11 Children poems

Jack and Jill Went up the hill To fetch a pail of water, Jack fell down And broke his crown And Jill came tumbling after. Up Jack got And home did trot As fast as he could caper, Went to bed To mend his head With vinegar and brown paper.

In our house we live with Arlene. My little sister has a plan. She has what they call a beginner’s mind. She sees everything from an un-given-up perspective. I’m frightened; I know Arlene better than anyone; she knows me better. Esme says if I’m scared we can’t win. But I am scared. Arlene drags me over to the window where the black mould has made a map of Australia. Australia gives me trouble breathing, it’s so far away. Arlene points it out and I get the feeling in my chest, my whole life in there twisted up like a snake. It could bite me or her. She puts a hand on my breastbone. You’re not strong. I want to tell her we can look after ourselves. I want to tell her I’m in charge now, but I can still see the dark blur at the edges. I don’t sleep anymore, my head is full of this insomniac light. I lie awake watching over my sisters and I listen to them breathe. Esme whispers that I should wake her if I need to. I say I will, but I never do. Even when I sleep I dream I can’t sleep and I’m standing there looking down at them, the night pouring from my hands. Esme has a future in mind. She’s always laughing. She gets up early and makes buttermilk pancakes using normal milk soured with lemon juice. She tries things out. Arlene tells us to stay away from sharp things or we’ll cut ourselves. Esme does what she likes. She grates apple for a new recipe and cuts her knuckle and laughs. I don’t know if I can live my life. I don’t know if I can look after someone as unafraid as Esme. I don’t know how to change what I do, the way someone eating soup will, out of habit, bite down. Esme laughs; she’s serving up apple pancakes with banana and maple syrup and she says,You are a whole person. A row of mornings fan out. And the pancakes are sweet and slightly gummy with a salt edge.

At the center of the lit circle, rising from cotton-candy calf muscles, the White Clown ushers his eyebrows skyward. He grates his ukulele, opens a heart-shaped mouth, inhales— his serenade begins. Now's the time. From the shadows, a blast like a trumpeting elephant: obscene, ragged. The Auguste capers like a fawn, darts away, pads around with his trombone. The gold of the slide slips into and out of the infinite. Everything smells of panther and piss and mint. His gaze fixed on the clash between the welled tears and the awful laughing shoes, the little boy grows ever more grave, ever more severe.

I. Springing Jack Green wooden leaves clap light away, Severely practical, as they Shelter the children candy-pale, The chestnut-candles flicker, fail . . . The showman’s face is cubed clear as The shapes reflected in a glass Of water—(glog, glut, a ghost’s speech Fumbling for space from each to each). The fusty showman fumbles, must Fit in a particle of dust The universe, for fear it gain Its freedom from my cube of brain. Yet dust bears seeds that grow to grace Behind my crude-striped wooden face As I, a puppet tinsel-pink Leap on my springs, learn how to think— Till like the trembling golden stalk Of some long-petalled star, I walk Through the dark heavens, and the dew Falls on my eyes and sense thrills through. II. The Ape Watches “Aunt Sally” The apples are an angel’s meat; The shining dark leaves make clear sweet The juice; green wooden fruits alway Fall on these flowers as white as day— (Clear angel-face on hairy stalk: Soul grown from flesh, an ape’s young talk!) And in this green and lovely ground The Fair, world-like, turns round and round And bumpkins throw their pence to shed Aunt Sally’s wooden clear-striped head.— I do not care if men should throw Round sun and moon to make me go— As bright as gold and silver pence . . . They cannot drive their black shade hence!

Yes, I wanted them to levitate. Unfortunately, I hadn't a leg to stand on. Cut-out camels plodded across the blackboard's high sill. Yet the desert below refused to unfurl its mica wings. When I asked them to try to remember, to release a soap bubble from their marvelous arsenal of wands, they resisted. They lined up, suspicious in individual spotlights. The fountain inside the scissored palm could only rise so high, maybe just a trumpeted C. Which is high, but not like those huge blue dreams that used to float by, shot from cloud-atomizers, the original public breeze on its back in the grass. Let's try to guess who or what is being borne up by this caravan of thin- skinned humps, a-bulge, inoculated? I tell you every one has a rider, a crop. It's been done this way for some time. If we pause here by the pillars of sand, up to our poet-knees in anarchy, won't each gulp of hoarded water from the toppled monument be sweeter passed hand to hand in the sun-colored dipper? Up to our thighs in it now, and spared what drills it- self into the rock daily, so it can claim to know zero after zero, and make that nothing into a sound like silent bells, split parched hooves, plodding.

Mothers of America let your kids go to the movies! get them out of the house so they won’t know what you’re up to it’s true that fresh air is good for the body but what about the soul that grows in darkness, embossed by silvery images and when you grow old as grow old you must they won’t hate you they won’t criticize you they won’t know they’ll be in some glamorous country they first saw on a Saturday afternoon or playing hookey they may even be grateful to you for their first sexual experience which only cost you a quarter and didn’t upset the peaceful home they will know where candy bars come from and gratuitous bags of popcorn as gratuitous as leaving the movie before it’s over with a pleasant stranger whose apartment is in the Heaven on Earth Bldg near the Williamsburg Bridge oh mothers you will have made the little tykes so happy because if nobody does pick them up in the movies they won’t know the difference and if somebody does it’ll be sheer gravy and they’ll have been truly entertained either way instead of hanging around the yard or up in their room hating you prematurely since you won’t have done anything horribly mean yet except keeping them from the darker joys it’s unforgivable the latter so don’t blame me if you won’t take this advice and the family breaks up and your children grow old and blind in front of a TV set seeing movies you wouldn’t let them see when they were young

Baa, baa, black sheep Have you any wool? Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full. One for the master, And one for the dame, And one for the little boy Who lives down the lane.

If I had a hundred dollars to spend, Or maybe a little more, I’d hurry as fast as my legs would go Straight to the animal store. I wouldn’t say, “How much for this or that?” “What kind of a dog is he?” I’d buy as many as rolled an eye, Or wagged a tail at me! I’d take the hound with the drooping ears That sits by himself alone; Cockers and Cairns and wobbly pups For to be my very own. I might buy a parrot all red and green, And the monkey I saw before, If I had a hundred dollars to spend, Or maybe a little more.

Here a little child I stand Heaving up my either hand; Cold as paddocks though they be, Here I lift them up to Thee, For a benison to fall On our meat, and on us all.Amen.

The chatter of little people Breaks on my purpose Like the water-drops which slowly wear the rocks to powder. And while I laugh My spirit crumbles at their teasing touch.