Londis Carpenter

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Poems on this page: Showers * Travel * Easter Chick * Grandma's Glasses * Sleeping * Monkeys * Strange Pets  * Lost Kitty * The Robin * The Man in the Moon * Mike the Minnow * Snap Crackle and Pop * If I Could Be Little * Chasing Shadows * My Bed at Night * Sometimes at Night * Rusty and Gary * When Insects Play * Imagination * Mister Nobody *  The Little Christmas Tree 

Showers

I don't like taking showers.

I'd rather use a tub.

There is no place in showers

For battleships and subs.

*****

Travel

Sometimes I just like walking!

Sometimes I like to run!

I also enjoy skipping!

And galloping is fun!

There are so many, many ways

My legs get me around.

I might even start flying

If my feet should leave the ground.

*****

Easter Chick

A baby chick is

An awful choice

To be an Easter treat.

Too old to be

An Easter egg...

And much to young tp eat!

*****

 There's something grandma used to do
That always made me smile.
She pinned her glasses in her hair
and walked like that a while.

Then she would find a newspaper
And set it on a chair,
While she searched and searched all over
Looking most everywhere.

And when finally grandma gave up
She looked at us to say,
"Have you kids seen my glasses
Anywhere today?"

It was hard to keep from laughing
As we answered her with care,
"There on your forehead, grandma,
Tucked up into your hair."

*****

Sleeping

Londis Carpenter

Airplanes sleep in hangers.
A bus sleeps in a shed.
The train sleeps in the station
And I sleep in my bed!

*****

Monkeys

by Londis Carpenter

The monkey takes
a girl friend.
The monkey takes
a wife.
The monkey takes
a family
And lives a monkey's life!

*****

 Strange Pets

by Londis Carpenter
copyright (c) 2001 all rights reserved

I had a pet named "Copy Cat;"
Here's how he got his name.
Whatever he would see me do,
He always did the same.

I had a pet named "Shadow Dog;"
He followed me around.
And anywhere that I would go,
Shadow dog could be found.

I've had an awful lot of pets,
But none as strange as that.
For Copy Cat's a puppy dog
And Shadow Dog's a cat.

*****

 Lost Kitty
copyright (c) 2002 by Londis Carpenter

The Robin

 *****

 The Man in the Moon

by Londis Carpenter

Mike was a minnow.
He lived in a brook,
Where he watched larger fishes
Get caught on a hook.
But whenever Mike bit
On the bait for a snack,
Because he was small,
They would throw him right back.
This made Mike sad.
He had not yet been taught
What happens to fishes
Who get themselves caught.
Mike soon learned in fish school,
With other small fish,
That if he got hooked
He'd wind up on a dish.
So now that Mike's older,
To big to throw back,
He no longer nibbles
On bait for a snack.

*****

*****

*****

Chasing Shadows
by Londis Carpenter

Did you ever chase your shadow,
try to catch it in your hand?
Did it always slip away
each time you tried and tried again?

Have you hidden from your mirror
and tried to take a peek,
Without seeing your own image
in a game of hide and seek?

When you looked at your reflection
in a river or a brook,
Have you ever tried to catch it
in a net or with a hook?

When your father takes your picture
with a camera at the fair,
Have you squeezed your eyes shut tightly,
to pretend that you’re not there?

When the pictures were developed,
did you hope your wish came true ,
But found instead your silly face
was staring back at you?

If you can catch your shadow
or hide from a looking glass,
Catch your reflection with a fishhook,
or escape a camera flash,

Then you are something special;
you’ll be famous if you try.
For if you can catch your shadow
you are much smarter than I.

*****

 *****

Sometimes At Night
by Londis Carpenter
copyright (c) 2002 all rights reserved

Do you ever wonder
Who's outside the door?
Who makes the footsteps
On your attic floor?

Sometimes At Night
Do you hear the stairs creak?
Do you lay wide-awake
Unable to sleep?

Do you pull the blanket
Up over your head?
While you lay there and wonder
Who’s under your bed?

Do you peek through the blanket
Right there where you lie?
And looking back at you
Is somebody's eye!

All alone in your room
How do you survive
The monsters that live there
When you are just five?

Have you learned to be quiet
And hardly to breath,
As you lay there in terror
Till the monsters all leave?

Do you stare in the dark
At the clothes on your chair,
Just to be certain
There is nobody there?

If you do all these things
Without having to cry,
You'll probably grow
To a man just as I.

*****

RUSTY AND GARY
by Londis Carpenter


Rusty the rattlesnake lived in a log,
Down by the river with Gary the frog.
Rusty and Gary both liked to play
In the shade of the reeds and the ooze of the clay.
When Gary grew hungry he ate bugs on his log.
But Rusty the rattler ate Gary the frog.

*****

 When Insects Play
copyright (c) 2002 by Londis Carpenter--all rights reserved


When insects play
Do they hide and seek?
Do they close their eyes
And try not to peek?

