The Dirigible Balloon
Poetry for Children

Octopuses Have Three Hearts

Well, what do you know?
If they get one broken, that’s two to go!

It’s an obstinacy of buffalo, a crash of rhinos,
a murder of crows.

There are 24 species of dancing frogs
and for 8000 years we’ve been keeping dogs.

Flamingos are not actually pink,
they just like eating lots of shrimp!

25% of barn owls divorce;
there are 17 expressions on a horse.

In Ancient Egypt it was illegal to kill a cat,
a squirrel can’t vomit, nor can a rat.

An ostrich can kill a lion with one kick
a polar bear’s skin is actually black.

The male penguin proposes with a pebble!
We see a shark and think we’re in trouble

but they only kill ten people a year
so really they’ve far more to fear.

A blue whale’s tongue weighs the same as a car,
a baby has a bigger brain than a dinosaur.

Pigeons can recognise 50 words,
giraffes do not have vocal chords,

a tardigrade can survive in space
and a sheep can recognise a face.

Horned lizards can shoot blood out of their eyes
to give their enemies a nasty surprise!

Vampire bats share blood with their friends
like a wedding feast that never ends!

About the Writer


Carole Bromley

Carole has won the Caterpillar Prize and had poems in Tyger, Tyger, The Toy, Paper Lanterns, Paperbound, Little Thoughts Press and Northern Gravy as well as in her collection, Blast Off! and anthologies from MacMillan, Nosy Crow and Emma Press. She does readings and workshops at festivals and in schools and in 2025 she is tutoring courses on Writing Poems for Children for the Writing School Online.