Here is a small selection of some of my favorite poems right now.

The Stick Insects in the Museum at Tunbridge Wells
Saturday evening, just on 5pm.
The Library & Museum
Are about to close.
 
Most of us are at home,
football scores on the television,
tea on the table.
 
The museum curator secures the strong lid
on the glass case containing the stick insects
in their never-blue world.
 
Everyone will be busy tomorrow,
only six more shopping days
before Christmas.
 
The stick insects won’t be busy.
They will remain motionless in their
greeny-brown camouflage – all night, all day.
 
On Saturday night
families will go to the local pantomime,
grandparents to carol concerts, teenagers to parties.
 
During the drowsiness of Sunday,
one stick insect might, just might,
twist her twiggy body one single centimetre.
 
By Monday it’s up early again,
back to work, back to school
for just a few more days before the holiday.
 
At 8.30am, the museum curator unlocks
the door to the Library & Museum
and walks through the still, hushed foyer.
 
She finds one stick insect,
in the shape of an exclamation mark, crawling downstairs
 
… heading for the exit.

History Lesson Part Two:

The Romans
All over their Empire
the Romans built impressive buildings
such as forts, villas and monuments.
In big cities they constructed huge Amphitheatres
where great games and spectacles were held.
 
The best known of these 
are the Roman Games with contests,
often to the death, between animals, between men and between women combatants.
 
It was in one of these amphitheatres
that Miranda, the wife of Emperor Tiberius Tempus,
accidentally fell from her balcony into the arena
and was attacked and eaten by a tiger.
 
The tiger was told off and sent to bed. 
Everyone agreed it was bad he ate her,
and now the Emperor was sad he ate her,
and poor old Miranda was mad he ate her,
but the tiger said she was tasty and he was
GLADIATOR!

 © 2007 John Rice

Poems

Not So Healthy Lunch Yoghurt!!
My mum packed my lunch box for dinner
  with a sandwich, an apple and drink.
There was a porridge-and-parsnip yoghurt
  that gave off a sulphurous stink!
 
Green blobs were at swim on the surface,
  causing me panic, alarm and hysteria.
Some blue ones were doing the crawl,
  and I saw one case of surfing bacteria!
 
Just under the surface were long things,
  worm-like and slimy as snails.
They had fuzzy bits all round their outsides,
  and brown bits hung from their tails.
 
And slinking around at the bottom
  sat a great big eruption of spots.
Some were bright purple and yellow,
  bubbling like blood when it clots.
 
I sat in the dinner hall wondering,
  in a state of puzzled reflection.
Just what should I do with this yoghurt…
 
…now Miss Sweeney’s off sick (infection!)

The Hungry Wolf
The hungry wolf 
  is very wild
and is guaranteed
  to devour a child.
 
So do take care
  if a wolf’s about,
and if you fancy chips, 
  send your sister out! 

 

Gorbelly Button And His Daddy Gorbelly
Gorbelly Button and his Daddy Gorbelly
live in a house called Shimble Shamshelly
which is just down the road, not far from Dalmelly
where the kids are sweet but the babies are smelly
 
It’s a very large house is Shimble Shamshelly
with its huge living room and its widescreen telly
and their housekeeper’s name is Katie Ann Kelly
but she smells rather strange, like a soaking wet welly
 
Now eat up your food says Daddy Gorbelly
you must drink the sea and eat beaches that are shelly
eat up your sharks, your fishes made of jelly
for you’ll want to be like me and have a ginormous belly
 

How Captain Angel Came Into Being

(for Jill Doe)
Long away and far,
there once was a silver age of harmony
between All-the-Skies and All-the-Earths.
 
High was high, low was low,
and on a day of weather,
much like the weather of today,
puffy clouds parted and a golden sun-ray
shone through to form a lift-shaft of light.
 
And an angel slid down to be among us.
 
The angel became rock, too steady.
The angel became sea, too wavy.
The angel became snowflake, too chilled.
The angel became rain, too damp.
The angel became feather, too tickly.
The angel became air, so wispy. Just right.
 
A little girl somewhere drew a big breath
…aaaaaahhhhhhhimp…
and inhaled the angel-in-air.
It was not unpleasant, even though
it felt as if she had swallowed a rubber doll or a small yellow dinghy.
 
Girl became angel, angel became girl.
 
Girl-Angel needed a name.
“Take the next word we speak” said Angel-Girl.
 
On the television quiz show
the quiz lady asked; “On the Starship Enterprise, what rank was held by James T. Kirk?”
 
“CAPTAIN!” yelled Girl-Angel and Angel-Girl
both at the same start-of-time,
both in the same end-of-time voice.
 
‘Captain Angel’ took flight.