The Dirigible Balloon
Poetry for Children

Advice from My Grandfather

Never run in stockings
Never slice your soup
Never let the cat out
Into the chicken coop

Never slap a statue
Never steal a stole
Never eat a feather bed
Unless you eat it whole

Never cut a caper
Into more than seven parts
Never cheat at checkers
Don’t play fair at darts

Never tickle serpents’ feet
Never water weeds
Don’t weigh an inch against an ounce
Or balance words with deeds

Never feed a favour
Never freeze a cold
Never dance on cellar doors
Never gild your gold

Never tie your nose in knots
Or gargle with hot glue
And never take a fool’s advice
On what never to do.

About the Writer


Daniel Galef

Daniel is a student and a teacher and a writer and a reader. His writing for children has appeared in Spider, Caterpillar, Crow Toes, the Balloons Lit. Journal, Orbit, Spaceports and Spidersilk, and Light. His first book of poems, Imaginary Sonnets, was published in 2023 by Able Muse Press. He lives in Cincinnati in the U.S., where he writes and teaches mathematics.