Oh Coconuts!

Once there was a cargo ship
sailing with a load of coconuts. 
It sailed into a storm on that trip,
and the wind and the waves made it start to tip. 
The Captain said, "Oh coconuts!"
He lost that load of coconuts. 

Once there was a hungry shark
swimming through a load of coconuts.
A craving lit up like a spark,
and he ate until well after dark.
Stuffed, he said, "Oh coconuts!"
His teeth all broke on coconuts.

Once there was a jellyfish
that bumped into a sinking coconut. 
To be a coconut became its wish. 
“It's better to be hard than to squish!”
It sighed and said, "Oh coconuts!
I'll never be a coconut!"

Once there was a hermit crab
that moved into a broken coconut. 
The crab's old shell was cramped and drab. 
This brand new shell was quite a grab! 
It trudged and said, "Oh coconuts!
This is a heavy coconut!"

Once there was a fishing line
that hooked onto a walking coconut.
It was hard to haul, which was a good sign. 
The fisherman pulled with all his spine!
And then he said, "Oh coconuts!
This fish is just a coconut!"

Once there was a gray seagull
that saw a crab in a coconut.
He scooped up the coconut, crab and all.
From the sky he lost his grip and let it fall.
The seagull cried, "Oh coconuts!
There goes my crab and coconut!"

Once there was a businessman
whose head caught a falling coconut.
It hurt, but suddenly he had a plan.
“I could sell coconuts in Japan!”
He frowned and said. "Oh coconuts!
I’ll need a ship for coconuts!"

Once there was a cargo ship
sailing with a load of coconuts. 
It sailed into a storm on that trip,
and the wind and the waves made it start to tip. 
The Captain said, "Oh coconuts!"
He lost that load of coconuts.

Cee-gar Smokin', Gee-tar Strokin' Man

All the birds stop whistlin’. They start hummin’.
Everybody shuts up to hear him comin’.
All the trees start dancin’ when he starts strummin’.
Yea.
The wind carries in his tobacky smell,
then it carries in his magical gee-tar spell. 
He’s a cee-gar smokin’, gee-tar strokin’ man.

With his cee-gar smokin' like a factory
he's an assembly line of melody, 
a mesmerizing musical mystery. 
Oh yea. 
Some people say he doesn't have a name. 
He was named by his mama, other people claim. 
She named him Cee-gar Smokin', Gee-tar Strokin' Man.

When he comes to town every foot is tappin'. 
There's no two hands you won't find clappin'. 
The babies in town even give up nappin'. 
Yea. 
The whole town declares that it's a holiday. 
No one wants to go to work and miss him play. 
He's the cee-gar smokin', gee-tar strokin' man. 

When he starts to leave everybody cries. 
They say it's the cee-gar smoke in their eyes. 
His gee-tar strummin' really satisfies. 
Oh yea. 
He says he'll be back, and no one ever doubts. 
At the first smell of smoke someone always shouts, 
"It's the cee-gar smokin', gee-tar strokin' man!"

Heavy Is the Head

I had a next-door neighbor that
wore his house on his head like a hat.

He sat down on my lawn one day.
He shook my hand and said, "I'll stay."
A few days later he walked away.

In his house he had his family.
He took them everywhere they asked to see.
I'd see the pictures when he'd visit me.

Tel Aviv, Mt. Rushmore, Rome,
Hazard County, Toronto, Nome.
Wherever he was, that man was home.

"Ramblin' Man" was his favorite song.
He never stayed in the same place long
(which is why his legs were so darn strong).

He once said, "This life don't stink!"
And through his window I could see him wink.
He said, "It's better than you think,
But it's not as easy as you think.
It's true I live wherever I roam,
but heavy is the head that wears the home.
Heavy is the head that wears the home.
Heavy is the head that wears the home."

An Invisible Giant

A Giant’s lying in the air
with both his feet in outer space…
See his colorful mustache hair?
That’s not a rainbow! It’s his face!

If My Nose Could Grow

I could lay so peacefully
on the bottom of a shallow sea
if through the surface, like a tree,
my nose could grow to breathe for me.

I would sniff the salty air
while little fish swam through my hair.
Seaweed’s all the clothes I’d wear.
I’d be so comfortable down there.

Memories

“When I became pregnant,” my mother said,
“I swallowed a pizza so you could be fed,
and because you were restless I swallowed a bed.”

“When you were a baby,” my mother wailed,
“you drank gallons of milk every time you inhaled…
Each time you spit up a ship could have sailed!”

“When you learned to crawl,” my mother complained,
“I must have been crazy to leave you unchained!
You got onto the roof every time that it rained.”

“When you started walking,” my mother sighed,
“whatever would break was where you’d collide.
I should have warned your grandmother to hide!”

