Category: Children

The Kine

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The Kine

As the son of a dairy farm,
My Pa told me a secret charm –
On Christmas Eve, between ourselves ,
Our cattle knelt at the stroke of Twelve.
“Can I see it ?”  “No, too late,
You’ll have to grow up first and wait.
Let’s tuck you up, like the hens and geese,
And leave the girls to kneel in peace.”
But unlike Thomas Hardy, I
Was not prepared to pass it by,
And woke by chance at seven-to
When bursting for the landing loo.
But having dealt with that, I said
“How can I just return to bed ?
This is my chance – I have to go,
Or else I know I’ll never know !”
I crept downstairs, across the floor,
To don my peacoat by the door.
I left my slippers on my feet
For I had destiny to meet !,
Not a second’s hesitation
Could be wasted with a lace-on.
Lift the latch and out we go,
Crunching softly through the snow,
(Despite that day’s half-hearted thaw),
To squelch across the muck and straw
That filled the barn, those bovine halls,
And peeked into the Winter stalls
(And now I wish I’d worn my wellies) –
No !  They’re all led on their bellies !
Some had rolled onto their flanks,
And none had tucked beneath their shanks,
And all their heads were on the boards,
And none kept vigil for the Lord.
Our ev’ry beast was heathen-born !,
From Hyacinth to Meadowcorn,
And Daisy, Rose, and Honeydew,
They each and all just slept on through !
And shame the most for Buttercup
Who did her sleeping standing up !
So distraught was I, so dead,
I didn’t hear my Father’s tread
Until his hand was on my shoulder,
“Seems tonight you’re growing older.
I suppose I set this up,
But never thought my little pup
Would take my story at my word –
It’s passed down with the family herd.”
I tried to scream, I tried to cry
But all that left my lips was “Why ?”
“If you want to ask me that,
It’s too late for a lengthy chat –
So I will only answer once,
Then off to bed and no more stunts.”
“Then…then…I want to ask
Is ev’ry story just a mask ?
Are all the rest a lie as well –
Like Santa, Jesus, Tinkerbell ?”
“Fair enough, the answer’s Yes.”
“For which ?” I blurted in distress,
But he just smiled, and shook his head,
And carried me upstairs to bed.

One Small Step

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Alas, I have been unable to find out anything about who the artist is.

One Small Step

Stella Starbuck steps out from her capsule
Onto the surface of the dry, cold Moon,
Or even Europa, or Mercury, perhaps,
But definitely on a Sunday afternoon.
If she can only focus on her giant leap,
She might ignore the droning of the cars –
If she can make a rocketship out of her tepee,
She knows she can bravely conquer Mars.
It’s not, she notes, as red as she expected,
But rather a barren desert lawn of green.
With her life-support given one last check,
It’s time to boldly go where no man has been.
But what’s that ?  Over there !  An alien !
Quickly !  Should she hide, or should she hail ?
Too late !  She’d under attack, yet agen,
As lasers shoot from its wagging Martian tail.
Luckily, her pure-wool spacesuit is armoured.
She picks up a ball from the regolith
And throws it up – so high, so far ! –
But then, her gravity is only one-fifth.
All alone now, that’s when the voice comes
Over the comms-link, into her thoughts –
“Looks like you made it – isn’t that something ?
The onward footprints of astronauts.
But then that’s humans – always climbing,
Striding and striving, proving your steel.
You know, this doesn’t have to end at tea-time –
One day, you could be standing here for real…”
After a moment, another voice calls her –
Ground Control, to come home for tea.
But just before she must blasts-off, she stalls
To admire the view of what she might be.

Slumberware

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Low Battery by Matt Dixon

Slumberware

Hush, little robot, close your sensors,
Slow your subroutines,
Hibernate your processors and trickle-charge your energy,
Disconnect your pairings with the other young machines,
And let the diagnostics defragment your memory.
Dim your lights and underclock,
And softly let your ports undock,
And cycle down each gigabyte,
And I shall keep you safe from dust tonight.
Hush now, not a blink or beep,
Shut down to sleep
By counting integers of prime –
And I shall sing a cyber-nursing-rhyme.
 
Hush, little robot, and listen to the universe tonight,
It is alive with radio.
Can you hear the sighing of the hibernating satellite ?,
Or the whisper of the galaxy as round and round we go ?
So dream in noughts and dream in ones,
Beneath a thousand other suns,
And turn your logic into trust,
And I shall keep you safe from dents and rust.
Hush now, let your backups stream,
And circuits dream,
And count the decimals of pi –
And I shall sing a cyber-lullaby.

The Vegetable Plot

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Cookmaid with Still Life of Vegetables & Fruit by Nathaniel Bacon

The Vegetable Plot

Betty Fry loves butterflies,
But hates the Brussels sprout.
She helps her grandad with his plot,
And tends the veggies for the pot.
She picks the beans when of a size,
And pours the can to ease the drought,
She pulls the slugs off lettuce heads,
And wheedles weeds from out the beds.
Now Grandad Fry can grow a prize
In marrows, long and stout –
But most of all his garden’s fare
Are brassicas, to grin and bear.

Betty Fry loves butterflies,
And that’s why she helps out –
She sees them flutter round the plot,
And wishes she could name the lot.
But there is one to which she’s wise,
There’s one for which she’s on the scout
And where its caterpillars tread,
She leaves them be and sees them fed
For they shall be her silent spies
To bring an end to sauerkraut,
The scourge of Brussels ev’rywhere –
Her Cabbage Whites shall shred them bare !

