People’s moods can be just like yo-yos
Sometimes up…
Sometimes down…
One minute they’re smilin’
And the next they’re wearin’ a frown!
from Poem Man
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Poetry
The Tickle Café
There’s a café on the corner,
And it’s a most unusual place.
For the café’s only business
Is to put a smile upon your face.
This café is the place to go
If you’re feeling rather sad.
The waiters there don’t wait at all…
Their job is to make you glad.
So when you’re feeling grouchy,
Or sad, or even just fickle,
Just go to the café on the corner
And have yourself a tickle.
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Filthy, Nasty Butts!
I think people’s butts are great.
I mean, at least for sitting down.
It’s just all those filthy, nasty butts I hate
That are littered all over the ground!
~~~~
From Poem Man.
Wiggle
I don’t want to write bestsellers,
Or be president of this great land.
I don’t want to paint like Picasso,
Or sing in a rock and roll band.
I don’t want to star in the movies,
Or do anything that brings wealth or fame.
I don’t want to be an overpaid athlete
Of any professional game.
What I do want you might think is silly.
In fact, it might even make you giggle.
There’s only one thing in life I want. . .
And that’s to learn how to make my ears wiggle.
~~~~
From Poem Man.
Poem Man
Come hither all ye children
And gather round,
For the Poem Man cometh
To your quaint town.
He’s bringing the most magical, beautiful,
Spectacular sounds…
Sounds that you may have never heard before.
He has the sounds of pinks and yellows
And midnight blues.
You’ll hear rainbows and gumdrops
And morning dew.
Come hither sweet children,
Bring your parents too,
To hear the oceans converse with the shores.
Look, yonder cometh he
From the valley below.
Can you see on his shoulder
His talking, orange crow?
Make haste sweet children.
Get ready for the show,
For the time is drawing near.
He carries his poems
In a large, burlap sack.
Doesn’t it look heavy
Upon his broad back?
In it, not a rhyme is missing—
Not a riddle does it lack.
Be still now sweet children for the Poem Man is here.
~~~~
Well, since the poem Butter was reasonably well-received a day or two ago, it inspired me to create a Poem Man page where I’ve included scans of the original book cover and introduction, as well as a Table of Contents listing all the poems and links to the ones that I’ve already shared online. You can find the new page under the BOOKS heading at the top of the page, or you can just click here.
Enjoy!
Butter
Boy, I want you to butter the bread.
And remember, I like it buttery.
But Dad, it’s too hard for me to spread the lard.
Can’t Sister do it instead?
Boy, it’s up to you to butter the toast.
Cuz the only way for you to learn
To do the things that you can’t do
Is to do those things the most.
So every time there is bread to butter
I want you to spread the cream.
And soon you’ll be the best bread butterer
That the world has ever seen.
~~~~
Butter is from Poem Man, a children’s book of poetry that my family and I put together, – literally put together: the poeming, drawing, covering, printing, stapling, etc. – back at the turn of the century.
I must admit, that when my children were young I had aspirations of being the next Shel Silverstein, my favorite poet of all time. While that didn’t quite work out for me, it sure was a lot of fun fooling around with children’s poetry back then when the kids, and the internet, were still young.
It’s hard to believe the original Poem Man website, circa early 2000s, is still out there. Check it out if you’re in the need of a good chuckle.
Guess I was doing Indie before Indie was cool…
Almost forgot that I’ve already exploited Poem Man some time ago, tying in a poem, or at least attempting to, called Petey Peter the Garlic Eater with my review of W. Somerset Maugham’s masterpiece Of Human Bondage.
Yeah, I know… but what the heck, right?
Poeting hard on this most poetic of days…
POETIC LICENSE
Thank God for the passionate poet
Who trumpets the sun’s morning rise
And who writes lovely, pretty sad songs
Of young lovers’s heartbreaking goodbyes
Thank God for the passionate poet
Who reaches right into the heart
To stroke it, to tease it, to please it
And sometimes to tear it apart
#NATIONALPOETRYDAY2014
~~~~
From my poetry collection Poems from the River
A Peek
Look, take a peek in
between the clicks, the scrolls
to see what you’re missing
or not – the whole bloody
lot of it
Still it’s there, ignorance be damned
Ignorance be blissed
Sermon Series: “Entering the Dark Cloud of God”
do not fear the dark
for faith requires no light
grace shines through the night
From Poem Man – Petey Peter the Garlic Eater
My review of W. Somerset Maugham’s masterpiece OF HUMAN BONDAGE reminded me of “Petey Peter the Garlic Eater,” a poem I wrote and which was included in POEM MAN, a children’s poetry book my family and I published back at the turn of the century.
Maugham’s classic novel and my less-than-classic poem both discuss, in their one ways, the important matter of addiction and dependency. In Maugham’s story, we find that, because of the protagonist Philip Carey’s love for Mildred, a love so strong she becomes his addiction (his bondage), he nearly destroys his own life. In my poem, we find that both Peter Peter’s excessive love for pumpkins and Petey Peter’s excessive love for garlic, addictions in their own rights, destroy, if not their own lives, then the lives of those around them.
Petey Peter the Garlic Eater
Petey Peter the garlic eater
Sat right behind me in class.
And if he wasn’t busy boisterously burpin’,
He was busy passin’ poisonous gas.
I couldn’t concentrate on my studies
Because of the stink he emitted.
As a result I failed all my classes.
As for graduation, I wasn’t permitted.
Now, if you’re a lover of riddles and rhymes
You might just remember his name.
Cuz his great, great, great, great, great, grandfather
Is famous for a name just the same.
But their names are their only sim’larities,
For they both liked to eat different treats.
Old Peter Peter preferred to eat pumpkins,
While it was garlic young Petey did eat.
Though I can’t imagine eating pumpkins
Unless smashed and baked as sweet pies.
But I do wish young Petey had eaten them,
Cuz his garlic breath always drew flies.
But pumpkins, too, can bring trouble.
It’s cuz of pumpkins old Peter lost a wife.
I guess if you do too much of anything
There’s a chance it could ruin a life.
It’s cuz of Petey’s stinky garlic breath
That every single class I did fail.
And it’s cuz I dropped out of grade school
That I eventually landed in jail.
But as for Petey, he invented a breath mint.
And it earned him a million or two.
And he married the great, great, great, great, great, granddaughter
Of the old lady who lived in the shoe.