80 Poems
Contents
The Power of Poets
The Reader of This Poem
Bad Jokes
Apostrophe
In Case of Fire
Cautionary Tale
The Colour Collector
I’m a Grown Man Now
The Perfect Present
Sky in the Pie!
Mrs Moon
Snuggles
Pillow Talk
The Hair Fairy
Wouldn’t It Be Funny If You Didn’t Have a Nose?
Reward and Punishment
Take a Bow, Cow
Love a Duck
Jellyfish Pie
Stop, Thief!
Pull the Other One
Seagulls
Aquarium
Teapet
The Tofu-Eating Tiger
The Kleptomaniac
The All-Purpose Children’s Poem
Bookworms
How to End a Poem
Lost and Found
The Feather Boa Constrictor
Didgeridoo
Fruit Bats
The Brushbaby
An Ass
5 Ways to Stop Grizzly Bears from Spoiling Your Picnic
Ostrich
Beware the Allivator
A Domesticated Donkey
The Snowman
The Kitten’s First Spring
A Meerkat Lullaby
Old Hippos
I’ve Got a Cold
No Room to Swing a Cat
Mafia Cats
Cool Cat
Cabbage
The Rolling Meatball
Rainbow Menu
Good Enough to Eat
Just Desserts
A Weak Poem
A Llama
Downhill Racer
Uphill Climb
The Midnight Skaters
The Nutcracker
Mr Pollard
Trees are Great
Why Trees Have Got It All Wrong
Animals with Long Ears
Joy at the Sound
The Sound Collector
My Brilliant Friend
Imaginary Friend
Bubble Trouble
The Tongue-twister
M. Barra-Sing
The Going Pains
A Poem Just for Me
Emus
Bee’s Knees
You Tell Me
Simple Questions
Words
Give and Take
The Man Who Steals Dreams
Tomorrow Has Your Name On It
As Young as You Feel
Read More
ROGER MCGOUGH was born in Liverpool, and received the Freedom of the City in 2001. President of the Poetry Society, he presents the popular Radio 4 programme Poetry Please, and has published many books for adults and children. In 2005 he received a CBE from the Queen for his services to literature.
www.rogermcgough.org.uk
Happy Birthday, Poet!
The poems gathered round
To wish him all the best
He chose the nearest eighty
And said ‘Thank you’ to the rest.
When he’s as old as Methuselah
With no candles left to burn
Perhaps there’ll be another book
So everyone gets a turn?
Books by Roger McGough
For children
SKY IN THE PIE
PILLOW TALK
BAD BAD CATS
THE BEE’S KNEES
SLAPSTICK
ALL THE BEST
LUCKY
AN IMAGINARY MENAGERIE
UNTIL I MET DUDLEY
DOTTY INVENTIONS
I NEVER LIKED WEDNESDAYS
IF ONLY WE HAD A HELICOPTER
YOU TELL ME (with Michael Rosen)
For adults
IT NEVER RAINS
AS FAR AS I KNOW
THAT AWKWARD AGE
EVERYDAY ECLIPSES
COLLECTED POEMS
SELECTED POEMS
THE MERSEY SOUND (with Adrian Henri and Brian Patten)
SUMMER WITH MONIKA
Theatre
TARTUFFE
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC
THE MISANTHROPE
Autobiography
SAID AND DONE
The Power of Poets
The man on the settee
stroking a cat and watching TV
isn’t me.
I am the settee.
I could have been the man,
the cat or the TV.
However, this is my poem
and I choose to be the settee.
Such is the power of poets.
The Reader of This Poem
The reader of this poem
Is as cracked as a cup
As floppy as a flip-flop
As mucky as a pup
As troublesome as bubblegum
As brash as a brush
As bouncy as a double-tum
As quiet as a sshhh …
As sneaky as a witch’s spell
As tappy-toe as jazz
As empty as a wishing-well
As echoey as as as as as as … as … as …
As bossy as a whistle
As prickly as a pair
Of boots made out of thistles
And elephant hair
As vain as trainers
As boring as a draw
As smelly as a drain is
Outside the kitchen door
As hungry as a wave
That feeds upon the coast
As gaping as the grave
As GOTCHA! as a ghost
As fruitless as a cake of soap
As creeping-up as smoke
The reader of this poem, I hope,
Knows how to take a joke!
