Animal Vegetable or Minstrel?

Janine the Giraffe by Phil Burns

AnElephantCant always be serious
Some animals just make him laugh
A wee chunky donkey
A wild funky monkey
And there is nothing half as daft as a giraffe

The kangaroo and alpaca amuse him
Orang-utans have him holding our sides
Hyena and zebra
Make him ho ho and ha ha
Duck-billed platypuses make tears flow like the Clyde

Many creatures are strange and astounding
Like T Rex – or iguanas now
But the one he likes best
Betterer than the rest
Is the amazing fantabulous magical mythical hipporhinocerocow

Yep this is definitely AnElephant’s favourite
Although he’s not really sure how to spell it
It looks like it sounds
Kinda squarish and round
It eats curry oh boy you should smell it

AnElephant likes pythons and alligators
And doggies and bunnies and geeses
But it has to be said
This Elephant is afraid
That he really hates meeces to pieces

He enjoys almost all nature’s creatures
Golden eagles and magpies and budgies
Wallabies and springboks
His pal Phil the Fox
But he’s not awfully keen on Scots midges

It’s true hedgehogs and camels confuse him
Armadillos make him wrinkle his brow
He understands bats
Rats wombats and cats
And the amazing fantabulous magical mythical hipporhinocerocow

Is it proper to say hippopotamuses
Or hippopotami do you suppose?
He thinks it is easier
And to the ear pleasier
To say more than one hippo is hippos

Helen the Hippo by Phil Burns

The same thing applies to rhinoceri
Should this be pronounced rhinoceroses?
So many syllables
Make this struggle uphillable
He says rhinos and just cuts his losses

AnElephant does know the plural of cattle
It’s just neat when you know you can’t lose
He is nobody’s fool
He is not talking bull
In his homeland one brown cow becomes two broon coos

AnElephant loves fairy tale beasties
Like griffins and centaurs and stuff
Jabberwocky and Nessie
Bigfoot and Yeti
And a sad Magic Dragon named Puff

He of course likes the mammoth all woolly
Dinosaurs extinct before he was born
The quagga was tres beau
Like the poor helpless dodo
And the loveliest of all was the unicorn

Evolution dictates each beast has a mate
Drake and duck doe and buck pig and sow
She and he are a couple
But there’s only one triple
The amazing fantabulous magical mythical hipporhinocerocow

Just imagine if there was interbreeding
With some fiendish Dr Moreau type goal
It is not possible of course
To mix a frog and a horse
Or you could end up with a wriggly tad-foal

If you give a stick of dynamite to a smart monkey
Just be sure to get out of the room
He’ll be quite delighted
Then he’ll try to light it
And find he has created the first flying Ba-Boom

AnElephant takes his camelopard to a posh restaurant
It lies down and upsets the posh staff
Excuse me, my good sir
You can’t leave that lying there
That’s not a lion you fool that’s a giraffe

Both our readers know AnElephant has great adventures
If you behave he might tell you sometime
But right now his verse
Is getting much worse
AnElephantCant think up any more rhymes

Confused by Phil Burns