Poems for Children
Actually, these are poems for children "of all ages". They're taken mostly from my book
"Silly Wishes", illustrated by Helen Bar-Lev.
TEATIME AT THE WELL
A dappled mare
Ate an appled pear
And drank a bottled quaff
From a mottled trough
Then a tattered bay
Gave a rattled neigh
And sipped ginger beer
Like a ninja steer
And a little filly
Started acting silly
And drank much more water
Than she really oughta
All their brother horses
Drank from cups and saucers
They slurped at rum and cola
And burped at milk and granola
But two thirsting elephants
Drank to bursting elegance
And after quenching their dryness
Set to drenching the diners
SILLY WISHES
If I were a fly
I’d fly so high into the sky
that the sun would fry me to a frizzle
and wild geese would cackle at my sizzle
If I were a question mark
I’d pose riddles just for a lark
and make up millions of quizzes
with many more isn’ts than is’s
If I were a whale in the ocean
I’d make such a din and commotion
that I’d wake lazy crabs who as a rule
are usually late for school
If I were a stocking
I’d do things so shocking
that old fashioned ladies and men
would never ever wear me again
If I were a double-decker sandwich
I’d start giggling in gibberish language
that would stop children gobbling to mutter
this avocado tastes like peanut butter
If I were the man in the moon
I’d pull faces and pretty soon
some amateur astronomer ignoramus
would discover me and become world famous
If I were Christopher Columbus
I’d eat bananas with cucumbers
and solve the often-asked question
why Americans have so much indigestion
IN THE BEGINNING
Before the beginnings of rules
there was no order, no form,
no words, no notes, no colors,
someone took a thing and said
“look a ball, a red ball”
and then there was a sun
Someone smiled and said “coo coo”
and then there was a bird
and the bird flew across the sun
the red sun shone on the bird
the cuckoo bird flew into the smile
The smile shone into the sun
the sun laughed at the bird
the singing bird
cuckoo, cuckoo
ODE TO A HEALTHY LIFE
Freddy Ford was a fitness freak
worked out in gym four times a week
and on weekends took a ten mile hike
or climbed a hill trail on his bike
He ate only organic food
shunned cans and packs unless he viewed
each label, not purchasing ingredients
whose chemicals made him feel tense
He swallowed every vitamin pill in sight
chomped carrots so he could see in the night
drank only imported mineral water
in which he squeezed a lemon quarter
In his teens he became a vegan
and even ice cream didn’t weaken
his firm resolve never to ingest
things that failed his cholesterol test
He didn’t like chocolate, it spoiled his complexion
used sunscreen creams to give protection
against the cancerous solar glare
and used a mask to filter the air
He preferred being on his own
locked himself into his home
sprayed doors and windows every day
to keep offensive germs away
One day he got a bout of hiccups
went out for some dental checkups
while walking home a garbage truck
buried him under ten tons of muck
They put him in a pristine coffin
the cleanest box to send him off in
and on his tombstone they inscribed
A Healthier Man Has Never Died
APPLE WISDOM
Sir Isaac Bubble knows
secrets that you might suppose
he only discovered
when old Mother Hubbard
threw a diphthong down onto his nose
The universal force he declared
is a mixture of wondrous and weird
a plateful of sandwiches
filled with tongue twisting languages
gravitating linguistics absurd
All spins around everything else
in a soundless concerto of bells
but with wisdom infinite
he deciphered that in it
are elevens that are larger than twelves
—and theories that are disproved by elves
—and words that don’t speak to themselves
ROYAL ANTICS BEFORE BREAKFAST
The princess the frog and the cat
were lying on the bed
When the frog pulled the blanket
the cat fell on the floor
When the princess pulled the blanket
the frog started to snore
So she prodded him in the back
and he faced the other way
For a while he stopped his snoring
but her prodding kept ignoring
So she pulled him back towards her
and he turned into a prince
And he hugged her to reward her
- they’ve been hugging ever since
And what about the cat
who’d been banished to the mat?
