Tag Archives: POLLIPIGGLEPUGGAR

SPACE FLIGHT FOR TOTS

As part of the POLLIPIGGLEPUGGAR collection Phoenix Ark Press are delighted to publish another poem for parents and young children by David Clement-Davies. Please read it with and to your kids, because if a Standard newspaper survey about reading in London is right, then one in three parents don’t feel confident enough to read aloud to their children, and it is a tragedy for all of us.

SPACE FLIGHT FOR TOTS

Space flight for Tots,”
Said Professor Wot-Nots
“Is a question both grave and dark.
The problem you see
Isn’t Gravity
But the lack of some primal spark.
It seems mad to me
If you’re only just three
To rocket, straight up through the air.
The jolt would be cruel,
Not to mention the fuel,
That would surely ignite your hair.”
“But I’ve done the sums,”
Cried Professor Nun-Drums
“And I know I can conquer this race
To make Astro-Sports,
Of the Sevens to Noughts,
Then hurtle them out into space!”
“What ROT”, snapped Wot-Nots
“There isn’t a tot,
That could master your method of flight.”
Nun-Drums shook his head,
At what ‘Nots had said,
Then he cooed, like an owl in the night:
“First suck on your thumb,
As your lips start to hum,
Then sit with your knees in a ball
And jump up and down,
In your warmest night gown,
As you start to ascend the wall.
The problem’s not wings,
But the strength of the springs,
And the positive slant of the bed,
To provide a position
For natural ignition,
As you bounce up to Pluto instead!”
I see,” said Wat-Nots,
As he looked at those cots,
And wondered where all the kids were.
Then Wat’s scratched his head
And turned lobster red,
As he saw what he now should infer;
The Num-Drumic Proof
Were those holes in the roof,
And the way that the beds were all bent!
With Nun-Drums – ecstatic
As he gazed through the attic
Straight up at the twinkling sky
For there, from that room
Was a trail to the Moon
And the children all learning to fly!

Copyright David Clement-Davies 2011. All Rights Reserved.

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Filed under Childrens Books, Poetry, The Arts

NONSENSE FOR THE POET’S SWEATSHOP!

In the vein of having some fun and not just throwing rotten eggs at the disgrace that is modern Publishers, bottom feedings agents and the rest, Phoenix Ark Press are delighted to publish a Nonsense Verse for The Poet’s Seatshop, only somewhat inspired by Lewis Carrol, by the Founder and Children’s Award Winner David Clement-Davies

POLLIPIGGLEPUGGAR

Though PolliPigglepuggar is a nonsense kind of WORD
You CAN’T hunt down in any diction-reeeee,
THE Pollipigglepuggar’ is a most exotic bird,
Which sleeps within the Pollipiggle tree.
She isn’t quite a Parrot
Though her plumage is akin
And her ears are thin and furry, as a bear,
Her tail looks like a carrot,
While she has a sort of chin,
And wears a set of curlers in her hair.
Her beak is made of lemon peel,
Her eyes are black and blue,
Her call is like the bleating of a goat,
Her favourite meal’s spaghetti
It’s weird, but still it’s true,
She loves to wrap so loosely round her throat.
While, on her Pollipiggle branch,
She perches day and night –
A look that says – there’s nothing else to do.
Though in those scented piggle leaves,
She’s dreaming of the fright
I gave her when I stole out and went – ‘Boo’.
But just before I tell you
What a racket THAT inspired,
There’s something else to show you all, for free,
Not the colour of those feathers
Or the way her feet are wired,
But the nature of the Pollipiggle Tree.
The Pollipig’s a cousin of the Lollipopple plant,
In the genus of the Ligglepipple root,
Its leaves are made of herbal tea,
Although the branches aren’t,
While its flowers sprout out in rubber, like a boot.

It sways there in the piggle breeze,
Just waiting on some fun
Or that Puggar bird to use it for her bed,
And, since this tree can’t walk with ease,
(The thing can’t even run!)
It’s fond of simply growing up instead!
So there it waits to ponder,
As it blossoms once a year,
When the swooping puggar-puggar will appear,
Until from out of yonder
The thing loops through the air
And settles with a whooping, on its ear.
Behold the Pollipiggle Bird,
A fowl that isn’t deep,
A-landing on its side within the shrub
A bird, you see, that’s so absurd,
It promptly falls asleep
And dreams of bathing nightly in a tub.
So there they snooze together,
Like a perfect pair of chums
A-deep within the pollipiggle wood
And there the tree gets bigger
While the Pollipuggar hums
A tune I can’t remember, though I should.
You see, I’ve quite forgotton
That thing I had in mind,
Namely WHAT the creature cried when given fright;
It screeched out something rotten
When I woke it from behind,
Then called out like an ostrich taking flight:
oh, polli, pig AND puggar,
oh piggle, puggle, pol
oh, rallop, lipig, gopple, gup and gol
oh luggup, paggle, leppug, paaaa
And glipple loppgup too
.
Which really meant no more than;
‘Who are you?”
Oh, I love my Pollipiggle bird
A-sleeping in her tree
With her multicoloured feathers on her wings
And her strange, but polli, habits
Which NEVER seem absurd,
Like those ears that grow like rabbit’s,
Or the piggle way she sings,
And the puggar way she knows just how to be,
While she’s snoring up her Pollipiggle Tree.

Copyright David Clement-Davies June 20i1 All Rights Reserved.

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Filed under Childrens Books, Free Story, Poetry