Children Poetry Page 2
Page 3
All poems © 1995 Blake Steele
May be copied and used freely.
Please identify author as is normal.
For publication rights please contact author.
All Paintings © 2003 Blake Steele
I'LL TIP AND I'LL TOE BEFORE I GO
Tip toe, tip toe,
here I go, here I go,
my foot I trace
in that place
where shadows lie
under sky.
Tip toe, tip toe
here I go, here I go,
the shooting grass
parts as I pass.
Up on one toe
now I go,
tip toe, tip toe.
Won't step on light
won't touch the bright,
until I'm ready
I'll stay steady
in the shadows
of the leaves
neath these brilliant
maple trees.
Tipping, toeing,
tipping toeing,
now I'm ready
to be going,
now I'm ready,
steady, steady,
running in the light,
cart wheeling though the bright;
jumping, twirling,
dancing, skipping,
through the shiny fields
I'm leaping,
on the way, ,
till at last I say...
I'm home!
A BOY, A BOY OF LIGHTNING FEET
A boy, a boy of lightning feet
fell down upon a mountain sweet
all made of chocolate and ices,
where trees were made of candied spices.
He fell as all the birds flew up
to drop their candies in a cup
for it was nearly half past three
and time for bears to take their tea.
Bird candies are the favorite fare
of bears who roam the forests where
that boy, that boy of lightning feet
fell down upon the mountain sweet.
And so the bears and birds and boy
then nibbled candies in their joy
and rollicked round a honeyed lake
on meadows of an ice cream cake;
for bears and birds and boys all know
that good does often come to grow
from accidents and other bad
that might make many grownups sad:
like when that boy of lightning feet
fell down upon the mountain sweet.
A BIRD SINGS
A bird sings
assured that it's a bird:
to fly, to sing, to sit,
to flit,
to get down in the grass
and pick and peck
and turn its neck
and flick its wing
and skip and hop
and bip and bop,
then once more be
up in a tree
to sit and sing
and flick its wing,
so solidly assured
that it's a bird.
SUN SONG SUN SONG SON SONG TOO
Great dancing gold glit sun,
lit of the saucy sky,
by thinking light illimitable
you spangle, sparkle by;
and who should know the other known
and darkly dancing way
if not for sun's irascible, yet
Christly crest of day.
So when the moon in madness mourns
and makes me miss the more,
I savor in the midst of me
that golden glit of store:
until sharp shadows prancing bold
upon the starry dome,
dissolve in amber ecstasies
and fiery tides of foam.
I MET AN OLD AND CRINKLY MAN
One moist and misty morning,
when clammy was the weather,
I met an old and crinkly man
dressed in silk and leather.
His eyes were blue as summer sky,
they sparkled like a star,
I said hello and so did he
and then he said, "Au revoir."
"Au revoir?" I asked, what could that mean?
for I was only three,
and so was not a traveled man
who'd crossed the distant sea.
"Au revoir my little bumpkin lad,"
the old man said and smiled,
he danced about just like a bird,
he seemed a little child.
He winked and all the stars shone out
that lived within his eyes,
the moisty, misty morning cracked
and sunlight filled the skies.
Then I went running to my house
and laughing jumped in bed
and singing like a little bird
I pondered what he'd said.
"Au revoir, au revoir," the old man cried
to moist and clammy weather;
I felt the sunshine of the sky
had come through silk and leather.
But I was but a milk-fed lad
a blank slate boy of three,
so after it was supper time
I climbed on Daddy's knee.
"Papa, Papa, sing to me
about the stars and sun
and how the world has come to be
and of what is it spun?"
And so my daddy smiled at me
and with a happy look
he opened up my heart and soul
with a holy, ancient book.
And when he sang of stars and skies
and how it all began,
it's then I knew with certainty
that old and crinkly man.
*
Even now, when days are moist
with mist and clammy weather,
I say, "Au revoir," and see the sun
shine through silk and leather.
AND JUST WHAT SHALL THE OYSTER MAKE
IF SAND SHOULD MAKE IT CRY?
What if God made hairy bears
lay eggs just like a hen;
and what if God made honey bees
to wallow in a pen;
and what if God made herring fish
to take to open sky?
--then I would lie in an oyster bed
for my bed, says I.
And what if sheep all hunted prey,
then showed no mercy when
they picked their fearful eyes out
just like a pecking hen?
(There I've used the hen again).
And what if lions ate up straw
and snuffled like a mouse;
and what if zebra's dug their dens
right beneath your house;
and what if snakes sat in your lap
and snuggled in your bed?
(Perhaps we'd have more kitty lovers
comfortless and dead),
for if the kitty lovers
snuggled snakes, I'd moan and cry
--and I would lie in an oyster bed
for my bed, says I.
And what if God made little gnats
as big as elephants?
People might have pic a nics
but they'd do it only once!
