We’re off to visit the wizard,
the wizard so wise that he knows
just what to do next
if ever you’re hexed
and the best way to clean between toes.
This wizard does not use a blizzard –
no blizzard, no twister, no snows.
No silly pretext.
No need to be vexed.
Nothing that you might suppose.
This wizard is well worth a visit.
To get there, as everyone knows,
you don’t need a text
that might leave you perplexed.
You’re fine if you follow your nose.
UQ
If you were a ewe
would you queue
too
(ewes
usually do)
if you knew
it was true
that waiting for you
at the end of the path
was a bath?
Or would you
shoot through?
The ticket’s important.
Your favourite show
is almost sold out
but you’re dying to go.
You groan at the queue
but you can’t walk away;
there’s no other chance.
You must see it today.
Yes, you’re dying to go,
But not just to the show.
One coffee too many,
and the queue is so slow.
The choice is so cruel,
What will you do?
You have to choose now:
The queue or the loo?
It’s Nature that wins,
As Nature will do,
but you’ll know next time
that it’s ‘P’ before ‘Q’.
Kate O’Neil
I hate it when it happens
and I bet you hate it too.
You’re just walking on the footpath
and there’s dog-poo on your shoe.
And your friends say ’Phew!
I don’t want to sit with you
‘cause you just trod in dog-poo
and there’s dog-poo on your shoe.”
I know the dogs can’t help it.
Dogs just do what dogs just do.
But, owners, when you walk your dogs,
please collect the poo.
Kate said: “M.Y.D.B.” is to be ‘published’ as a laminated sign on the grassy footpath near a Bush-care site I work on. For obvious reasons.
It’s summer
and it’s holiday.
The morning is
so big
it’s going to last
all afternoon
and the night
will have to go
home.
Kate O’Neil
Like it or not
I am glued to this spot,
left in the lurch
on a perilous perch
exposed to all weathers,
bird-bombs and feathers,
no shelter at night,
a face like a fright,
with a monstrous chin
and a phony grin
that’s just an excuse,
a ridiculous ruse
for making a drain
to spew out the rain
away from the wall
of this cold stone hall.
Day in and day out
I do nothing but spout
the run-off and grime
and the muck and the slime
from up on this roof –
I feel such a goof.
In fact, I’m offended
at being wrong-ended
with backward digestion –
so here’s a suggestion:
if means could be found
to turn me around
I could hide my face
from the human race
and I wouldn’t need words –
I’d behave like the birds
and the message I’d send
would be through my rear end.
Kate O’Neil
Tall custodians of scribbled mysteries,
What can you tell us, silent trees?
What tunnelling scribes find sanctuary
within this covert library?
Mere larvae, small but diligent,
whose little lives are wholly spent
to leave these ciphers in your care
’til later times reveal them there.
What is the urgent need that drives
this tracery of transient lives?
What are the messages layered here
in darkness? Why, year after year
do you allow these prophets in?
Is there an itch beneath your skin?
Are you, tall gums, merely content
to give their need your nourishment?
Or do your lives and theirs conspire
to keep these riddles from our eye
’til when these poets take their leave,
you wear their heartsongs on your sleeve?
Kate O’Neil
Kate Said: The scribbly gum is a eucalyptus tree with a very smooth, pale trunk. The distinctive brownish ‘scribbles’ are made by the larvae of the tiny scribbly moth.
Days are longer. Getting warmer.
Sun is higher overhead.
Restless toes begin their twitching.
Barefoot days not far ahead.
At last December comes around.
Summer holidays are here.
That’s when toes come out to play.
That’s the time when feet go bare.
Let’s all run across the grass.
But do look out for bindi eyes.
Ow! Ow! Ouch! They’re everywhere.
Hear our barefoot bindi cries.
Watch us dance the bindi ballet
Quick steps, big steps on our toes.
Hidden prickles keep us leaping
if we step where bindi grows.
Best of all are barefoot beach-days
racing on the summer sand.
Ow! It’s hot! Run to the water.
Run to the edge. Whew! See us stand
doing the barefoot wet-sand wiggle.
See us sink on toes that squirm
down through clouds of sand and shells,
ankles wrapped in swirling foam.
Barefoot days pass far too quickly.
Back-to-school time soon comes round.
But think how much our feet are learning
walking barefoot on the ground.
Kate O’Neil
I’m a biker. I’m a hiker
and I love acrylic lycra.
I’m specific that acrylic
is the lycra that I like
for especially when biking
it is greatly to my liking
to be free to frisk and frolic
when I reach somewhere idyllic
and I get down from my bike.
And lycra that’s acrylic,
when the heat is diabolic,
just wicks away the wet
so there’s never trickling sweat
to upset the mood euphoric
when I reach a place bucolic
on a long laborious hike.
… or a day-trip on my bike.
That’s why acrylic lycra’s what I like.
Kate O’Neil
In my Australian school
in the days of Empire,
we dipped our nibbed pens
in ink that was royal blue,
and, by decree,
in ink of
no other colour.
Not the blue of the sea
which girt us
nor of the arching sky
in our land of the free.
Australians were loyal
and True Blue
was royal.
Britannia ruled the waves
and Britannia ruled
the ink.
Margins however,
were to be ruled
(exactly one inch,
giving no quarter)
in erasable pencil.
Kate O’Neil
Australian Children’s Poetry 