 “When you got your first tooth,” my mother swore,
“to travel downstairs you chewed through the floor.
Your hand has five fingers. Your dentist’s has four!”

“When you first talked,” my mom cried in dismay,
“the words that came out of you turned my hair gray,
and every neighbor we had moved away!”

“When you’d throw a tantrum,” my mother roared,
“it would shake and rattle my spinal cord.
You derailed a train once while we were on board.”

“When we went to the zoo,” my mom reminisced,
“even the lions trembled and hissed.
The zoo put you on its ‘Prohibited’ list.”

“When I was a girl,” my mother confessed,
“for fun I would swallow a hornet’s nest.
Your grandmother says I once ate a house guest.”

“Before I had you,” my mom said and smiled,
“your grandmother hoped I’d have me for a child…
You’re sort of like me, but not nearly as wild!”

Three Grains of Rice

If I ate just one grain of rice
that would not suffice.
That’s not even enough for mice.
Ah ha, but luckily for me
I don’t have one grain,
I have three.

Once Upon a Paper Plate

Once upon a paper plate
I poured a saucy stew.
I ate and ate and ate and ate
and felt the plate disintegrate!
It missed my pants when it fell through
but the stew filled up my shoe!

How to Make a Flower Grow

My sister thinks her hairs are flowers.

She takes showers for hours and hours.

It takes more than water, though,

to make a flower really grow.

“You also need some dirt!” I said,

as I dumped some on her head.

She screamed. My dad said, “That’s not funny!

Now put your sister where it’s sunny!”

Science Lies!

My Science teacher makes me laugh.
I would learn more from a giraffe!
“Bodies are made of water,” she taught.
This led me to a simple thought.
Because I am the classroom sleuth
I called out, “Science isn’t truth!
If it were true, then please explain…
why don’t we get fat in the rain?”
Miss Newton sighed, “Why such defiance?”
I shrugged and said, “I don’t like Science.”

Cheese Plate

My mother said I overate
just because I ate my plate.
With her cheese sauce it tasted great!
I told my mother, “You should try it.”
She said, “WE are on a diet!”
I said, “But…”
She said, “Be quiet!”

The Science Question of the Day

“Why do stars glisten in the sky?”
My teacher’s answer was a lie!
“Each star is its own single sun,”
my teacher said. “Yes, every one!”
I told Miss Newton, “That’s not true!
My brother told me why they do!
Here is the answer that is right…
The moon sneezed and it splashed the night!”

My Noisy Family

Oh, my Dad! The way he snores!
That’s why they invented doors!

When my Mom thinks she’s alone
sometimes she sounds like a trombone…

No wonder Grandma’s ears are worn…
Her TV uses a bullhorn!

All day long my sister’s singing
sounds like an alarm clock ringing!

My brother upstairs drinks caffeine…
His floor is not a trampoline!

My other brother down the hall
has soccer matches with his wall!

With such a noisy family
it’s hard to hear myself be me!

Oh, if quiet ever comes,
then I’ll learn to play the drums!

City Breeze

This summer breeze, it feels so good
blowing through my neighborhood
taking on this concrete heat,
cooling down my sweating feet.
A wind like this should never fade…
This gentle air is just like shade!
I wonder if a city breeze
is actually the ghosts of trees.

A Dog for Camping

If you’re making me go camping, Dad, and you don’t want me bored
I’ll need to get a dog whose tail is an extension cord.
I’ll rub its shaggy fur to build up electricity,
and then its tail will be a place to plug in my TV.

Tree Parade

It’s such a scorching, sunny day…
so hot that it’s too hot to play.
Oh, Sun, forgive me when I say,
Today I wish you’d go away!

I’d really love to find some shade.
I’d love to find a tree parade
with lemon trees and lemonade
and trees with their best leaves displayed.

I know I could keep up the pace…
I’d even win in a tree race!
A tree parade marches in place,
offering a shade embrace.

Maybe I’d see a bear mermaid,
or three snakes joined into a braid.
All kinds of things might be portrayed
within the shady masquerade!

There’s no parade, to my dismay.
A steak could cook on my walkway!
Oh, Sun, forgive me when I say,
I’ve had too much of you today!

My Great Stairway

I’m building a stairway in my mind

from every stair I’ve ever climbed.

Today I only added four

but I once climbed to a thirty-first floor,

and every day I add some more!

With all these stairs that I acquire

my stairway keeps growing higher…

It spirals where it isn’t straight.

Where it’s not plain it is ornate.

My growing stairway's growing GREAT!!

If I could pull it from my mind

I’d leave the ground and world behind.

I’d peek in through airplane windows

with birds resting on my nose.

I would go where no one goes…

I would climb among the stars.

I’d climb my great stairway to Mars!

