Now UFOs are UAPs,
can someone please explain
who was it who decided
UFOs must be renamed?
Of course, I do not have a clue
who might have been that author,
but I have a question for them:
what’s wrong with ‘flying saucer’?
Note: Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs, are now officially known as Unidentified Aerial (or Anomalous) Phenomena, or UAPs.
“It’s wrong! It’s wrong!”
the ostrich said.
“I never, never
bury my head!
If I did
how could I see?
You mustn’t believe
such things about me.”
Teacher’s note: Ostriches do not bury their heads in the sand. When trouble approaches, they lie low and press their long necks to the ground. Mostly, ostriches escape danger by running at up to 72 km/h. The world’s heaviest bird, they are also the world’s largest, fastest flightless bird, capable of killing predators such as lions and humans with a kick.
Hoo hoo hoo, and he haw hay
laughed the Kooka on his way.
After him the Magpies chased
winging past in reckless haste.
What was it that the Kooka heard
to cause the Magpies get so stirred?
An ornithologist rushed to meet
a Magpie walking on two sore feet.
‘I’m scared to fly,’ the Magpie wailed.
‘They laughed at me because I failed.’
He then limped on, a bird unique,
an unhappy agoraphobic freak.
Some called us lost from Earth’s great zoo
Extinct beyond a doubt
But we are here to claim our prize
As champs of hiding out
Men sought us over Lord Howe Isle
(And brought their rats as well)
So we jumped ship and hid upon
A stack that spikes the swell
Beneath a tea-tree clinging to
The stark Balls Pyramid
We waited to be found by folks
Before we flipped our lid
It took some eighty years before
Two scientists arrived
But even then they couldn’t see
Our black butts had survived
That night we nosed out from our nook
To let them know we’d won
The longest game of hide-and-seek
Insects had ever run
And now we’d like our trophy, please
We phasmids are for real
If you do not acknowledge us
We’ll give you stick – so deal!
It seems to me
that I can see
fingers in the sky.
Cloudy fingers,
each one lingers,
as I’m passing by.
Have you ever seen salt
far from the sea?
Salt that’s still as salty
as salt can ever be?
It’s salt in far Lake Tyrell,
a salty lake, you see,
and tastes even saltier
than salt does from the sea.
Teacher’s note: Lake Tyrrell is a salt-encrusted depression in Victoria’s Mallee district.
I tell Mum when to go
and when to stop, at every light.
I tell her she should know
to keep pedestrians in sight.
I say she has to show
she’s turning left or veering right.
I help her with the most important stuff.
Already I’ve begun
to dream of how it’s going to feel
when I become the one
who gets to sit behind the wheel.
I think of all the fun
I’ll have when driving cars for real.
For now, though, back-seat driving is enough.
A pair of pants blocks my view,
I can’t see down the street,
there’s fresh new snow upon the waist
and every icy pleat.
The lederhosen shop next door
makes leather pants like these,
and they hang a pair made of iron
to dangle in the breeze.
(In response to What’s Outside Your Window prompt #2. Teacher’s note: Lederhosen are short or knee-legth leather breeches often worn in German-speaking regions.)
These three short poems were submitted in response to Poetry Prompt #5.
An arthritic arachnid with eight knobbly knees
Sought medical help for her painful disease.
Her doctor prescribed her with cream to rub in
But the problem was how and just where to begin!
By Nadine Cranenburgh
My old dog Spot
is hard to spot
when hiding in my bed
He’s found a spot
all soft and hot
curled underneath my head
{Nadine says: The aim was to include a word that has multiple meanings.}
Little Jack Horner
Sat in the corner,
Eating his Christmas pie
He ate it all, every crumb.
‘What’s for seconds?’
he asked his mum.
Australian Children’s Poetry 