KIDS POEMS

Seasons Of Life

Gazing at the breezy night
Empty or lack of immense sunlight
And the onset of Winters shined
Though reflecting warmth of mankind
.....

Kritika Prasad

The World

The world is cruel,
but for some people it's cool.
People are dying
because of lying.
.....

Duwayne Frieslaar

Wounded

Is it not strange? A year ago to-day,
With scarce a thought beyond the hum-drum round,
I did my decent job and earned my pay;
Was averagely happy, I'll be bound.
.....

Robert Service

For Selma

In places like
Selma, Alabama,
Kids say,
In places like
.....

Langston Hughes

The Odyssey: Book 09

And Ulysses answered, “King Alcinous, it is a good thing to hear a
bard with such a divine voice as this man has. There is nothing better
or more delightful than when a whole people make merry together,
with the guests sitting orderly to listen, while the table is loaded
.....

Homer

The Twins Of Lucky Strike

I've sung of Violet de Vere, that slinky, minky dame,
Of Gertie of the Diamond Tooth, and Touch-the-Button Nell,
And Maye Lamore,-at eighty-four I oughta blush wi' shame
That in my wild and wooly youth I knew them ladies well.
.....

Robert Service

Jest 'fore Christmas

Father calls me William, sister calls me Will,
Mother calls me Willie, but the fellers call me Bill!
Mighty glad I ain't a girl-ruther be a boy,
Without them sashes, curls, an' things that's worn by Fauntleroy!
.....

Eugene Field

Kids, Keys, Photography

Your kids
Your keys
They are your family photo app,
When the sun shines bright,
.....

Blessings Mitembo

Thousand Star Hotel, Hanoi

I.

Over the road from the three star Galaxy Hotel is our hotel,
the old park on Phan Dinh Phung Street,
.....

S. K. Kelen

The Odyssey: Book 17

When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared,
Telemachus bound on his sandals and took a strong spear that suited
his hands, for he wanted to go into the city. “Old friend,” said he to
the swineherd, “I will now go to the town and show myself to my
.....

Homer

Admetus

To my friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson.


He who could beard the lion in his lair,
.....

Emma Lazarus

Unclean

I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am
like an owl of the desert. I watch, and am
as a sparrow alone upon the housetop.
Psalm 102
.....

Brooks Haxton

So We Were Poor...!

Yes we were poor, what da hell?
My parents could not read or write
It was a struggle to finish Matric with candle light.
When others kids could have their rapports signed
.....

David Carolissen

The Skokie Theater

Twelve years old and lovesick, bumbling
and terrified for the first time in my life,
but strangely hopeful, too, and stunned,
definitely stunned-I wanted to cry,
.....

Edward Hirsch

Bread And Jam

I wish I was a poet like the men that write in books
The poems that we have to learn on valleys, hills an' brooks;
I'd write of things that children like an' know an' understand,
An' when the kids recited them the folks would call them grand.
.....

Edgar Albert Guest

The New Vestments

There lived an old man in the kingdom of Tess,
Who invented a purely original dress;
And when it was perfectly made and complete,
He opened the door, and walked into the street.
.....

Edward Lear

Harvest-home

Once on a time did Eucritus and I
(With us Amyntas) to the riverside
Steal from the city. For Lycopeus' sons
Were that day busy with the harvest-home,
.....

Jon Corelis Theocritus

Solomon

As thro' the Psalms from theme to theme I chang'd,
Methinks like Eve in Paradice I rang'd;
And ev'ry grace of song I seem'd to see,
As the gay pride of ev'ry season, she.
.....

Thomas Parnell

What's The Pope Do?

What's the pope do? Drinks, and takes a nap;
looks out the window, has a bite to eat,
fiddles with the housemaid's garter strap,
and makes the town a cushion for his feet.
.....

Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli

Narcissus, Photographer

"...a frozen memory, like any photo,
where nothing is missing, not even,
and especially, nothingness..."
-- Julio Cortázar, "Blow Up"
.....

Erica Jong

Hawkers

Dust, dust, dust and a dog â??
Oh! The sheep-dog wonâ??t be last.
When the long, long, shadow of the old bay horse
With the shadow of his mate is cast.
.....

Henry Lawson

To The Next One

Tender caresses of kind little sisters
Are ready for you.
With the birds' songs, O the charmed prince,
We're waiting for you.
.....

Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva

A Song To David

I
O Thou, that sit'st upon a throne,
With harp of high majestic tone,
To praise the King of kings;
.....

Christopher Smart

The Iliad: Book 24

The assembly now broke up and the people went their ways each to his
own ship. There they made ready their supper, and then bethought
them of the blessed boon of sleep; but Achilles still wept for
thinking of his dear comrade, and sleep, before whom all things bow,
.....

Homer

To Mother

In the old Strauss waltz for the first time
We had listened to your quiet call,
Since then all the living things are alien
And the knocking of the clock consoles.
.....

Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva

Preparing The Body

Sometimes it only took a single word,
just a look if they had drunk enough.
A hawkbill knife would flash, sometimes a gun.
The doctor closed their eyes and it was done.
.....

Ron Rash

The Old-time Family

rdens they are bearing, with a child or two to raise.
Of course the cost of living has gone soaring to the sky
And our kids are wearing garments that my parents couldn't buy.
Now my father wasn't wealthy, but I never heard him squeal
.....

Edgar Albert Guest

Maternity

There once was a Square, such a square little Square,
And he loved a trim Triangle;
But she was a flirt and around her skirt
Vainly she made him dangle.
.....

Robert William Service

Old Man Rocking In The Chair

Old man rocking in his chair
night taking from the day
tomorrow's haze.
This morning his life to bay.
.....

Joseph Mayo Wristen

Toys

trace of a sigh,
The things on a shelf that I'd like for myself
I never regret I can't buy.
I can go through the town passing store after store
.....

Edgar Albert Guest

German

being the German kid in the 20's in Los Angeles
was difficult.
there was much anti-German feeling then,
a carry-over from World War 1.
.....

Charles Bukowski

The Burger King

Dine at diners, eat at eats -chicken,
ribs and fries melt deep the psyche.


.....

S. K. Kelen

Wilful Missing

(Deserters)
There is a world outside the one you know,
To which for curiousness 'Ell can't compare--
It is the place where "wilful-missings" go,
.....

Rudyard Kipling

When Mother Made An Angel Cake

When mother baked an angel cake we kids would gather round
An' watch her gentle hands at work, an' never make a sound;
We'd watch her stir the eggs an' flour an' powdered sugar, too,
An' pour it in the crinkled tin, an' then when it was through
.....

Edgar Albert Guest

The Right To Grief

To Certain Poets About to Die

Take your fill of intimate remorse, perfumed sorrow,
Over the dead child of a millionaire,
.....

Carl Sandburg

When A Feller's Itchin' To Be Spanked

W'en us fellers stomp around, makin' lots o' noise,
Gramma says, "There's certain times come to little boys
W'en they need a shingle or the soft side of a plank;"
She says "we're a-itchin' for a right good spank."
.....

Paul Laurence Dunbar

War

'E sez to me, 'Wot's orl this flamin' war?
The papers torks uv nothin' else but scraps.
An'wot's ole England got snake-'eaded for?
An' wot's the strength uv callin' out our chaps?'
.....

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis

Exquisite Candidate

I can promise you this: food in the White House
will change! No more granola, only fried eggs
flipped the way we like them. And ham ham ham!
Americans need ham! Nothing airy like debate for me!
.....

Denise Duhamel

A Christmas Morning

One of my father's oldest stories:
how when he was a boy growing up
in that town, there were no ponies.
Buggies were gone almost as soon
.....

Jared Carter

Ode For Walt Whitman

<I>A Translation for Steve Jonas</i>

Along East River and the Bronx
The kids were singing, showing off their bodies
.....

Jack Spicer

A Song Of The Sandbags

No, Bill, I'm not a-spooning out no patriotic tosh
(The cove be'ind the sandbags ain't a death-or-glory cuss).
And though I strafes 'em good and ‘ard I doesn't ‘ate the Boche,
I guess they're mostly decent, just the same as most of us.
.....

Robert Service

The Bench-legged Fyce

Speakin' of dorgs, my bench-legged fyce
Hed most o' the virtues, an' nary a vice.
Some folks called him Sooner, a name that arose
From his predisposition to chronic repose;
.....

Eugene Field

Dow's Flat

Dow's Flat. That's its name;
And I reckon that you
Are a stranger? The same?
Well, I thought it was true,-
.....

Bret Harte

The Way Of The Bush

A night of storm and wind and rain,
Tall trees bowing beneath the blast
That shakes and rattles the window-pane,
And a thunderous roar as the creek goes past.
.....

Alice Guerin Crist

Flies

I never kill a fly because
I think that what we have of laws
To regulate and civilize
Our daily life-we owe to flies.
.....

Robert Service

The Coward

‘Ave you seen Bill's mug in the Noos to-day?
‘E's gyned the Victoriar Cross, they say;
Little Bill wot would grizzle and run away,
If you ‘it ‘im a swipe on the jawr.
.....

Robert Service

A Pastoral Dialogue Between Two Shepherdesses

}
};


.....

Anne Kingsmill Finch

Ann Arbor Variations

1
Wet heat drifts through the afternoon
like a campus dog, a fraternity ghost
waiting to stay home from football games.
.....

Frank O'hara

Eclogue Vii

MELIBOEUS, CORYDON, THYRSIS

Daphnis beneath a rustling ilex-tree
Had sat him down; Thyrsis and Corydon
.....

Virgil

Admetus: To My Friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson

He who could beard the lion in his lair,
To bind him for a girl, and tame the boar,
And drive these beasts before his chariot,
Might wed Alcestis. For her low brows' sake,
.....

Emma Lazarus