Tag Archives: poems for children

Playing the Game by Katherine Gallagher

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Playing the Game

 

On match days,

I try to make sure

I play very well

and am first to score.

My team’s in blue,

the others are in grey.

 

In the heat of the minute

if I give the ball away,

it’ll be just too bad,

I won’t be picked next time;

it couldn’t be worse

if I’d committed a crime.

 

Don’t worry, Dad says,

A game’s just a game

but I’d like to be a star  ̶

maybe make my name.

Katherine Gallagher

 

Katherine said:  My poem ‘Playing the Game’ is  in response to the notion of  ‘star performance’, being a star, however  briefly and so on. Especially on the sports field.

Polar Bear by Karen Hendriks

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Polar Bear

Big, powerful white bear,

Lives in Arctic cold,

Strong, firm, white,

Covered in protective fur,

Black eyes, sharp claws,

Hungry belly,

That gnaws away all day.

 

This snowy white land,

That was once your friend.

Is melting away earlier,

Freezing up later.

Struggling to hunt seals.

You need to travel further and further

 

Less sea ice

More walking

More swimming

How far will you have to go?

Only the weather knows

 

Lucky you are strong,

But who knows for how much longer?

Will there still be a place in the Arctic Cold for you?

Or will you just disappear into nowhere?

Karen Hendriks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Will Be Brave by Jessica Nelson

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I Will Be Brave

 

I will go into the three bears’ house

I won’t be frightened like a mouse.

I will eat porridge from a spoon

I won’t fear that they’ll be home soon.

I will sit in this tiny chair

Just to show that I don’t care.

I won’t be scared and I won’t run—

But listen, look out, here they come.

I will perhaps have some concern,

The porridge has made my tummy turn.

I hear a stamping at the door,

I hear great footsteps on the floor.

I won’t dawdle, I need to hide!

Look, a bed, I’ll jump inside.

Flatten myself under the blanky

Hope the bears aren’t feeling cranky.

I will be quiet, I won’t shift

I will not toot or I’ll be sniffed.

I will sneeze, I just can’t stop it!

They’ve heard me now, I’d better hop it

Papa Bear, Mama Bear and little Wee

Have no porridge and might eat me!

I’ll quit this window (second floor)

I won’t come back here anymore.

Jessica Nelson

Moving Marvel by Teena Raffa-Mulligan

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Moving Marvel

I can

Banana bend

Licorice twist

Jelly wibble wobble.

 

See me

Caterpillar creep

Snake slither

Deer dash and dart.

 

I am

Rock steady

Tree tall

River rush and flow.

 

Love this

Body mine

Body strong

This moving marvel.

 Teena Raffa-Mulligan

First Published in Blast Off July 2005

Riddle by Katherine Gallagher

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What goes up

and never down?

 

When you’re born,

you count me in

race me on,

only occasionally forget me.

 

When you’re old,

I’m still growing.

 

What am I?

Answer:

upsidedown

 

Katherine Gallagher

 

Help! by Glenys Eskdale

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HELP!

 

Balanced on the end of a twig,

raging river below,

tree canopy above,

can’t climb back,

mustn’t fall down.

 

halfway between:

earth and sky,

falling and stuck,

alive and dead.

 

need nerves of steel,

a sharp brain,

monkey muscles.

 

this boy buccaneer

should have eaten

that basin of spinach,

broccoli and seaweed,

 

or he should never

have followed

his fog-brained idea

to climb this tree

in the first place.

 

Glenys Eskdale

 

 

 

The Mystery Box by Monty Edwards

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The Mystery Box

 

My lunch for school’s a mystery box and here’s the reason why:

I cannot guess just what’s inside, however hard I try.

There’s something different every day: Mum treats it as a game.

The only thing I’m sure about: no day will be the same.

 

If Monday’s roll has Vegemite, then Tuesday’s might have jam.

A sandwich made for Wednesday’s lunch might well be beef or ham.

On Thursday then, a salad wrap could be the big surprise,

But one school lunch on Friday something shocking met my eyes:

 

My mystery box was oozing with a greenish-yellow trickle!

There must have been a mix-up with Dad’s favourite: cheese and pickle!

While Dad enjoyed my peanut paste spread on his bread with honey,

My sandwich had an awful taste. Don’t laugh. It wasn’t funny!

 

Monty Edwards

Monty says: I didn’t like pickle at all as a child and would have been horrified to find it in my school lunch.

A Girl’s Head by Katherine Gallagher

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A Girl’s Head

(after the poem, ‘A Boy’s Head’ by Miroslav Holub)

 

In it there is a dream

that was started

before she was born,

 

and there is a globe

with hemispheres

which shall be happy.

 

There is her own spacecraft,

a chosen dress

and pictures of her friends.

 

There are shining rings

and a maze of mirrors.

 

There is a diary

for surprise occasions.

 

There is a horse springing hooves

across the sky.

 

There is a sea

that tides and swells

and cannot be mapped.

 

There is untold hope

in that no equation exactly

fits a head.

Katherine Gallagher

From Poetry Street 3 (Sale & Orme, 1991)

Katherine said: Looking back at Poetry Prompts, I thought about #19 with its buzz of questions. And I alighted on questions about what goes on in a girl’s head. Actually, I wrote this in response to Miroslav Holub’s poem ‘A Boy’s Head’. The thing about poetry, it usually asks more questions than it answers, but that’s useful.

Wally’s Folly by Monty Edwards

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Wally’s Folly

My mate Wally had a collie that he gave the name of Molly

And he thought it would be jolly to pull Molly on a trolley,

But poor Molly, when she tried it, was determined not to ride it,

So that once it hit a bump, she decided she would jump.

 

Now when Molly left the trolley she soon showed me Wally’s folly,

For without the weight of Molly even faster went the trolley

And while Wally tried to race it, he was failing to outpace it,

So it quickly knocked him over, but with luck he fell on clover.

 

Soon he had a lick from Molly who felt sorry for poor Wally,

But both Wally and his collie just ignored the upturned trolley,

Then with Wally’s heels near bleeding and the collie always leading,

They went back to where they started and much wiser I departed.

 

Monty Edwards

Monty says: The prompt had me thinking about the different breeds of dogs and their various temperaments. I then saw the possibilities for some humorous rhyme, featuring a gentle intelligent collie.

Point to Point by Penny Szentkuti

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Point to point

I got in a pickle the other day.
It was olive green
and bumpy skinned
and smelled quite strong
but I went along for the ride
even though it was damp and drippy inside
just so I could wink and say
I got in a pickle the other day.

Penny Szentkuti

Penny said: This was a train of thought poem – see how I did that? – and I can’t quite get off the track now that I’ve got that image of riding in a pickle. I must have been influenced too by the heavy advertising at the moment about point to point transport.