mittelbach, Los Angeles, California

Piglet and Pooh came
around, we all took a walk
all the wood was gone
--Adam Brightman, New York City

Two haiku

Mainers be careful
If you go out in the woods
Tree Squeaks have sharp teeth

I'm all for treating
Other living things like props
Clone that mastodon!
--Stella Mittelbach, Los Angeles, California

Two Haiku

Swamp Ape, why the tears?
They run down your matted fur
Is it Christmas yet?

Yo, Matoon Gasser
Don't spray your funk this way, please
Summer's for bathing
--Joe Fodor, Brooklyn, New York

Hello, gentle bird.
Here come the ecovandals.
Who is the Dodo?
--Gabrielle Mittelbach, Los Angeles, California

An Ode to the Central Park Coyote

Captured coyote
He sure is a handsome pup
Bridge and tunnel beast
--Peter McGuigan, New York City

Wo bist Du Tiger?
Bist Du Hund, Fuchs oder Wind
Kein Mensch weiss es aber

Translation:
Where are you tiger?
Are you dog, fox or wind
No person knows it, however
--Frank "Pops" Mittelbach, Los Angeles, California

Five CryptoHaiku by Crypto-Laureate Loren Coleman of Cryptomundo

Me-teh Weeping

Not white, not alone
The abominable one
Yeti here, then gone

Destiny

Flapping wings flutter
Mothman settles and shudders
Silver Bridge awaits

In the Woods

Sasquatch poops feces
Bigfooters take a fecal hike
Bigfoot droppings hoard

Tigerless Thylacine

Wrapped in sheep's clothing
Definitely no feline
Proud marsupial

Here, Not There

Thylacine, not seen
Don't look in Tasmania
Search west Australia
--Loren Coleman, Portland, Maine

o ours ariegeois
o chasseur avec votre fusil
la mort

Translation:
O bear of Ariege
O hunter with your rifle
death
--Ellen Levy, Toulouse, France

Novel, descriptive,
Onomatopoetic--
The verb is "to quoll."
--Bronwyn Carlton, New York City

Read more beastly haiku!

Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger follows two naturalists (and one wacky artist) as they hunt for traces of the rare---and probably extinct---thylacine on the wild island of Tasmania. Carnivorous Nights was named one of the 25 best books of 2005 and a "Book for the Teen Age 2006" by the New York Public Library.

Buy the book!