Do they count to ten
By an old Oak tree?
Do they "Rally! Rally!
All's in free?"

When Insects play
Do they jump a rope?
Do they ride a sled
Down a snowy slope?

Do they ever play games
Like "Truth or Dare?"
Or run with scissors?
Or cut their own hair?

Do they walk on stilts?
Do they "Kick the Can?"
Do they build little castles
Made out of sand?

Do they play football?
Or fly a kite?
Do they chase fireflies
On a summer night?

Do they play the same
Sort of games we do?
do they go to the park?
Or to the zoo?

In the summer,
Outdoors in the sun,
I've watched the Insects
Have great fun.

I've watched them soaring
In the breeze.
Build tree houses
Made of leaves.

I've seen mud daubers
In the day
Making mud pies
Out of clay.

When at the pond
I've watched with glee
How certain beetles
Can water-ski.

And if you have never,
Ever seen
A young prince ant
Courting a queen,

Then you have missed
A wondrous sight--
As ants with wings
Take off in flight.

I would love to have
Some insect friends.
I would like to join
Their insect games.

And I would teach
Them games I play,
If I could be
As small as they!

*****

Imagination
by Londis Carpenter
copyright (c) 2002 by Londis Carpenter--all rights reserved

When I was a child I would watch the sky
And see the clouds go rolling by.
And as I looked I would try to find
Faces to match with a nursery rhyme.

Or late at night, in my upstairs room,
I would gaze from my window at the stars and the moon.
And from open window I would search afar
For the man in the moon, or a falling star.

And then I would close my eyes and dream
Of far off lands I had never seen.
And visit imaginary places
And folks with imaginary faces.

I still look every now and then
Hoping to see what I saw back then.
So sit here, child, on grandpa's knee
And whisper to me things you see.

 *****

Mister Nobody
by Londis Carpenter


Mister Nobody lives right here in my room
In a corner, somewhere on the floor.
Though it's hard to see him--he hides in the gloom
And he never likes using the door.

He only comes out when you turn off the light.
I can feel him and I know he's there.
He comes for a visit almost every night--
It's perhaps just to give me a scare.

He can disappear, using magic he knows.
Once, when mother checked under my bed,
He made himself look like a pile of my clothes.
"That is all that is there," mother said.

"Though I've heard him whisper, it's never out loud
And I know sometimes I hear his sighs.
He's just like an ink blot that has no real shape--
He's a shadow with two evil eyes.

His name is "Nobody." It's something I learned
The first night that he gave me a scare.
When mom tucked me in she looked under the bed
And I heard her say, "Nobody's there!"

And just to be certain I checked with my dad.
I asked him if mother was right.
And father replied, without batting an eye,
"Son, Nobody comes in the night."

*****

The Little Christmas Tree
By Londis Carpenter

Bruce the Spruce was a Christmas tree
He lived on Christmas Farm.
Each night he dreamed that he could bring
Cheer into someones home.

He stretched his branches every day
And squeezed his needles tight,
So he could be a perfect tree
For holding Christmas lights.

Every year at Christmas time
Bruce did as he was taught
He showed all of his Christmas charm
Hoping he would be bought.

The people came from miles around
To buy their Christmas Trees.
They pulled and tugged at branches
And gave the twigs a squeeze.

They looked for trees just the right size,
With needles that would stay,
And trees that gave a Christmas smell
To brighten Christmas day.

Bruce was a perfect Christmas tree;
The children seemed to love him.
But Bruce was small and other trees
Still towered high above him.

The years went by and Bruce the Spruce
Eventually grew tall.
His branches spread and held their form;
They didn't droop at all.

But there were many Christmas Trees
That grew on Christmas Farm
And no one ever seemed to pick out Bruce,
With all his charm.

Bruce grew so sad as years went by;
It seemed he'd grown too tall.
It seemed that he would never be
A Christmas tree at all.

And when the families came each year
To buy trees for their home,
They never looked at Bruce the Spruce;
He stood there all alone.

Bruce never forgot Christmas;
It brightened all his dreams.
But in the light of each new day
He lost his Christmas schemes.

One day a truck came to the farm;
Men came with saws and rope.
They came to cut the tallest tree;
Bruce finally lost all hope.

"My time has come; Ive grown too old,"
His arms trembled in fear.
"I'm only good for firewood now;
I've seen my final year."

They cut him down and tied him to
The flatbed truck they brought.
They drove away, while Bruce the Spruce
Lie weeping on the truck.

Bruce closed his eyes and fell asleep;
He dreamed of silent nights,
Of children's smiling faces,
Of gifts and colored lights.

When Bruce awoke He couldn't hold
Back all of his delight.
Bruce couldn't believe what he saw;
His branches all had lights.

His arms were filled with tinsel.
Children were gathered round.
And everyone was cheering
And laughing on the ground.

Bruce looked around in ecstasy;
He couldn't help but stare.
Bruce had become the Christmas tree
That now adorned Times Square.