Category: Children

No Jeopardy But Me

~ Toastingfork ~ 2 Comments
Star Compass by Donato Giancola

No Jeopardy But Me

The Steppers have gone,
Stepped onto their parallels,
Multiverse Earths,
Nirvanas, or hells.
And we’re left behind,
We, the unsteppable,
Sub-human luddites
And wholly forgettable.
My parents and sister
Have forged for a new life
A thousand-plus worlds
From Datum’s own strife –
They ran off to suburbs,
(And took all the chairs),
Where there’s fewer of my sort,
And plenty of theirs.
But me, I must lump it,
I’m not worth the saving,
I don’t get to witness
The future they’re braving.
They’ve promised to visit,
Each decade or so,
And write me,
Though post is so terribly slow.
And when they return here,
It’s only to teach
To their kids how to sneer,
And to pity, and preach.
I’m clearly not favourite,
Just a mistake,
I’m easy to leave
When I’m too hard to take.
Despised by my authors,
Abandoned to rot,
I’m just a disposable
Cog in the plot,
I’m holding you back,
So you cut your son loose –
With a smile from your god
To condone your abuse.

So Much Ink

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Photo by Ivo Rainha on Pexels.com

So Much Ink

The lib’ries of my childhood mind
Were dark and ancient rooms,
Where vaults of pages whispered
In their literary tombs,
And candlelights cast shadows
In the labyrinth of glooms,
As the monks, all dressed in brown,
Chained their precious volumes down.

The lib’ries of my childhood days
Were dull and grimly quaint,
Where silence wasn’t reverence
But boredom and restraint,
With long, prosaic rows of spines
With no allure or taint,
As the staff, all dressed in beige,
Locked away each racy page.

The lib’ries of my adulthood
Are not as deeply hewn –
They aren’t a gothic paradise
Or brutalist cocoon,
But just an easy place to spend
A rainy afternoon,
With a book about the secret lore
Behind the bookshelves’ hidden door.

Brass Neck

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
An amended image from the original computer modelling by Darren Naish & Donald Henderson.

Brass Neck

All mammals can swim,
Or least, can float,
Just paddle each limb
And be the boat.
It may be slow,
And lacking grace,
But it lets them row
To a dryer place.

Even the elephant,
Hedgehog, or bat,
Even the fattest
Or scardiest cat,
Even the kangaroo,
Aardvaark, or aye-aye –
You know why it’s true ?
Cos they’re mammals, that’s why !

All, that is, except for one –
The landlubber giraffe.
Once evolution had its fun,
They’re not safe in the bath.
It’s strange the way that they capsize,
You’d think they’d learn to cope
When possessed of long and mighty thighs,
And a built-in periscope.

But on the land
They look such gentry,
Tall and grand
When standing sentry.
They are the backlash
To the trout,
Who make a splash
By standing out.

The First of Logos

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Photo by Barry Plott on Pexels.com

The First of Logos

My folks were full of the fear of God,
And full of His holy gravity.
Music, and dancing, were frivolous wastes
And bywords for depravity.
And birthdays passed with nary a mention
So’s not to lead our thoughts astray –
But I was still the lucky one,
For I was born on Christmas Day.

I was born in the dark of Winter,
In the midst of an Almighty freeze
Too far North for much of sunlight,
Too bleak for that many trees.
But ev’ry year, the town would string up lights
As if to lead my way,
And hope that it might snow for me –
For I was born on Christmas Day.

Ev’rybody wore a smile,
And nobody wore grey –
Ev’rything was done with style,
Right through to Hogmanay !
And my fav’rite animal, the deer,
Were ev’rywhere, with a sleigh !
How much I loved this time of year,
To be born on Christmas Day !

I was born in ignorance,
And thought all this must be for me –
The whole of the town would celebrate
That time I changed from two to three,
They cheered some more when I turned four,
At five and six, they cried hooray –
My parents couldn’t stop it all,
For I was born on Christmas Day.

They may not have given me presents,
But they gave me the greatest gift on Earth –
I used to think how lucky Jesus was
To coincide with my birth.
And piously, I’d thank the Lord
For far more joy than words can say.
And so I grew up loving life –
For I was born on Christmas Day

The choirs would sing,
The bands would play,
The bells would ring,
The shops display,
And all the world felt good and near,
In one long cabaret –
How much I love this time of year,
To be born on Christmas Day !

When Saturday Came

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment

When Saturday Came

It’s always one-nil, for or against,
In my memory,
Always four-four-two.
Grandad would take me, shine or rain,
In my memory,
Were we the red or the blue ?
Half-time pies and always singing,
Stripey scarves across the board,
And Grandad smiling, regardless of winning
In my memory,
And oh, his face when we scored !

