Brown Honeyeaters by Helen Hagemann

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Brown Honeyeaters

 

A brilliant blue rising from a bronze morning

and Brown Honeyeaters are circling the garden.

 

Today, they are in the olive tree in my neighbour’s

yard, performing aerial songs (although it’s more a short

 

sharp, tweep!). Before spring, I counted two regular

visitors to our horticulture of Canna lilies, Yellow

 

Bird-of-Paradise, Grevillea, Frangipani, now there are

four! As if in concert, they dance, plunging to and fro.

 

It’s balletic, reminding you of Rudolf Nureyev and Dame

Margot Fontein in Romeo and Juliet. One of the

 

fledgelings is as graceful as Maria Kochetkova, a

Giselle fluttering her wings, thin as the veil of a tutu.

 

There’s fussing from parents, followed by a preen on

brick wall and hedge, a bird commotion of tutelage.

 

The best is their closeness, high in the branches, and now

that the young are fed and sleepy, the show has stopped.

Helen Hagemann

Postcard From Mars by Allan Cropper

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Postcard From Mars

There’s a trillion stars

and one of them’s Mars,

and that’s where I’m wanting to go.

It shines brightly red

‘mongst stars overhead,

a warming and welcoming glow.

A star it not be?

No difference to me.

It lives way out there in deep space.

Can’t save for a house

on this planet of ours

so I’m thinking that Mars is the place.

I’m planning a trip,

booked on a space ship

that’s due to depart in the spring.

I will be space suited,

luggage is included,

I will not be packing a thing.

I’ll have all new neighbours,

they live in the craters,

antennae on top of their head.

They ‘re tiny and green,

but they’re easily seen

‘gainst a backdrop of nothing but red.

So wish me good luck

as I pack my space truck

to head off to the great unknown.

Don’t worry at all,

I’ll give you a call

if I can get bars on my phone.

I’ll try for a while,

continue to dial,

I’ll contact you, never you fear.

If I can’t get through

a post card will do,

that simply says ‘Wish you were here’.

Allan Cropper

Blue and Red by Sophie Masson

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Blue and Red

 

All the day long, the bluebird sings,

High in the trees, high on the wing.

 

All the day long, the red cow eats,

Moos and eats, moos and eats.

 

All the night long, the blue dog howls,

Keeps up the neighbours with his sad yowls.

 

All the night long, the red fox prowls,

Watch out you farmers, lock up your fowls!

 

Sophie Masson 

Did You Now? by Neridah McMullin

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Did you now?

 

Thought I might stay

Home today.

Safe.

Secure.

Did you now?

 

Thought I might

Miss you,

too

Much.

Did you now?

 

Thought maybe

Cos’ you’re smart,

You could

Homeschool me?

Did you now?

 

The house needs

A vacuum.

Doggy doo to

Be picked up,

So much work.

Didn’t you know?

 

Thought I might,

But now…

I think

I miss my friends.

I’ll go get ready.

You go do that now.

 

 Neridah McMullin

When Sammy Woke Up One Morning by Pamela Ueckerman

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When Sammy Woke Up One Morning

 

When Sammy woke up one morning,
He discovered a note by his bed,
“I’m travelling up to the North Pole,
To meet the toy maker,” it said.

“We’ve been together forever,”
The letter continued to say,
“And now you no longer need me,
I’ve decided to go away.”

“I know that you got me for Christmas,
That I was left under the tree,
I came through the chimney with Santa,
As he was the one who made me.”

“So I’m leaving this morning to meet him,
Don’t know if I’ll ever be back,
But watch out for something this Christmas,
That Santa may bring in his sack.”

The signature down at the bottom,
Was hurriedly scribbled in blue,
The name that it spelled out so simply,
Was that of his teddy bear Boo.

Now Sammy was quivering sadly,
He’d miss his favourite friend,
The bond that he had with his teddy,
Had come to a curious end.

Meanwhile in Sammy’s back garden,
Our brave bear was not far at all,
He’d been smuggled outside with the laundry,
But couldn’t climb over the wall.

He thought that his travels were over,
He hung his poor head in despair,
When at once a grey pigeon named Peter,
Hoisted him into the air.

They travelled for hours and hours,
Over mountain and desert and sea,
When at last the pigeon released him,
And Boo landed BUMP in a tree.

He looked all around and below him,
He didn’t know how far he’d come,
But the coldness was making him shiver,
And his poor little nose was quite numb.