Bad Jokes
What becomes of jokes that nobody laughs at?
Do they curl up in embarrassment
and wish they’d never been born?
Wish they could bite the tongue
off the one who’d made them?
Do they dread ending up
inside Christmas crackers
or in politicians’ speeches?
Is a joke that nobody laughs at …
A bellyflop out of water?
A non-slip banana skin?
A custard pie left out in the rain?
An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman
helping a chicken across the road.
Or …
Do jokes that nobody laughs at feel superior?
Think the joke is on us and giggle quietly among themselves?
Apostrophe
In Case of Fire
In case of fire break glass
In case of glass fill with water
In case of water fetch umbrella
In case of umbrella beware of Mary Poppins
In case of Mary Poppins switch off TV
In case of TV change channel
In case of Channel swim across
In case of cross say sorry
In case of sorry hold out arms
In case of arms lay down gun
In case of gun Fire
In case of fire break glass
Cautionary Tale
A little girl called Josephine
Was fair of face and reasonably clean
But at school she wore a dunce’s cap
And her father, taking out a map
Said: ‘She’ll learn more if she comes with me
About the world and life at sea.
What she needs is a trip on my schooner
I’m surprised I didn’t think of it sooner.
For I am captain of the Hesperus
And I think I know what’s best for us.’
And thereupon a most dread
ful fate
Befell her, which I’ll now relate.
It was winter when they left the port
(in retrospect they shouldn’t ought)
Setting sail for the Spanish Main
Despite warnings of a hurricane.
Three days out there came the gale
Even the skipper he turned pale
And as for little Josephine
She turned seven shades of green.
As the schooner rocked from port to starboard
Across the decks poor Josie scarpered
She ran from the fo’c’sle to the stern
(Some folks’ll never learn)
Crying: ‘Stop the boat, I want to go home.’
But unheeding, the angry foam
Swamped the decks. Her dad did curse
Knowing things would go from bad to worse.
He pulled his daughter to his side
‘Put on my seaman’s coat,’ he cried
‘You’ll be safe ’til the storm has passed.’
Then bound her tightly to the mast.
And pass it did, but sad to say
Not for a fortnight and a day.
By then the ship had foundered
And all the crew had drownded.
And reported later in the press
Was a story that caused much distress
Of a couple walking on the shore
And of the dreadful sight they saw
Tied to a mast, a few bones picked clean
All that remained of poor Josephine.
MORAL
Stay on at school, get your GCSEs
Let others sail the seven seas.
The Colour Collector
A stranger called this morning
Dressed all in black and grey
Put every colour into a bag
And carried them away
The goldenness of cornflakes
The ivory of milk
The silverness of soup spoons
The see-throughness of silk
The greenness of tennis courts
When play has just begun
The orangeness of oranges
Glowing in the sun
The blueness of a dolphin
Nosing through the sea
The redness of the breast
A robin nestling in a tree
The creaminess of polar bears
Sliding on the floes
The little piggy pinkness
Of tiny, tickly toes
The sky that smiled a rainbow
Now wears a leaden frown
Who’s sobbing in his caravan?
Wizzo the monochrome clown
A stranger called this morning
He didn’t leave his name
We live now in the shadows
Life will never be the same.
I’m a Grown Man Now
I’m a grown man now
Don’t easily scare
(if you don’t believe me
ask my teddy bear).
