Bad Hair Day
Today a purple sausage bat
was grass-snake folding-ladder
when tambourine-face pointy-hat
went amethyst rose madder
She said: red feathers trumpet
and I nearly bumblebee
when you bright green umbrella spike
the monkey-puzzle tree!
I will not butter antelope
or corrugated blister
if you won’t cabbage earwig
or cardboard handbag mister!
Would saffron pants mauve basket
or candelabra cake
if trampoline banana-bread
a marmalade milkshake?
He wasn’t yellow elephant
when he cobweb margarine
but he felt a little sawdust
and marzipan ice-cream
It’s been a blue elastic band
since Jane Louise McDuff
went somersault blackcurrant
violet indigo cream-puff!
was grass-snake folding-ladder
when tambourine-face pointy-hat
went amethyst rose madder
She said: red feathers trumpet
and I nearly bumblebee
when you bright green umbrella spike
the monkey-puzzle tree!
I will not butter antelope
or corrugated blister
if you won’t cabbage earwig
or cardboard handbag mister!
Would saffron pants mauve basket
or candelabra cake
if trampoline banana-bread
a marmalade milkshake?
He wasn’t yellow elephant
when he cobweb margarine
but he felt a little sawdust
and marzipan ice-cream
It’s been a blue elastic band
since Jane Louise McDuff
went somersault blackcurrant
violet indigo cream-puff!
This poem is copyright (©) Fiona Russell Dodwell 2024
About the Writer
Fiona Russell Dodwell
Fianna (Fiona Russell Dodwell) loves writing for children. She has had children’s poems published in The Caterpillar, York Mix and Under the Basho. So far she has mainly written for adults – her first poems were published in Ink Sweat & Tears, and her most recent visual poetry has found homes in OSMOSIS and VOLT (USA). She enjoys composing visual poems with children from words generated during scrabble games
