David Jalajel


12 SNAPSHOTS FROM THE ARK (DEAD DINOS)

     “Human interests cannot be the be-all and end-all of an ecopoem.”
     - John Shoptaw  


Ankylosaurus

#1 (as ranked) for extracting: 
metal, obsidian, flint, 

and, believe it or not, crystal! 
Here’s the workhorse of nature

ushering in the Industrial Age —
the only animal that harvests 

EVERYTHING.
Need to clear-cut a forest?

Grab 2 of these and a crab. 
Clamp an anky firmly 

in each of the crustacean’s claws —
Harness nature’s perfect synergy.



Brontosaurus 

Imagine how its neck must 
pain in the morning. I mean

I can handle its booming, but
the way it shakes the screen...

Funny how it detests it when
things start chewing at its legs.

(So if you’re ever pursued 
by a pint-sized predator, dash 

in between and underneath
its feet as nimbly as you dare.)

Yes, slide down its tail. Just 
don’t do all that “yabba dabba”.



Diplodocus

Because it causes no harm, because 
it pushes everyone away...

But it’s pretty fun to run around 
with 10 people on your saddle — 

if they’ve all got shotguns!
Or name it The Magic School Bus 

and drive your entire tribe 
off a cliff into the Volcano.

Encounter one on the beach?
Because you’ll get tossed in the ocean, 

swarmed by sharks, killed by a manta,
resurrected on a whim.



Iguanodon

Throw this one 
a hearty thumbs up!

Shift easily between 
2 standard gears: 

4-leg (run)/2-leg
(harvest/fight) –

and cruise on its 
endless stamina.

Vex ol’ knuckler here, 
it’ll put up its dukes.

Dare it to thumbwrestle
if you wanna lose an eye.



Kentrosaurus

Hey, it’s Stego’s grouchy 
baby brother! (Don’t try

to cuddle.) For sure, 
it’ll make a fine addition 

to our family, but I doubt
it’s gonna be an easy ride. 

And taming it is just like 
having a baby. It’s painful.

It’s hell of annoying, hell 
of time consuming, and it’s

way more expensive than 
it damn right ought to be.



Pachycephalosaurs

Goat Simulator in a nutshell —
It’s too much fun 

knocking folks off cliffs.
Its braincase is like 

a wound-up ballista,
and you’d need to kit out 

a mantis with a club 
for a meaner taming machine. 

Don’t waste your valuable darts —
K-O small dinos with its skull. 

You’ll OCD so wanna shout: 
“THIS IS SPARTA!”



Pachyrhinosaurus

It eats bug repellent. You see,
its “kibble” is man-

made bug repellent. Why 
the hell does it like 

bug repellent? There’s 
bug repellent in the wild?

Its farts calm carnivores. 
(It’s a defence mechanism,

a cloying pink mist.)
But must it consume man-

made bug repellent to power 
its farts? Kaf-ka-esque.



Parasaurolophus

It’s your very 
first dinosaur! 

What a joyride 
that’s gonna be!

Imagine: 
a real live horse. 

Envision: 
a pack mule 

with echolocation; 
a camel plodding on 

with no food, 
no rest. 



Pegomastax

If you see one of these, aim it at
the nearest national bank and run.

They say the perfect pegomastax 
can steal your credit card details.

I mean, look, my specimen implant… 
(you know, the ID gadget we start

out with and can never remove?) 
Yeah, it nicked that off me. It’ll steal 

everything but your affection —
that too, when it sits on your shoulder 

like a fetching, fluffy scarf...
Scrawny. Little. Lizard. Parrot. Thief.



Stegosaurus

Stegos are the new turtles:
bullet-soak extraordinaires. 

Mobilise a squad of 10 or 12
with max imprint. Turrets 

are past-tense. Charge right
into them. Its tail is unsurpassed 

as a timberwolf culling tool.
There are many nice places 

to capture or kill a stego:
beaches choked with forest growth,

jungles… Get it stuck there, 
helpless, between the trees.



Titanosaurus

Like a salmon returning to fresh water,
once you tame it, it will never eat again.

Like a mayfly, it’ll endure for a single day 
before it starves and dies. So work it hard 

while you can. And when it swoons 
and tumbles, you will see a titan fall. 

This mountain renders in long before the land. 
(As if to boast some inner spirit.)

And like a budget Gandalf, it’ll cast you
some pretty impressive magic in a pinch.

Tame it. Kill with it. Then watch it die. 
But never, ever, ever give it a name.

 

Triceratops

Unquestionably, the most iconic 
vegan of all time. And here it is: 

your friendly, live lawnmower, cutting 
precision turns on those bush nodes. 

Watch it rip into mangroves like a wyvern, 
scoring you hundreds of thousands 

of mushrooms (perfectly optimised 
for narcotics). The patented horned face 

shreds forests down to thatch in no time.
That’s simple, versatile, harvesting utility. 

Use only as directed. Caution: 
can get sandwiched between shrubs.

David Jalajel is the author of Moon Ghazals (Beard of Bees Press, 2009), Cthulhu on Lesbos (Ahadada Books, 2011), a chapbook in Dan Waber’s This is Visual Poetry series (2013) and Rhyme & Refrain (University of the Western Cape, 2017). His work has appeared in a number of online and print journals, including Otoliths, Shampoo, experiential-experimental-literature, Recursive Angel, The New Post-Literate, Gulf Coast, Anti-, Lynx, Mizna, and Eclectica.

 
 

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