There was shelter –
An upturned water tank
With an entrance hole —
My secret space
In the brittle summer bush
Where I’d hide,
Dark and bruised and splintered.
In those childhood days
I was an outlaw of sorts,
Travelling alone,
Not fitting anywhere,
Listening to cicadas throbbing
With song,
Beyond words,
Wanting nothing
But the arc of my mother’s arms
Dianne Bates
I’m standing proudly centre stage,
I grab the microphone.
The love from all those avid fans
rains down on me alone.
I launch into my favourite song,
I belt out the refrain.
The crowds are screaming out for more.
I take the mike again.
I’m really pumped, I raise the pitch,
I give it all I’ve got.
I’ve never known such warm applause,
I’m feeling pretty hot
until my mother calls my name
and interrupts my song:
“Your sister needs the bathroom now.
You’ve been there way too long!”
He’s washing the windows across the road,
The Window Man in his yellow hat
He bends down low and he rubs the glass
With a sponge the shade of a ginger cat.
His hand goes round and round and round,
Then his head comes up to the middle bit
As he rubs away at a grubby patch
And helps it along with a lick of spit.
When he grips the sponge the corner points
Like a single ginger-pussy’s ear.
His long rag looks like a pussy’s tail,
But I don’t know what that’s doing here.
The sky grows dark, and a thunder clap
That makes me jump, sends him to the porch.
The clouds are so dark I can hardly see –
I wonder, won’t he need a torch?
The rain teems down, and the thunder booms.
He leans out to see if the clouds will break
As hail rattles down on his yellow hat –
And he drops his sponge, for goodness sake!
Their dog slinks in to avoid the hail
And seizes the sponge, then dodges round,
Growling and chewing. The Man yells, ‘Hoy!’
And it drops it out in the pouring rain.
Now the sponge has legs, but it’s lost its tail,
And its head is a funny sort of shape,
But the Window Man leaps off the porch
To grab it — in case it decides to escape?
He squeezes the rain out and growls at the dog,
Who shrinks in the corner, her head on her paws,
While the Window Man drips. He could do with a squeeze!
But he’s got to get on with his windows and doors.
He ties up the sponge on the end of a stick
But there isn’t much left of its middle to rub,
For its legs wave about, and the stick scrapes along,
There just isn’t enough of the sponge left to scrub.
The top of the door glass is streaky all over.
He’s making it worse – what a silly chump.
Now his polishing rag is chewed up in the corner!
… the dog gives a yelp when the stick hits her rump.
As she leaps down the steps and gets lost round the corner
The Window Man’s rump hits the mat with a bump.
His angry roar lost in the roar of the thunder,
He rubs at his forehead. Ouch, what a lump!
I cannot imagine whatever he’ll do –
But all my own window’s covered with breath.
This cushion’s foam! So I grab my coat
And run to make up for his sponge’s death …
What would you think of a mum who ran
To save her cushion from the Window Man?
Hey diddle duddle
Astronauts in a muddle
Double helpings of trouble were spooned
The martian men laughed
As they dropped their space daks
and confused passing spaceships they mooned
Charlie McCarthy ate lentils and beans
and barbeque onions as well
Folk started running when they saw Charlie coming
’cause he came with a terrible smell.
Charlie McCarthy was partial to farting
he farted whenever he walked.
The Mayor of the city said ‘It’s just such a pity
but his butt hole should really be corked.’
He called the town doctor, who was a proct-
ologist, told him seal Charlie’s bum,
‘Just fashion a plug that will fit nice and snug,
using rubber and plastic and gum.’
The doc corked up Charles, but then came the loud growls,
from deep within Charlie’s behind.
Doc said, quite abrupt ‘If you’re going to erupt,
dear Lord, Charlie boy, please be kind.’
Then the doctor, he saw, Charlie’s puckered back door,
quite suddenly open and close.
It blinked, then it winked, then the sphincter that stinked,
spat the plug out at the doctor’s nose.
Well, then came a roar, like no other before,
as fart after fart filled the room.
Charlie lit a match, and the town was dispatched
with one massive explosion…KA-BOOM!!!
I will give you a smile if you care to look up
but I won’t show my face on a dark, dark night.
I will rule over oceans as though they are slaves
but I won’t ever say if that’s wrong or right.
I will make a lake’s surface a silvery spread
but I won’t share my shine when the day is bright.
I will block out the Sun every once-in-a-while.
My Solar Eclipse is an awesome sight!
Celia said: There was a Total Solar Eclipse over part of the USA recently. Our Moon is 400 times smaller, yet 400 times closer than the Sun. This precise difference makes them appear the same size from Earth. When they line up perfectly, it can take our breath away! Imagine what a riddle this event must have posed to people centuries ago, before we really understood the movements of the stars, planets and our silvery Moon.
I wish I were a dinosaur that lived amongst the plants.
I wish I were as tiny as those microscopic ants.
I wish I were a blossom tree – a pretty sight of pink.
I wish I were a roller blade that skated round a rink.
I wish I were a raindrop falling from a stormy cloud.
I wish I were an eagle soaring high above a crowd.
I wish I were a spider – having eight legs would be neat.
I wish I were a centipede – with all those extra feet.
I wish I were a peacock with majestic, fan-like tail.
I wish I were a postage stamp, secure on someone’s mail.
I wish that wishing wishes makes that wish come true for me,
as all my wishes are exciting things I’d like to be.
I wish I’d see a world at peace
With harmony, not strife and war;
Where we care for one another,
And nobody is sad and poor.
I wish my school would safer be,
No playground bullies anymore;
If we forgave each other’s faults
How happy we’d all be, I’m sure.
I wish I’d see our oceans clean,
Without pollution’s ugly blight.
I wish the whales would live and thrive,
I wish for coral colours bright.
I wish, I wish, for happiness
For everyone — especially you.
If you wish with me, fingers crossed,
We might just see our wish come true.
A lot can happen in 60 seconds and even more in a minute.
You can floss your teeth
and tie your shoes
or blink 12 times within it!
A hummingbird flaps 4,000 times,
there are 59 weddings
and 3 parking fines
(in Melbourne).
300 lightning strikes hit Earth.
250 mothers give birth.
5 earthquakes rattle the world someplace,
but have you ever wondered what happens in space?
For every minute of every day
there’s a cosmic supernova display.
Fireworks on the grandest scale,
a blinding, flashing starburst wail,
as 60 stars begin to implode
their cores superheating until they explode.
Imagine?
Who’d have thought there was that much power?
Makes me wonder what happens each hour.
Newton was a clever man.
An avid scientific fan.
He questioned many things he saw.
Like ones we had no answers for.
He thought them through right to their cores.
Then gave us many handy laws.
Newton’s First Law Of Motion:
Without a force of push or pull
an object will remain quite still.
With just one push at just one time
that object moves in one straight line.
Newton’s Second Law Of Motion:
A bigger Force accelerates
an object that is heavy-weight.
While objects of a smaller mass
don’t need much Force to move them fast.
So Newton noticed they obey
that Force will equal m times a.
Newton’s Third Law Of Motion:
Now bend a stick. Before it cracks
you’ll feel its force of pushing back.
For every action there will be
an equal one – opposingly.
Without his formulas in place
we’d soon get lost in outer space.
So Isaac’s Laws help us traverse
the reaches of our universe.
Celia said: Things need to move in order to travel. First published in 1687, Newton’s Three Laws of Motion were a scientific breakthrough for which he is very famous. These laws are still used today to calculate such things as the orbits of moons, planets and stars. And they’ll be very handy if you travel to Mars – a few decades from now!
Australian Children’s Poetry 