Introduction
Firstly, nothing in this booklet is
to be taken seriously. Take that as seriously as you want. ;)
Please accept my apologies for this
long introduction.
The title of this booklet, Poems
For Children, is just that, a title. Poems For Children are
not just poems for children. It’s a name that has stuck, I think it sounds
nice. It isn’t restrictive. Conversely I do not think Poems For Adults sounds
nice. It is restrictive. It sounds dumb. It is also deceptive. We are all God’s
children after all. Just think of Jesus Christ for a second, he wasn’t much
over 30 years old when they nailed him to a cross, just a baby. He was a very
naughty boy. He was a bum. So was Buddha. They never could have been rich
without being so poor. Take a look at the universe for a second, it’s as old as
time itself but it does not look a day over 0, still starry eyed. As Dorothy
Parker once said, ‘Promise me I’ll never get old’. That was on the morning of
her 70th birthday. She was an old woman. Time is so impermanent. So
is a river. There’s no time, there’s no river just a flow. Flowers. Life exists
in minutes, days and hours as much as the universe exists in yards and meters.
That’s not to say that it doesn’t. Everytime I quote Dorothy Parker I start
with as Dorothy Parker once said. It is the start of an old song. Most
of what I know, I’ve learned from old songs. They don’t write ‘em like they
used. I don’t at least. Just one of those things.
That Poems For children are
not poems for children does not mean they should not be read by children. That
would be restrictive. Perhaps, here, I should warn parents that there are some
bad words in this booklet which they may deem inappropriate for their child but
I need all the readers I can get so I shan’t. It’s probably real easy to tell
if a poem is inappropriate for children, if a poem is inappropriate, they won’t
want to read it. Some of these poems may be inappropriate for children but not
because of bad words.
Most people would have knocked these
poems out in less than a week. Not me. It took a long time to write so little.
In other words, ‘I’m walkin’ ere! I’m walkin ere!!’ An anchor helps you see the
river move. There’s a story about Fats Domino, after his car broke down Fats
Domino, who had his biggest hit in the charts at the time, was walking to the
nearest service station when a fan, driving by, saw him and shouted, ‘Hey, look
at Fats Domino, he’s walking!’, Fats then thought to himself, ‘Yeah, I’m
walkin’’ and wrote his second biggest hit I’m Walkin’, in his
head, as he carried on walking. He also wrote Walkin’ to New Orleans and
I Want to Walk You Home and When I’m Walking, Let Me Walk.
Everywhere is in walking distance if you give yourself enough time. Yes indeed.
Not all these poems rhyme. Poems
shouldn’t have to rhyme all the time.
It’s strange, there is a pleasant
cohesion to the work in this booklet. This was beyond my control, too big for
me, the cosmos of ideas. Think of the strange cohesion of the cosmos of which
we are part; scattershot stars, wand’ring stars, comets, pigeons, Hailey’s
Comet, Bill Hailey, Kosmo Kramer, Michael Richards, Armitage Shanks, icicles on
mars, icicles in hell, the strings of a harp and string theory and coffee
stains; your good self; there’s a cohesion. They are all in the same cosmos,
afterall. It’s not like they are from another galaxy. All in the gutter,
afterall.
Anyhow, I do not believe in bad
words. Only words. They are all I have to give. Tread softly. After all, we’re
in nor rush. The alternative title for this booklet is Play It Again…
As time goes by.
Sam