He spotted an eagle close by him,
And begged for a ride to go forth,
A ship took him into the Arctic,
And from there on it wasn’t far north.

As Christmas grew nearer and nearer,
So Boo journeyed on to the end,
And Sammy grew yet more excited,
To learn what he’d get from his friend.

As dawn broke on Christmas Day morning,
Sammy could not wait to see,
Had Boo Bear succeeded his mission?
What would there be under the tree?

But just then he noticed his stocking,
Right there at the end of his bed,
And poking right out of the top,
Was a tattered teddy bear head.

The head was dirty and soggy,
And matted with leaves and mud too,
But Sammy jumped up in amazement,
For that teddy bear head was his Boo!

With care he took Boo from the stocking,
And gently he shook off some dirt,
Then Sammy saw something intriguing,
A letter was pinned to Boo’s shirt!

Sammy unpinned it with caution,
And opened it there on the bed,
The note was signed “Boo” at the bottom,
And following is what it said:

“I’ve travelled the world to the Arctic,
And what an adventure I’ve had,
I met with the reindeer and Santa,
But now that I’m home I’m quite glad.”

Well Sammy could not quite believe it,
The bear was back home safe and well,
And as to all of Boo’s secrets,
Sadly the bear wouldn’t tell.

Now Boo and the boy are quite happy,
They travel around having fun,
And as for the bear and his letters,
Since then there hasn’t been one.

Pamela Ueckerman

Party at Luna Park by Jenny Erlanger

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Party at Luna Park

 

The party was great.

I’ve got so much to tell

but I can’t do it now,

I’m not feeling too well.

I don’t want to chuck

but I know that I will.

Is it something I ate

that is making me ill?

The frankfurts and sauce

can’t have made me feel bad.

The ten that I ate

were the best that I’ve had.

And it wasn’t the chips

that I had as a snack

as we all raced around

on the dodgem car track.

It might have been what

I was drinking instead,

that bottle of stuff

that was fizzy and red

that I drank when my mouth

was all dried up inside

after screaming so much

on the Gravitron ride.

Or could it have been

what I had as a treat,

something I’ve wanted

forever to eat,

that mountain of fairy floss

stuck to a stick?

Quick, pass me the bucket,

I’m going to be sick.

Jenny Erlanger

First published in “Giggles and Niggles” (Haddington Press, 2007)

Dear Uncle Wally by Allan Cropper

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DEAR UNCLE WALLY

When dear Uncle Wally slips off his shoes
Warnings go out on the six o’clock news
The smell is so bad that you might like to choose…
To sneak out and just run away.
 

When dear Uncle Wally takes off his socks
It sets off alarm bells and stops all the clocks
They ought to be burned or else locked in a box
And then taken far far away.

When dear Uncle Wally wriggles his toes
You can see as the fungal bacteria grows
Does he wash his toes? I guess nobody knows
I pray that he’ll wash them today.

When dear Uncle Wally rubs at his feet
The smell it emits is like old rotting meat
The air freshener spray can hardly compete
With that sweaty foot odour bouquet.

Pooh!!!

Allan Cropper

Silverfish by Helen Hagemann

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Silverfish

Not as lucky as a Las Vegas dollar
nor as silver,
but if you look inside panelled rooms
there may be several silverfish
touring endlessly in the house of a miser
or in one of those 19th century cottages
where the rain soaks North Somerset,
bookshelves covered in trench coats.

You know that silverfish chew into glue,
plaster, paint, photos, sugar, coffee,
hair, carpet, clothing, dandruff,
book bindings and paper (and that’s
a lot to get through in a week!)

Imagine one slippery silverfish
in a musty library of a French poet
travelling through paragraphs of Reverdy,
John Donne, Simone De Beauvoir or Sartre,
his hunger moving toward simile and speech,
words curling into little white ropes
and lifting from the page,
one letter at a time.

 Helen Hagemann 

Planting the Mango Seed by Anna Jacobson

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Planting the Mango Seed

 

After school, we raced home

to share a mango, one half each-

you let me have the seed.

Later, arms and wrists sticky

with juice, I planted it

in the middle of the yard,

so we could all admire it.

I dug with my hands

and a pointy rock. Dirt packed

under my nails. We pushed

the seed into the ground, covered

it up and sprinkled it with the hose.

Had a water fight just for luck.

 

Anna Jacobson