The Thing I Am Is Everything

My sister says that she can sing, and that makes her a singer.
I chase her, singing, I’m a bee, and that makes me a stinger!
She hollers, You are just a thing!
I tell her, I agree.
The thing I am is everything. I'm not just a bee.
She yells, Oh be a rocket ship and blast off to the moon!
I say, I went there yesterday. Why go again so soon?
She screams, Then be a lobster! Go live on the ocean floor!
I am. And every ocean, I explain. And every shore.
She screeches, Just be quiet Mr. Big-Pain-In-My-Rear!
I whisper, That’s impossible. I’m everything you hear.
Well silence is a thing, she says. And I scratch my head.
I guess I won’t be everything, but just some things instead.

Caramel Shoes

I made my shoes from caramel.
I thought they’d make my feet not smell
like feet.
But, phew, that sweet and sweaty smell
of sticky feet in caramel
is utterly disgusting and, whoa, it’s not discrete!
My one-time favorite caramel
is candy now I hate to smell…
Oh, tragedy! It’s candy that I never want to eat!
(But now my mouth begins to water when I smell my feet…)

My Unfriendly Neighbor

I have an unfriendly neighbor who
never says, “Fine,” to my “How do you do?”
Sometimes he answers by throwing a shoe.

He waters his sidewalk on cold winter days.
In summer he covers it with mayonnaise.
I prefer going less slippery ways.

His mouse-fur cap wiggles and squeaks
on the rare occasions that my neighbor speaks.
When I see it happen, I’m nervous for weeks.

My friends all agree it’s unusual that
he keeps a stingray instead of a welcome mat,
and instead of a doorbell the nose of a rat.

His house has vines all over each wall
with fingers that hang from the ends of them all.
One time they stole my best soccer ball!

His lawn used to be as green as farmland
until he replaced the grass with quicksand.
Now it’s light brown, and sort of bland.

Bees blow from the tail of the car that he drives.
These bees have stingers, but they feel like knives.
I run when he’s leaving, and when he arrives.

His chimney covered our street in thick smoke
the time his fireplace burned poison oak.
I saw him laugh as I scratched at his joke.

One Halloween I stood on the street
and screamed nervously at his house, “Trick or treat!”
He opened his door, and threw pickled pig’s feet!

I asked my Grandma for this advice…
“If I want to be friends, how can I break the ice?”
She said, “Oh sweetie. Not everyone’s nice.”

An Uncommon Cold

One time the sun caught a cold,
and complained, “Oh, I’m so old.
I’ve lived three billion years or more.”
The moon replied, “You’re just mature.”

The heat that blew on the breeze
of every unexpected sneeze
melted all the mountain snow,
which made the rivers overflow.

Lava snot ran in the sky,
and then the sun began to cry.
The raindrops were igniting wood
as the sun wept, “I don’t feel good!”

People gathered in a hurry.
Everyone was sick with worry.
They knew something must be done
to help cure their ailing sun!

Farmers came with celery,
onions, chickens and parsley.
Grandmothers brought cooking pots.
A rocket came with astronauts.

“Chicken Soup!” “It never fails!”
came the hopeful shouts and wails
as people filled the rocket ship
with soup for a sun-bound trip.

Though no one could say for sure
if chicken soup had been the cure
the sun got better very soon,
and then a sneeze came from the moon…

If My Hat Had Wings

If my hat had wings my hair would fly,
but then my lonely head would cry.
No, it could not be left below.
Well, my neck would also want to go!
If my hat, hair, head and neck took flight
would my shoulders feel left out? They might.
But, wait! My arms can’t leave my shoulders.
They’d fall off without their holders!
Then what good would be my chest?
It needs my arms to get it dressed.
If my chest, arms and shoulders flew,
what would my topless belly do?
Join the flight (like you’d expect)
before my chest could disconnect.
My hips and waist without a doubt
would join rather than feel left out,
which would make my legs perplexed.
Therefore they would follow next.
But I would be incomplete
because I have such stubborn feet.
They’d say, “Why fly when we can walk?”
(Wait a second! Feet can’t talk!)

So Many Hairs

Even though Harriet had so much hair
she thought that each one deserved its own name.
Above her left ear, she started with Claire,
and promised, I won’t name two hairs the same!
Suzie, Stevie, Jonah, John, Lisa, Fran, Francine,
Frankie, Maximillian, Nadine, Sam, Tom, Evaline,
Herbert, Ralphie, Little Pete, Big Pete, Aaron, Peter,
Bonnie, Bobbie, Tony, Toby, Stacy, Tracy, Dieter.
She named hairs all afternoon, all evening and all night.
At dawn she was past her left ear, but still far from her right…
I think I'll shave my head, she said

at sunrise as she went to bed.

