The Dirigible Balloon
Poetry for Children

A Nose by Any Other Name

Listen to Ken's poem ... read by JH
Hands have their fingers
and feet have their toes,
but the strangest of all?
Why, of course—it’s the nose!

Yours might be a snout
or a spout or a hose,
but if it’s a twig,
when you lie, then it grows.

Perhaps it’s a bulb
that gets red and it glows
when you catch a bad cold,
then it sneezes and flows.

If you snatch a toddler’s,
say, “Smickity-Smack!”
With your thumb in your fingers,
say “I’ll put it back.”

Like snowflakes, no two
are alike, I suppose.
A smile is the best place
to rest one of those.

About the Writer


Ken Gosse

Ken prefers using simple language and traditional meter and rhyme in verses with whimsy and humor. First published in The First Literary Review–East in November 2016, his poems are also in Visual Verse, Pure Slush, Home Planet News, and others. Now retired, he and his wife were raised in the Chicago suburbs. They have lived in Mesa, Arizona, over twenty years, usually with several rescue dogs and cats underfoot.