Wheels Song
I don’t know why I’ve got feet
when I could have had wheels,
for wheels go so much faster.
Imagine me flying down our street
not in my trainers or boots
but on wheels, with my ghetto-blaster.
Imagine people turning to stare
and all telling me to slow down
before I caused a disaster.
Imagine me gliding off into space
with a quick little nod to the Moon,
then simply going straight past her. . .
Published in Through a Window, Longman, 1995
My mind is muddled, I feel befuddled,
bewildered and confused.
I think the space inside my brain
has been completely used.
There’s no room left for algebra,
or history or dates,
So I’ll be marching out of school,
please open up the gates.
What’s that you say? You’ll ring my mum?
You’ll call my dad as well?
Well, silly me, there seems to be
some room left in there still.
I guess I’ll stay and learn some more
until the final bell.
Cuttle Wish
Cuttlefish arms are in the place
where most of us would have a face.
Front-on they look like elephants
with lots and lots of tiny trunks.
Their skin can change its colouring
to make their bodies blend right in.
Their eyes have slits like wavy lines
instead of pupils round like mine.
Safe in their see-through eggy shell
Cuttlefish babies see quite well.
Before they’re old enough to hatch
they’ve seen the food they wish to catch!
Celia said: At birth, human babies have blurry vision. It takes a while to master how to focus on different things. In contrast, a cuttlefish’s eyes are fully developed before they hatch from their see-through egg. Just imagine being able to see all the food you want eat floating by … but you can’t get to it! Is that like having a blurred appetite?
My class is so lucky.
This term we’re learning about life cycles,
so my teacher brought in some tadpoles-
three big black commas
swimming around in a plastic aquarium
right beside our desks.
We named them
Freddo,
Kermit
and Spot.
Freddo was the first to grow
stumps
legs
more legs
then his tail shrunk
until his body was a fat full stop.
‘But what do we do with our frog?’
asked Mrs Chugg with a frown.
My hand shot up quicker than a speeding mosquito.
‘I’ve got a pond!’
So, she poked some holes in a butter tub
and sent Freddo home with me.
‘Lucky duck,’ said Ben.
I carried my precious passenger
down the street
around the back
then knelt beside our weedy pond
and gently tipped him in.
Freddo swam to a lily pad
half scrambled on and gazed around
at the water
reeds
insects
and grassy bank
before frog-kicking into the murky depths.
Compared to Kermit and Spot
with their four plastic walls,
I’d say he’s pretty lucky.
For Vincent Van Gough’s ‘The Starry, Starry Night’
Outlines crash into swirls
Miss Del Amico asks, what do you see?
Is that a sky of blue curls?
Outlines crash into swirls
Time to dive for some pearls
Will I find this painting’s key?
Outlines crash into swirls
Miss Del Amico asks, what do you see ?
My father loved the stars
In another life,
permitted education,
his facility with numbers
might have made him
a famous astronomer
instead of an accountant
See that bright one?
That’s Beetle-juice
I remember him telling
Yes, I’d say meekly
wishing to please
But I couldn’t of course
It was all just fuzzy blobs
See that milkbar on the corner?
No I said. Didn’t want to be sent
somewhere I couldn’t see
Stupid child! they thought
It never occurred to them
that I really couldn’t see.
So on my seventh birthday
a bicycle purple painted,
with Virginia
in gold down the crossbar
the most beautiful bike ever seen
I was terrified
to ride it, I couldn’t see
where I was going,
what was in front
I walked it to school
to Brownies after school
to have it admired,
to show it off
but I couldn’t actually ride it.
Six months later
my myopia finally spotted by a teacher
I learned to ride with my new glasses
I was never very good
never enthusiastic
never worthy of the bike’s beauty
The skill now long forgotten
Virginia said: I was myopic (short sighted) from birth, but no one realised until a teacher called my parents when I was seven. I didn’t know of course – that’s just how the world was – it didn’t occur to me that it might look different to different people. After I got glasses I was fine – but never really confident riding a bike, however beautiful the bike was. Now I’m old. When they removed the cataracts from my eyes, they fixed the myopia as well, so no more glasses! There are some things I miss though, especially the pattern of circles of light through a dense leaf canopy. But now I can see the birds instead. I’ll never go back to bike riding though.
I first wrote this poem in response to a prompt on another poetry site, Silver Birch Press. The prompt was ‘learning to ride a bike’. It will fit into my autobiography in verse (not yet published) A Myopic’s Vision.
Oops!
I’ve got my brother’s lunchbox
With The Wiggles on the lid,
He must have picked up mine instead
(He’s just a little kid.)
So Charlie’s got my health bar
And my favourite yoghurt snack,
And I’ve got little kiddie lunch –
Too late to change it back.
I could go and see the teacher,
But she’ll say, “Don’t bother me,”
I guess I’m stuck with Charlie’s lunch,
I’ll be half starved by three.
Here we go….what is this stuff?
One tin of custard pears,
Two egg and lettuce sandwiches
Cut into tiny squares,
Three cherry drops with jelly tops,
Four skinny carrot sticks,
Five cubes of watermelon, no,
You’d better make that six.
And right down at the bottom is-
What’s this! A chocolate crunch!
WOW!
Where’s my place? I need some space,
I’m having Charlie’s lunch.
On a Monday wet and cool,
I decided on a day off school.
‘Get up at once,’ my mother said,
So I threw up all over the bed.
I groaned about feeling really horrid,
She only had to feel my forehead.
I knew I was sick with something contagious,
But her disbelief was really outrageous.
I clung to my bed, so she just got meaner,
And bashed me with the vacuum cleaner.
The blood that flowed from my bleeding nose,
She washed away with the garden hose.
She hit me with the old straw broom,
And kept chasing me from room to room.
At last she drove me out of the house,
And called me a dirty conniving louse.
I threatened to fling myself under the bus,
Determined to end this dreadful fuss.
When thrown on the bus with a parting curse,
I knew that life couldn’t get much worse.
Still dripping blood, an awful bother,
The driver threw me back to mother.
Didn’t she scowl as she made the decision,
That I could stay home and watch television.
Mice are nice
to keep as pets.
They’re quiet little things.
But when they’re happy
you can bet
your pet mice like to sing.
Their complex songs
both short and long
make each mouse quite unique.
So other mice
know in a trice
who made that special squeak.
Our ears can’t hear
their high-pitched trill.
Mice sing in ultra-sound.
But sneaky cats
will get a thrill
to hear that food’s around!
The breeze coaxes
the windows open:
Windows as large as doors;
Windows as small as Nana’s china blue
dinner plates;
Windows of rainbow coloured glass
covered with trees and angels;
Windows frosted, so you can’t see through them,
textured and light grey.
The breeze beckons the windows open
creak
squeak
knock, knock.
The breeze doesn’t care if they are latched
lifted,
or pushed out
as long as
they open.
The breeze remembers when
windows had no glass
and were just open squares in
the walls and there was no air conditioning.
The breeze knows that some windows
are so clean and clear
that when they are closed
clueless birds fly into them.
Splat!
Whoosh! Ha, ha!
The breeze chuckles its cooling fresh breath
through open windows
into the outback houses
wishing for the end of summer.
Australian Children’s Poetry 