He’d missed his breakfast once again
and there’s not much fun in that
So that’s all the telling I can bear
the end of this small ditty
about a very happy royal pair
and a very hungry kitty
HORRID HAPPENINGS
Half a jar of strawberry jam
Half a tube of mustard
Mix them up as best you can
Whoops – horrid custard
Sing a song of cats in the night
Right outside the windows
Water bomb them, give them a fright
Whoops - off the din goes
Baby pigs are squeakier than
Puppy dogs or parrots
Rabbits quiet as watering cans
Whoops – no more carrots
Year-old cheese and vinegar spills
Leaky pipes all rusting
Soggy spinach, medicine, pills
Whoops – how disgusting
A DAFFY DANCE PARTY
Six merry chimpanzees went to a dance
dressed in purple shirts that they bought last year in France
they wore bellboy hats and licorice pants
and ate banana marzipan while balancing on their hands
A pair of waltzing ostriches frowned at them from high
a careful camel moved aside while straightening his tie
a Doberman and a Dachshund exchanged disgusted glances
and muttered, they should ban these apes from coming to our dances
Twelve performing fleas who were sleeping in the rug
climbed up on the chimps' backs and gave their ears a tug
then the chimps started scratching and jumping even faster
and they fell into a bowl of punch which caused a right disaster
Two cumbersome hippos who'd been waiting for a drink
got punch all down their trousers, which turned a frightful pink
they backed away so suddenly they bumped into a boar
who upset a cabbage salad which fell straight onto the floor
A lazy goat who up till then was sitting in the corner
saw the lady hippo slipping and shouted out to warn her
she turned away but then she stumbled on a piece of slaw
and sat down on two turtles who were coming in the door
The disc jockey, a walrus, shouted, come on now my hearties,
let's all join in and make tonight the best of swimming parties
so fill your glasses to the top and let's all drink a toast
to the wettest dancing party that's ever graced this coast
No sooner said than done, a grinning beaver grabbed a bucket
and threw the contents at the DJ, who deftly tried to duck it
and two brown kangaroos who were sitting on the sofa flirting
were suddenly surprised to get a strawberry milkshake squirting
The chimps then got excited and jumped on the chandelier
and started hosing everyone with foamy ginger beer
and some rabbits who really got fed up of being splashed and sprayed
filled a tub and had a lovely swim in lukewarm lemonade
And as the night went on, the party kept on getting wetter
which made the jovial DJ feel that life couldn't be better
for all the sloppy, watery mess, the gurgling commotion
made the walrus feel quite back at home inside the heaving ocean
FUN AT THE MOVIES
Two silly-billy little hedgehogs
went to a movie in the mall
dressed in their best pink and blue togs,
they bought a popcorn that was so tall
they couldn’t see the screen at all
so they stood up on their back feet
on top of the folded up seat
Some rabbits behind started to frown
and complained loudly, ‘please sit down
none of us can see the show
you’re not made of glass you know’
so they put the popcorn on the floor, but you can guess..
it fell right over and made a mess
In the row behind the rabbits sat a duck
who at all this noise began to cluck
’why do you rabbits have to shout?
I can’t hear at all what the movie’s about’
Behind the duck were sitting three parrots
eating lettuce and chomping on carrots
who got fed up at all this talking
and pretty soon they started squawking
Then the trouble really let loose
as behind the parrots was sitting a goose
who poked the parrots with her walking stick
making them start to wriggle and kick
The duck got a parrot foot on her back
so she stood up and started to smack
but she smacked the rabbits by mistake
making them start to tremble and shake
So the rabbits stood up and left the hall
and the hedgehogs threw popcorn at them all
and three little froggies started to bawl
and nobody saw the movie at all
PARROT TALK
Mr. and Mrs. Parrot
Were having a chat
About this and that
On their branch after lunch
You won’t believe this said Mr. P
Clicking his beak in evident glee
But I heard some kids say the other day
That parrots just repeat what others say
So how come he asked with a cackling squawk
I hear every day that kinda talk?
Sure beats me replied his wife
Never heard such nonsense in all my life
They really don’t know what they’re missin
Why don’t they just shuddup and listen?
THING A THONG
set a seal of Saturn
planet full of sky
twenty four stilettos
catching in the rye
in a blinking moment
her moons turned into rings
and eine kleine nachtmusik
the birds began to sing
old sol was in financial times
adjusting the inflation
his wife was writing honeyed rhymes
to soothe united nations
and christopher columbus
was setting out to sail
when down blew a stiletto
and sliced off his braille
SELECTIVE MISCOMPREHENSION
A fractional modification
in x-chromosome incoherence
a subliminal rearrangement
unnoticed by my parents
a DNA correction
in a recessive gene
causes me to say things
that I don’t really mean
Like antidisestablishment
instead of please desist
or watching crows hop on a wall
when meaning I have missed
like saying yes when I mean no
while hearing gossip columns
like not believing horoscopes
or leprechauns or golems
But my selective miscomprehension
has a compensatory device
I tend to lose auditory reception
when my mom gives me advice