The Last Night Of The Longhorns Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

And once upon another time,
when all the animals had
settled their minor
disagreements over
the shameless animal,
you know,
the one with the long fur,
the pretentious lips,
the bad ears,
the poor sense of smell,
and the very long horns,
whichsame animal had,
not only returned to the
scene of the explosion,
but had had the temerity
and the poor taste,
the even poorer smell,
to leave, at last,
by turning its less than
appetising
backside on us,
and revealing,
perhaps intentionally,
an abominably soiled,
semi-solid
and off-colour
rear end, which did
show signs of
old, well, ancient
remnants of the same,
the very same
CACATUM, which is
the Latin term for
SHIT, proving,
to all the animals,
again and,
for the last and final
the proof of the pudding
time, that what they
had here, was an unfit,
an unappetisingly
and pus-generating,
a decaying view
of a grossly neglected
and leaking, septic tank.
And it had left the worst
present that a forest can
tolerate in good faith.
A bad smell.

So, being clean and
rule-abiding, as well as
strict and unbending
creatures of the forest,
they all agreed, at last
that filth need not be
tolerated, not today
and not tomorrow.
And they decided that
there were measures
to be taken to restore
the forest to what it had been
once before, prior to
the malodorous Bang.
They enlisted a group
of volunteers, pine trees for
fragrance and colour,
skunk juice as an antidote,
underarm fragrance from
bandicoots and badgers,
rancid dandruff from chickens,
and pheasants, dead feathers,
do smell nice as well,
Moose and Buck deer
pheromones, also urine,
jasmin bushes, including
chinese star and trumpet flowers,
oak astringent from leaves,
quarternary ammonia base from
vilicus ostradamicus,
and, for good measure,
the forest's ultimate weapon,
of supreme bluff, due to
shape, stature and ability
to browbeat, to instill awe,
fear and the renewed tendency
to bed-wetting, also called nocturia,
and not a pleasant or much
appreciated affliction.
Yes, it was, is and will be...
her Majesty, the lovely and
much respected, Iuniperus
communis. And, in eternal
and perpetual gratitude,
this wonder plant repays,
and amply so, the trust,
the respect and the unquestioned
loyalty of all its peers, underlings,
overlings and sidelings,
by providing, but once a year,
the raw materials for a
wild and wonderful, but
civilised, party, which rings in the
New Year, which does occur
but once annually. It provides
Gin, from the fruit of the Juniper,
the berries, fructus iuniperi,
which, in turn, always
leads to a situation best described
as 'the nuts among the berries',
and that is where it ends,
in perfect harmony, and
with the forgotten memory of
a very bad smell.