Catkins & Conkers

~ Toastingfork ~ 1 Comment
Photo by Felix Mittermeier on Pexels.com

Catkins & Conkers

The thing about trees is,
Trees are big,
But ev’ry trunk
Begins a twig –
They’re building height
From light and air,
Just add a little rain,
And there !
They’re springing-up,
Each rapid-grower –
Mushroom-like,
But much, much slower.
Eat the sunshine,
Drink the breeze –
They’re timber-making
Factories.

The thing about trees is,
Trees are tall,
They stretch and tower
Over all.
But that has made them
Litter bugs –
With petals, pollen,
Seeds, and slugs,
It all comes down,
And blows about –
From fresh air in,
To dandruff out.
These trees are yobs
And carbon thieves !
And come the Autumn,
Come the leaves…

Why Are Trees Trees ?

~ Toastingfork ~ 4 Comments
Baby Maple by hedera.baltica

Why Are Trees Trees ?

The history of trees is that
The trees are not a clade –
They spring-up from the strangest places,
Evolution-made.
So beech and birch are boring,
All their family are so wooden,
But others have the oddest kin
And ev’ry one’s a good ’un.
They’ve found the same solution
Independently, you know –
When stretching for the sunlight, well,
There’s just one way to go.

So apple trees are strawberries
That built a sturdy trunk,
Yucca palms are bluebells
If a bluebell were a hunk.
Acacia trees are runner beans
That bolted in their teens,
While rubber trees are spurges
That have stretched beyond their means.
There’s only so much energy,
And trees don’t like to share –
They’re hungrier when taller,
But their mouths are ev’rywhere !

So linden limes are cottons
That have fluffed-up in the streets,
And oranges are really rue
Whose bitterness turned sweet.
Finest teak is peppermint,
That’s why it smells so nice –
And eucalyptus is a clove
That added too much spice.
The forest is a battleground,
And ev’ry plant must fight –
So trees is what you always get,
If what you get is height.

I’m not very good at identifying plants on sight, but I can thoroughly recommend the app PlantNet.

I’m also not very good at identifying crabs, which is hardly surprising.

Roadside Rodent

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment

Roadside Rodent

Ship rat, far from sea,
Beached upon the pavement.
You do not twitch, you do not flee,
So why do you sit still for me ?
You’re not too fat, you’re not too thin,
You’re not held in enslavement –
And yet you crouch beside the bin,
And gently tremble in your skin.

Brown rat, are you asleep ?
You chose an awkward bed, friend.
Have you nowhere else to creep
Than on the tarmac in a heap ?
Fox or cat will find you prone,
And that will surely be your end.
Perhaps you’re dying, all alone,
Just waiting for your final groan.

All Aboard !

~ Toastingfork ~ 1 Comment
A Corgi model of a Bournemouth Wright Gemini bus. The model is discontiunued and RATP are no longer the franchisee, but at least the current buses are still yellow.

All Aboard ! 

Trudy Trusses loves the buses
Which she rides to town –
Urban-trekkers, double-deckers,
Ones that bend around.
Some are old and brightly bold,
And red or green in colour –
Some are new and grey right through,
And others even duller.

Trudy Trusses makes such fusses
Over diff’rent routes –
The stops and times, the sprints and climbs,
The stats and attributes.
She watches who is in the queue,
And who is getting off –
The chef, the nun, the doctor’s son,
The teacher and the toff.

Trudy Trusses swiftly susses
Someone has to drive –
The 12, the 3, the 7B,
The weekdays 55.
When she grows big, she wants that gig !,
She wants to sit in front –
To swoosh the doors of 24s
And make their engines grunt !

Trudy Trusses sees the plusses
In a job that moves.
There’s folks to meet on ev’ry street,
From pensioners to youths.
You need a ride ?  Then come inside !
There’s plenty room up top.
Then home again through wind and rain,
Just ring the bell to stop.

Read by Audrey (as voiced by Jo Matthews)

This poem isn’t necessarily set in Bournemouth, but I thought they deserved praise for one of the few places outside of London which still insist on the colour of their fleet.

Gotcha !

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Tag You’re It – Squid Game by Sparkumi

Gotcha !

Tag, goes the virus,
And suddenly, I’m it,
Chasing, and panting,
And laughing, and transmit.
No rules for no-backsies,
It’s free-for-all, all day
No sitting this one out,
We’re all of us in play.
They say this game is older
Than ancient Babylon.
Now I’ve given you my secret –
Pass it on.