Original poems for the young at heart
Wishy-washy ghost, I don’t mean to boast
But I’m going to scare you off with my flickering light
Wishy-washy ghost, I don’t meant to boast
But my teeth are really sharp and my fangs are going to bite
Wishy-washy ghost, I don’t meant to boast
But ner ner ner ner ner, I’m scarier than you!
But wishy-washy ghost, the thing I hate the most
(So don’t even think of it) is someone shouting ‘Boo!’
MUMMY!
Midnight chimes.
And out of the slime and the grisly grime
There comes a breath of deathly air,
And a horrible howl of dark despair.
Gravestones crack.
And there in the air, so breathlessly black,
Pairs of dark unseeing eyes
Shake the dust, and start to rise –
Out of the soil and the oil and the mud
And the depths of decay. Then comes a thud
As feet, with bits of flesh and blood
Still strung on brittle bones, long dead,
Embrace the earth and start to tread.
The moon comes out.
And all around, from round about
The shredded sky resounds with screech
As severed fingers clutch and reach
Like roots through window panes and doors
And clasp with knuckles, clamped like claws
Around their limp and lifeless prize.
But what is this – oh what surprise!
A soft and fluffy teddy bear!
But then again, it’s only fair
That zombies cuddle something hairy.
After all, the dark is scary.
A pot of hot snot is what I like,
And a plate of flame-grilled fleas.
And a lurgy burger, nice and rare,
Topped with some melted sneeze.
Then virus pie (do have a try)
Come on now – eat it quickly.
A dollop of scream? But I don’t know why
You look so incredibly sickly.
If you’re a witch a plain black cat
Is now old-fashioned, it’s just old hat.
Depending on what kind of hag you are
You might have a puma or jaguar,
Or you might fly round on a broomstick of iron
And keep on the end a fearsome lion.
A witch who’s mean and cross a lot
Might keep a tiger or ocelot,
While a witch who studies a lot and thinks
Favours a panther or wildcat or lynx.
A witch who’s cold and needs a heater
Snuggles up warm with a big spotty cheetah,
And older witches, with hair white and peppered,
Might keep a serval or bobcat or leopard.
In fact, if you keep a plain old tabby
It shows you’re dowdy and frumpy and shabby.
But what kinds of things do all fashionable witches
Keep to show off all their wealth and their riches?
The Queen of the Witches (you might have seen her)
Now goes around on a vacuum cleaner,
And directs it right to the door of her house
With a flick of her wand and the click of a mouse.
Nobody knows what grows up my nose;
The worms that squirm as they dangle and dose,
The lurgies that loathsomely lurk in their lairs
And burrow through bogies and harvest the hairs,
The fleas at ease as they squash and they squeeze
Making mucousy music from slobbery sleaze,
The trolls that roll in the slime and the snot,
The goblins that gobble the grime and the grot,
The cave dwelling critters that creepety-crawl.
No, nobody knows – no, no-one at all.
No-one that is, but me and but you,
So come over here, my dear…
ATCHOOOO!
Spindly spider, speck of black,
Creepy-crawling up my back.
Knitting, knotting, silky mesh,
Inching slowly up my flesh.
Weaving, winding, dingle dangle,
Tip-toe treading, threading, tangle.
Scuttle, scurry, scamper, skitter –
Where’s it gone, that creepy critter?
Spindly spider can’t be far.
Where’s that spider hiding?
AAAAARGH!
Why doesn’t a stick,
Why doesn’t a stick,
Why doesn’t a stick
When the wind blows quick
Just stick on the tree
Like it’s meant to be?
Why does a stick come unstuck?
Is it bad luck that it drops to the ground
With a
Plop
Plop
Plop
Plop
Plopping
Sound?
Why doesn’t a stick
Stay on like glue,
Just like a stick
Should be meant to do?
Why, on a wuthering windy day
Does it whish and whoosh and swish and sway
And then
Tumble
Tumble
Tumble
Away
Yes, why doesn’t a stick
Just stick?
My parents are both very different,
They always have quarrels and bicker;
My father’s a celery seller,
My mother’s a liquorice licker.
She always says ‘Celery? Healthy and icky!’
My father says ‘Liquorice? Yucky and sticky!’
But eating them both is tremendously tricky
So when they’re not arguing, guess what they’re doing?
That’s right, you’ve guessed it! They’re sitting there chewing.
I know it’s quite funny, but please do not snicker;
They’re chewing to see who will finish the quicker –
My father the celery seller,
Or my mother the liquorice licker.
A Cockatoo with two tattoos
Met a Toucan in Toulouse,
Who, tooty-tootling through the zoo,
Espied the bird and cried ‘Yoo hoo!
You two-tattooed young bird, now do
You wish to do a third tattoo?’
The Cockatoo said ‘Oo, but who’d
Agree to be thus three-tattooed?’
The Toucan cooed: ‘Do view the news!
All beauty-conscious cockatoos
Have many more than two tattoos!
So do not snooze! No time to lose!’
The Cockatoo said ‘Who would woo
A bird who had a third tattoo?’
‘Who would want to marry you?’
The Toucan cried. ‘For one, I do!’
‘I will not get a new tattoo’,
The Cockatoo said, ‘just for you.
You brutish bird! But I’m too shrewd
To go with you and get tattooed’.
And then she saw a cockatoo
Who had but two tattoos on too.
They fell in love, those cockatoos,
And through the zoo they took a cruise,
Canoodling on their two canoes
To the sound of loud ‘boo hoos!’
From that Toucan from Toulouse
Whose love for that young Cockatoo
Was not, perhaps, exactly true.
(Or that is what I think occurred,
But then again, I don’t speak Bird.
And maybe all that tooting talk
Was only ‘squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk’.)
I caught the fly and now it’s dead.
The fly is dead, it’s dead, I said.
And now I don’t know what to do,
Because I must have caught the flew.
Taking Words for a Stroll 