And what if people gobbled down
green beetles in dead trees?
(I sure am glad,
though things are bad,
they could be worse you seeze);
and if a buzzard buzzed your house
like a pesky household fly
--than I would lie in an oyster bed
for my bed, says I.
And what if cows lived underground
in trenches like a mole?
you might have milk and mud besides
within your breakfast bowl;
and what if horses swam the sea
and surfaced like the whale,
how would you trot and gallop then
upon that watery trail?;
and if the fluffy bunny
had the cobra's evil eye
--than I would lie in an oyster bed
for my bed, says I.
And what if God made pied-bill grebe
hunt wolves beneath the moon;
and what if apes swam in the lakes
just like the arctic loon;
and what if polar bears were small
as mice upon the dock?
--than you might find a polar bear
hid down within your sock--
and what if little puppy's fur
were quills, who'd question why?
--but I would lie in an oyster bed
for my bed, says I!
ADDENDUM AUD MAGNATORIOUS
So glad I am that Great Love chose
to make things as they are,
yet odd enough that a man might choose
to sail beyond a star,
and dip his heart in molten gold
and swim within the sun,
and learn at last to laugh and praise
and love just everyone:
then over monstrous, loathsome things
he'll shed his tears and sigh
--and lay him down in an oyster bed
for his bed, says I.
TO SPELL EVERYTHING WRONG
Listen to the Cat
Our cat that always allowed me to spell everything wrong,
sat upon my father's chair, listening closely to the air,
then suddenly sang me her song: about murflies
and little brown mups and dittles all in rows,
and scurry scumps and linckle dumps with pink and purple bows.
And fairy pips with burning lips and miniature mileys in glass,
and amber air where big cats stare at mice in the molls of the grass.
All fiery words that cat there heard she mewed into my ear,
so I wrote them down just like they sound without one bit of fear
of being told my spelling was turned all inside out,
(I know I spelled uniquely, and that without a doubt),
for a forswinkle skates on buttery plates under the light of the moon,
and who can know when a cat might glow with poems or a rune.
And if I cared for spelling I might have missed a line
of words that came unraveling like balls of woolen twine,
(with which our cat would often play when she had nothing left to say).
And often were the times, in the heated midst of rhymes,
that cat would glance at what I'd written and lick me like I was a kitten
just to let me know that words like: phosphodiferies
and gully warple scullyscows were special words,
were burning words, were words that cried for a child
to write them any which-a-way just to keep them free and wild!
*
Now, I'm old, and I've learned to spell a little bit, though you I'll tell
how I still remain quite sure that our musical cat who scorned all that
was not one half the fool, as those who dished up, like dead fish,
cold words to us in school!
THE DREADED BUGGYWASSELS
You must be careful, big people say,
of Buggywassels everyday.
Buggywassels, what can they be?
Do they look like rinosofferouses
are they smaller than a flea?
Well I have seen them, and I can tell
they’re scarry, warty, and they smell.
They often come from sewage drains,
but sometimes through aches and some times pains,
sometimes they drop out of a tree
and slip and slide through revelry.
And when they come then everything goes:
they’ll snitch your shoes and snitch your clothes,
and snitch money from your father’s banks
and take your pills and guns and tanks
and when you’re sure that’s quite enough
they’ll snitch away your other stuff.
And when they’ve snitched you night and day
and took your thinks and what you say
and snitched your gadgets, gears and goes
they’ll snitch these green things in your nose.
Oh me, oh my, what should we do?
This is prepondrous if its true.
I put the question on the net
and waited until I might get
some insight — but got only junk
that twenty thousand people thunk.
Until I got a message from
a tiny child who sucked her thumb:
her mother wrote it down for her
without a comma or a slur.
She was from an African tribal place
and sent this drawing of her face.
Buggywassels, she plainly wrote,
come like this drawing and this note.
They appeared two times last year
and stole my father’s chandelier,
and stole my momma’s credit cards
she used as wind chimes in the yard,
and stole my crying doll you see
with her controls and battery.
Then stole my TV and my games
and took my books of weights and names
and everything that they could find
except the pictures in my mind.
So that’s what’s left, but its enough,
I play with sticks and rocks and stuff
and make up worlds and draw and write
and dance in circles half the night.
So if those Buggywassels come
don’t shoo them out or make them run
just give them all your stuff and junk
that packs your mind with glop and gunk
and let them open up that place
of freedom that’s in empty space
for through it comes those songs that fly
through Earth and sea and stones and sky.
With that I took the junk I own
and piled it up outside our home
and drew a sign to show and say,
“This is a Wassel take away".
And now I write and sing and rhyme
and draw and paint most of the time,
then hug my momma and my dad
and say don’t worry or be sad
for if the Buggywassels come
having nothing much is fun.
Now they don’t get it, but when they do
they’ll have more time for me and you
and be happy to be free
to dream and write and dance like me.
