Tag Archives: poems for children

Poem of the Day

Leave a comment

Silvery Riddle

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 Berrell

 

  • Submitted in response to Poetry Prompt #36

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.

Poem of the Day

Leave a comment

Wish List

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.

Caroline Tuohey
  • Submitted in response to Poetry Prompt #35

Poem of the Day

Leave a comment

I wish

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.

 

James Aitchison   
  • Submitted in response to Poetry Prompt #35
   

Poem of the Day

Leave a comment

60 seconds

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.

Alys Jackson

Poem of the Day

Leave a comment

The farmers’ market

 

I saw a red balloon today

On a stand, just near the honey.

The woman said I had to pay.

‘A dollar please, dear mummy?’

 

‘No,’ she said.

‘Please, I’ll hold on tight.’

‘No,’ she said.

‘Let’s not fight.’

 

‘Balloons hurt birds and fish,

Bubbles cause no harm.’

To the gate with only a wish

The end of my day at the farm.

 

Now home with my bubbles

I’ve forgotten my troubles

Rainbow bubbles in the air

Bubbles floating everywhere.

Vanda Lockyer.

Poem of the Day

Leave a comment

THREE BRAVE YOUNG EXPLORERS

 

Over the fence and

along the dirt track,

weaving through bushes

without looking back.

Three brave young explorers

and Foster the dog

went out hunting tadpoles

went out hunting frogs

 

With nets and glass bottles,

their tools of the trade,

down to the water

their way the three made.

These hardy explorers

and Foster the dog

were searching for tadpoles,

were searching for frogs.

 

Scooping up water

and netting their prize –

a bottle of tadpoles,

one frog with big eyes.

So armed with their tadpoles

And one big eyed frog

Home went the explorers

with Foster the dog.

© Allan Cropper
  • Submitted in response to Poetry Prompt #31

Poem of the Day

Leave a comment

Springing To Action

 

Sprr-r-r-ring is such an active word.

You can hear it gathering-up its force.

Ready to burst out a kind of ping.

Releasing its energy on a course.

 

It’s the name we give to the season when

all living things gear-up to abound.

We use it to label a water source

that’s pushing its way through the spongy ground.

 

It’s also the name we give a device

that bends and moves but will not crack.

It’s often metallic and flexible.

If it’s pushed or pulled it does the same back.

 

A spring isn’t always a coiled-up wire.

It could be a curve or a V-shaped bend.

Like a bow that shoots arrows through the air.

Or a pair of tweezers with open ends.

 

A spring can be made from a plastic mould.

A blister, a mound or a curvy dome.

They’re hidden in keyboards for typing things.

And once were used on an old mobile phone.

 

A pen you can click. A used paperclip.

A clock that goes tick. A peg that can grip.

A doorknob that twists. A bike-bell that rings.

It’s likely they’ve all got some kind of sprr-r-r-ring!

Celia Berrell
  • Submitted in response to Poetry Prompt #34

Celia said: Many Australians seem to have an easy-going approach to life.  Is this reflected in the way we say words like “spring”?  Other cultures and languages speak in a more animated way than us.  Can you “roll your r’s” like the Italian and Spanish people do?  Or gargle your “r’s” like the French?  How do you make the word “spring” really spring?

Poem of the Day

Leave a comment

MY

Being.

Blossoming Blooming

Balanced Bedazzling Ball-of-Fire

Being Befriended, Beloved By

ME

Robyn Youl

 

  • Submitted in response to Poetry Prompt #29

Robyn said: Nearly a Diamante! Every child is a diamond. Some need love to polish those prisms so they can shine. Poetry in kids’ prisons would help! What a marvelous thing for kids to do – create positive poems about themselves using this pattern!

 

Poem of the Day

Leave a comment

Fields in Flood

For weeks now the wind has been keening,

cascading its tears into creeks

sobbing small streams into torrents,

the torrents now springing small leaks.

 

Around us the rivers are rising,

wet-fisted they break sodden banks,

huddling the sheep in their paddocks,

drowning the grass round their shanks.

 

Floodwaters bury the highway

choking the freight and the fields

and pelicans thunder the sky-way,

casting their rods and their reels.

Alys Jackson

Alys said: I wrote this poem after visiting NSW recently and hearing about the devastating floods that cut off the Newell Highway. The farmer I spoke to told me that hundreds of pelicans appeared from nowhere to feed on the fish in the floodwaters.

Poem of the Day by JR Poulter

Leave a comment