One Day My House

One day my house will be a tree,
one that’s not just tall, but wide
with room to build stairways inside.
Each branch will be a balcony.

Inside the branches I’ll keep things,
my soccer ball and clothes and bed,
all my toys and my dog Fred,
and on each branch a bird that sings.

The birds and I will be good friends.
They’ll try to teach me how to fly.
At night they’ll sing a lullaby,
and wake me up when the night ends.

Birds will bring me eggs for breakfast.
My tree will grow delicious fruits.
Root beer will flow in its roots,
and every sip will be the freshest.

Inside my tree, when it rains
it will sound like steady drumming.
I’ll join in with banjo strumming,
and sing songs about old trains.

I’ll hang a hammock at the top
and in it learn to smoke a pipe.
I’ll eat fruit that’s always ripe
and drink my fresh root beer nonstop.

That’s the house I’ll have one day
when finally I’m out of school
and I’ve outgrown my parents’ rule,
and all I have to do is rest and play…

Horror Right Outside the Door

The time I stepped on a slug with my bare foot was bad.
And although it made me hop and curse
what my good friend David did yesterday was worse.
He was taking out the trash
when he felt a bullfrog smash.
Worse than that, he said he felt it ooze…
Dave had gone out wearing socks without any shoes!
(And although it’s been denied,
David’s sister said he cried.)

Old Smoke and the Blue Forest Line

Old Smoke left the station loaded up with heavy freight.
This time that old freight train was just half an hour late.
The Engineer who drove him couldn’t help but hesitate…
No one rushed to go into Blue Forest.

It was said Blue Forest had more robberies than trees.
A sign that marked the boundary read, “We’ll Take What We Please.”
The Engineer on Old Smoke was shaking in his knees
as the freight train disappeared into Blue Forest.

Old Smoke chugged into the dark and fearsome forest shade.
In no time at all, off with its freight the robbers made.
The Engineer swore, “Old Smoke, it’s time for an upgrade!
No, we won’t be robbed again in this Blue Forest!”

The Engineer hooked a steel car behind Old Smoke’s caboose
and filled it with cannonballs for the sound that would produce
when he removed the wheels for the steel car to be loose…
a rattlesnake tail clanging through Blue Forest.

Old Smoke’s Engineer screamed, “This rattle’s how it warns!”
But robbers swarmed out of the trees answering with horns.
The Engineer swore, “Old Smoke, next time I’ll give you thorns!
Let’s see who’ll touch you then in this Blue Forest!”

“Old Smoke!” the Engineer laughed. “You parade of porcupines!”
He’d welded to each car a thousand sharpened metal spines.
Someone whispered, “That man should be selling his designs,”
as again the Engineer drove toward Blue Forest.

The robbers rushed the train this time with metal pruning shears
and cut off each and every one of Old Smoke’s sharpened spears.
A robber winked. The Engineer blinked back his angry tears,
and called, “I’ll be back again to this Blue Forest!”

The Engineer ran wire through every car and wheel,
charging up Old Smoke with high volts like an electric eel.
The Engineer laughed, “I can’t wait to hear the robbers squeal!
Oh, I can’t wait to get back to Blue Forest!”

The next day the Engineer got Old Smoke out on time.
He laughed, “Electric shocks are today’s reward for crime!”
But the robbers all wore rubber suits so Old Smoke they could climb…
and they took the freight away into Blue Forest.

When the Engineer drove Old Smoke back into the station
a Company man was waiting there with this revelation…
“We would lose less money, in our approximation,
if we built a bridge to cross above Blue Forest.”

The Engineer went to bed, but he left on the lights.
What kept him wide-awake was a tremendous fear of heights.
He thought, “I should make Old Smoke into a train that bites
so they won’t need no bridge over Blue Forest!”

By morning bridge materials already had appeared,
and to make things even worse than the Engineer had feared
he heard the crunch of boots as a thousand workers neared,
and saws were cutting lumber from Blue Forest.

The Company man insisted, “While we build this bridge
the Company won’t tolerate delivery stoppage!”
Onto the freight the Engineer loaded rotten cabbage,
and gasped, “Old Skunk! Let’s get back to Blue Forest.”

Old Smoke’s smell did not deter the robbers in the least.
It seemed their hunger to steal from Old Smoke only increased.
They took the freight while they enjoyed a rotten cabbage feast
then vanished once again into Blue Forest.

The Engineer returned to a bridge nearly complete.
He could not help but be impressed by this construction feat.
The Company man gloated, “Now the robbers have been beat!
That’s a hundred miles of bridge across Blue Forest!”

The Engineer drove Blue Forest Line with two closed eyes,
muttering, “Old Smoke, why can’t you be a train that flies?”
A tollbooth high above the trees came as no surprise…
and collecting tolls, the robbers of Blue Forest.