The Dirigible Balloon
Poetry for Children

The Line

I'm nothing special, as you can see,
no angles or curves, geometry free
No hidden depths, no bends, no friends;
nothing much more than two opposite ends

I start at the left and I end at the right,
no top, no bottom; lacking in height
Officially classed "The World's Most Boring Sight"
Yes, being a line is a miserable plight

If I was a square then life would be swell;
four equal sides, right angles as well
But I'm just a line, which is really quite lame
Oh, how I long for fortune and fame ...

I'd fly through the air with the greatest of easeium
like that daring young man, The Flying Trapezium
If I was a triangle life would be a breezeium,
be it equilateral or isosceles ... ium

Oh to be a hexagon, a circle or a sphere,
but all I am's the quickest way to get from there to here
I'd love to be a rhombus or a parallelogram
but it's never gonna happen, it's just the way I am

The point of my existence and the fate that I must face
is to be the shortest distance between two points in space
But I guess I can't begrudge my lot or question where I'm at,
I could have been a smudge or dot ... and who on Earth wants that?

About the Writer


Dale Neal

Dale has been published online and in print. You will find his work in The Best Ever Book of Funny Poems (Pan Macmillan), My Socks have gone Bonkers (Fantastic Books Publishing), Watcher of the Skies (Emma Press), Guest on the Farm and How to Follow Your Dream (Little Stories: Bedtime Books storytelling app.). He has two children's picture books (My Grandad is an Alien and The Dinosaur and Me) being published in 2022 with Ventorros Press.