Mother Nature fell asleep thinkingand her thoughts became dreamsinto rich, dark soil sinking. Nothing in this world is ever as it seemsand her fantasies took root,watered by rain and underground streams. By spring, the roots had given birth to shootsthat sought the warmth of the sun,and the shoots grew and began to produce stalks and […]
Category: Children’s Poetry
Kafka’s Cage
“I am a cage, in search of a bird” – from The Blue Octavo Notebooks Emptiness echoes off my pretty bars, as polished and shiny as they are and, every day when you pass by, you will hear me heave a sigh. I am a cage trapped here below, gazing into an expanse of blue, […]
North Wind
The North Wind teases moored-up boats, ties knots in grass along the coast, leaves on our lips a salty taste, and chases inland ocean ghosts. It plays hide and seek with housewives’ washing, steals old folks’ breath and sets them coughing, plucks at branches, sends them crashing, and cheers the rain’s pouring and splashing. The […]
The Mouse in the Cupboard
If I talk to the mouse in the cupboard, even through the crack in the door, the cats will be jealous, the crumbs will be eaten, and I’ll have to go out for some more. If I sing to the mouse in the cupboard, I might just scare her away; she’s great company, in the […]
Darkness of Childhood
Darkness is the murk where a monster lurks and the gulp of sky in the depths of night when no stars glisten and no moon listens to the hoot of an owl or a wild wolf’s howl. Darkness is the smother beneath the covers when you get it in your head something’s under the bed […]
Rain Rhymes
It’s raining dogs and cats all along the east coast, with a cow-quaker warning followed by a goose fair morning. We’re getting soaked with drizzle and bored with all the mizzle. We don’t want a hurly-burly to get us out of bed too early. Why does the sky cry? She hung her grey clouds out […]
In which I nearly meet the Heffalump again
Down a dark hole, I was thinking about the different ways that I could get out, when it fell on me – it had fur and a snout – and said aloud with a Pooh-like air ‘A Very Bad Accident to Pooh Bear’. I called out ‘Pooh! I’m underneath you, trapped in a hole without […]
Star Fishing
Once upon a van Gogh night more colourful than day, a shoal of stars, disturbed, took flight, and poured down from the sky. I couldn’t find a little boat to row on the cosmic sea, nor did I have a fishing-net to catch some dreams for me. I tossed and turned on my pillow, and […]
Hobgoblin Shadows
When mother forgot to shut the curtains at night, outside the window the sulphurous street light invaded my bedroom and filled it with shadows of slippery hobgoblins with fingers so thin they could fit in my ears and burrow under my skin, squirm into the feathers that softened my pillows, and wait until I’d fallen […]
Childhood Goblins
Towers, chimneys and rooftops disintegrate in a colourwash of sunset and night’s ink drops spill into puddles of dreams, when children hear the goblins cry: “Come buy our fruits, come buy, come buy!” Curious thoughts enter little heads that lie in comfort on soft pillows, invade the safety of their beds, pull at the quilts, remove the […]
