Red-Headed

Is there shame in fame;
do I mean should you wallow
like a fat hippo?

Up to your armpits
in thick glutinosity
slapping yourself on

the back like hippo's
actually don't! At least
I suppose they don't.

I don't really see
hippopotamuses at
all where I now live.

Hippopotami
you say in shocked disbelief;
and I say “Fowlers

Modern English - read
it & weep” you know-it-all!
I can pluralise.

However I can't
speak for large river-horses
& their relatives.

As far as I know
none matriculated from
my Alma Mater.

Bollocks! I hear you
say with some indignation.
You can't name any.

So it's 'Deorum
Injuriae Diiscurae'
the educated

hippopotami
or hippopotamuses
to be correct, say.

In their lovely ooze
of inspissated gloopy
dark muddy waters.