Tortoises Porpoises and AnElephant

A Tortoise Can by AnElephantCant

AnElephantCant always be patient
With the sort of creatures that make deafeningly loud noises
Trumpet and roar and cause a riot
When he prefers peace and quiet
And this is why he absolutely loves the silence of tortoises*

They don’t waken the neighbours with their barking
They are not as scary as spiders or snakes
They don’t cast their fur
Or squawk like a bird
And unlike horses you don’t have to shovel up their mistakes

They are admittedly quite odd looking characters
With claws on the ends of their feet
Their skin is all scales
They are faster than snails
And they have a funny looking beak which just adds to the mystique

A Tortoise by AnElephantCant

They don’t require any fancy equipment
You just let them wander around in the garden
They are no trouble to walk
They’re more fun than a rock
And if they fart they pretty much always say pardon

They don’t need a squeaky tread wheel like white meeces
Unlike gold fish they don’t have a bowl
In summer they eat grass
Then when autumn is past
They curl up well more snuggle in actually and have a kip in a hole

They are probably his favourite wee beasties
They don’t bite they don’t scratch they don’t smell
They don’t talk too much
They are pleasant to touch
And just like yummy peanuts of course they come in a shell

*AnElephant is painfully and sadly aware that in some undereducated parts of the globe e.g. Englandshire, US of A, etc, the folks tend to soften the second syllable to sound like ‘iss’.
But in Scotland, the home of correct pronunciation, we stress it to rhyme with porpoise (ha!) and toys and boys and joys and voice and, as above, with noise.
So get over it, okay?