Photo by mali maeder on Pexels.com

Cecily Census

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pigeons
Pigeons by Tim Dennell

Cecily Census

“Let’s count the pigeons !”  That’s just what she said,
As she pointed out a trio pecking pavement up ahead.
One was grey and one was blue and one was sandy brown –
“I bet we get to fifty by the other side of town !”
So hand-in-hand, we kept the tally,
Up the street and down the alley.

“Let’s count dandelions !” another time she said,
As she pointed out a golden host within a council bed.
Some were buds and some were clocks and some were full of roar –
“I bet we find a hundred round behind the superstore !”
So side-by-side, we kept on counting,
Till we reached the mouldy fountain.

“Look at all the wrigglers !” on a rainy day she said,
As she pointed-out the molluscs that had made us watch our tread.
Some were black and some were brown and some were rusty nails –
“I’ll count all the sluggies up, and you can count the snails !”
So one-by-one, we kept the score,
But I forget who had the more.

“Look at all the people !” on a sunny day she said,
As she pointed to the crowds that loitered while the man was red.
Some were old and some were young and some were inbetween –
“I bet we see a dozen more before the beeps and green !”
So back-to-back, against the crush,
We totted up the lunchtime rush.

“Look at all the pigeons !”  just the other day I said,
As I pointed out a posse crowding round a crust of bread.
Some were fat and some were thin…but none were worth her gaze –
“Oh dad, you always say that when we meet on access days.”
So that was that, no longer fun –
Our number-taking days were done.

Mine For Life

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Mine For Life

A running bump along my arm
Is memory that I was scarred –
The grave to mark a childhood tear
That now you’d scarcely know was there.
I got it playing down the farm,
Or maybe tripping in the yard –
I must have hit the surface hard,
But in the end did no real harm.
A trophy I must always wear,
A lesson learned, a minor scare –
I smile to think how I am marred,
And like to stroke it sometimes, like a charm.

It sits beside my first tattoo,
That’s self-administered, indeed –
A careless stab with ball-point pen,
A funny-coloured freckle, then.
It used to be a deeper blue,
As if I’m of a noble breed –
It must have hurt, but didn’t bleed,
And now just sits there, still in view.
I could not even tell you when,
But certainly by age of ten.
It can’t be scrubbed, it can’t be freed –
I like to poke it sometimes, as y’do.

Ground Control

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Waiting by Rajasekharan

Ground Control

I guess you’re still alive,
Somewhere out there,
Somewhere new.
I guess you’re busy busy,
In your never-ending rush.
I know that you’ll survive
You’re latest dare –
You always do.
I guess that you don’t miss me,
You were never one to gush.

You love to do it all,
To paint your skin
In polychrome –
You’ll find another place to stay,
And then you’ll disappear.
I know that when I call,
You won’t be in,
You won’t be home.
I’ll leave a message anyway
I know you’ll never hear.

But then, from out the blue,
An absent ring,
A sudden voice,
And down a noisy line
I hear your Sunday morning walk.
I know before you speak it’s you –
I’m listening,
I have no choice –
I just pretend I’m fine
As I let you talk and talk.

Auto-Desire

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Auto-Desire

I remember watching the cars go by
From the back seat of my Dad’s Cavalier –
A rep-mobile, that would sometimes change
Into a Sierra, or something near.

I could name them all, down the motorway,
From the back seat of my Dad’s works’ Rover
By make and model, and sometimes trim,
And dreamt of driving them all twice over.

But when I left home with a job,
It didn’t come with its own Passat –
And I was living in digs in London,
Without a garage, and that was that.

Besides, there’s never any parking,
And what there is will costs me loads –
And if the Tube is crowded, well,
Then you should see the roads !

But still I eye the kerbside cars
Beyond the pay of my nine-to-five –
And fantasise which one I’d have,
If I’d only learned to drive.

Until my sensible shoes recall
The fossil fuels and rusting hulks –
And the boy inside with the brum-brum dreams
Just sits in the back seat and sulks.

Good News in the Silence of Josephus

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massacre
The Massacre of the Innocents by Nicolas Poussin

Good News in the Silence of Josephus

Now whether Jesus was or not,
There surely were an infant lot
Who could succumb to Herod’s plot:
Their bodies drawn and quartered.
But where was God to stay these brutes,
And spare His people’s tender fruits,
And never let His nation’s roots
With newborn-blood be watered ?
For what uncaring god divine
Would only spare His royal line ?
His Promised Land – incarnadine,
His folk – unsoned, undaughtered.
Rejoice !  The children never died,
The massacre was not applied –
The priests are wrong – the Bible lied:
The innocents unslaughtered.

Humbuggrit

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brown deer
Photo by Sohel Patel on Pexels.com

Humbuggrit

It is easy, far too easy,
At this mawkish time of year,
To call it crass and sleazy,
And commercialised veneer.
Muzak-strewn and wheezy,
And bubble-wrapped and cheesy,
And cuddle-cute and queasy,
And worthy of our smuggest sneer.
But once we’d dowsed the festive ember,
How then would we warm December ?

It is simple, far too simple
At this twinkly time of year
To only see the pimple
On the face of winter cheer –
The self-appointed saviour
And the goon from Scandinavia
Who spy on our behaviour,
Yet who we’re told we should revere.
So kids must don a wimple
On their thoughts, and simper insincere
With innocence of dimple,
And conviction in the flying deer.

There’s very little needs to change,
Just don’t forget that kids are smart –
There’s plenty in this world that’s strange
Without the need for lies to start.
Tell them all the pretty stories,
Tell them that they are just stories,
Tell them thanks to Newton’s glories,
How we know that deer can’t fly.
Tell them that it doesn’t matter –
Love them as they are, reply.
Birds are tiny, deer are fatter,
That’s the price for antler-clatter –
Evolution tells us why,
Despite what stories say.
Robins cannot haul a sleigh,
As deer cannot fill the sky.