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Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Saturday, June 19, 2010

RICHARD MUIRHEAD: The Tadpole

T H E T A D P O L E

Solitary and sluggish,
at the bottom of a pool in Sir Cuthburt`s estate
his manse,crumbling and overgrown with weeds,
surrounded by Irish republicans,
eager for vengeance,justice.
The tadpole waits.

All of those rebels, battle hardened,
faces set against the wind, like flint,
except for Seamus,eighteen, drafted into weapons,
reluctantly: this cutting cruelly
against his sweeter nature.

Instead of bullets he sees birds,
besides bayonets, he breathes butterflies,
trembling, he dreams tadpoles.

The legendary Tralee golden tadpole (c.1920)
at least legendary since Seamus heard the craic about it three weeks ago around
the fire one night at the Green Flag.
Now, in the midst of explosions
he dives for shelter behind a wall of flint and stumbles across
the dense lead coloured surface of a pond,
simultaeneously glimpsing a yellow-golden flash
of tail which fires up in Seamus all the joys of discovery and life.

One amber coloured tadpole
and Seamus the only survivors of
Sir Cuthburt`s friends in the
Black and Tans militia.

Ninety years later in a bottle in
the Green Flag, the tadpole lies.
I challenge you adventurers and dreamers-go find it and on
finding it,dream!

© Richard Muirhead

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