The Perfect Present
What I wanted at the age of ONE
Was a rattle to shake and chew upon
What I got at the age of 1
Was a brick with RATTLE painted on
What I wanted at the age of TWO
Was a teddy bear, faithful and true
What I got at the age of 2
Was a piece of fur and a stick of glue
What I wanted at the age of THREE
Was a tricycle as new as can be
What I got at the age of 3
Was a pair of pram wheels nailed to a tree
What I wanted at the age of FOUR
Was a fearsome, gruesome dinosaur
What I got at the age of 4
Was a plastic lobster with only one claw
What I wanted at the age of FIVE
Was a silver kite to swoop and dive
What I got at the age of 5
Was a homeless pigeon more dead than alive
What I wanted at the age of SIX
Was a magic wand and a box of tricks
What I got at the age of 6
Was a pair of granny’s walking sticks
What I wanted at the age of SEVEN
Was a racing car, battery driven
What I got at the age of 7
Was a beer mat from a pub in Devon
What I wanted at the age of EIGHT
Was a surfboard, wouldn’t that be great?
What I got at the age of 8
Was a swimming ring that wouldn’t inflate
What I wanted at the age of NINE
Was a fishing rod with reel and line
What I got at the age of 9
Was a safety pin and a ball of twine
What I wanted at the age of TEN
Was a diary and a fountain pen
At the age of 10
Dad won the lottery. Bought me Disneyland.
Sky in the Pie!
Waiter, there’s a sky in my pie
Remove it at once if you please
You can keep your incredible sunsets
I ordered mincemeat and cheese
I can’t stand nightingales singing
Or clouds all burnished with gold
The whispering breeze is disturbing the peas
And making my chips go all cold
I don’t care if the chef is an artist
Whose canvases hang in the Tate
I want two veg and puff pastry
Not the Universe heaped on my plate
OK I’ll try just a spoonful
I suppose I’ve got nothing to lose
Mm … the colours quite tickle the palette
With a blend of delicate hues
The sun has a custardy flavour
And the clouds are as light as air
And the wind a chewier texture
(With a hint of cinnamon there?)
The sky is simply delicious
Why haven’t I tried it before?
I can chew my way through to Eternity
And still have room left for more
Having acquired a taste for the Cosmos
I’ll polish this sunset off soon
I can’t wait to tuck into the night sky
Waiter! Please bring me the Moon!
Mrs Moon
Mrs Moon
sitting up in the sky
little old lady
rock-a-bye
with a ball of fading light
and silvery needles
knitting the night
Snuggles
Work done
for the day
the sun
switches on
the moon
pulls
the clouds
over its
head and
snuggles
right down
into the
cosy bottom
of the sky.
Pillow Talk
Last night I heard my pillow talk
What amazing things it said
About the fun that pillows have
Before it’s time for bed
The bedroom is their playground
A magical place to be
(Not a room for peace and quiet
Like it is for you and me)
They divebomb off the wardrobe
Do backflips off the chair
Use the mattress as a trampoline
Turn somersaults in the air
It’s Leapfrog then Pass the Slipper
Handstands and cartwheels all round
Wrestling and swinging on curtains
And all with hardly a sound
But by and by the feathers fly
And they get out of puff
So with scarves and ties they bind their eyes
For a game of Blind Man’s Buff
They tiptoe out on the landing
Although it’s a dangerous place
(If granny met one on the stairs
Imag
ine the look on her face!)
It’s pillows who open cupboard drawers
To mess and rummage about
(And you end up by getting blamed
For something they left out)
I’d quite fancy being a pillow
Playing games and lying in bed
If I didn’t have to spend each night
Under your big snoring head!
The Hair Fairy
I’m going bald
And it’s not fair
Where, oh where
Is the Fairy of Hair?
When I was young
And a tooth fell out
You didn’t hear me
Weep or shout
For the Tooth Fairy
Would come to my aid
When fast asleep
I’d be well paid
If I got a pound
For each fallen hair
By now I’d be
A millionaire.
Wouldn’t It Be Funny If You Didn’t Have a Nose?
You couldn’t smell your dinner
If you didn’t have a nose
You couldn’t tell a dirty nappy
From a summer rose
You couldn’t smell the ocean
Or the traffic, I suppose
Oh wouldn’t it be funny
If you didn’t have a nose?
You couldn’t smell your mummy
If you didn’t have a nose
You couldn’t tell an orange
From a row of smelly toes