The Butterfly Jar
Page 2
But she said, “Oh, boys, never mind.”
“He’s obnoxious!” we said, “You should tell him!”
But she said, “That wouldn’t be kind.”
So next time I sit down to dinner,
I know what I’m going to do.
I’ll pretend that I’m Mr. Bogardus,
And I’ll talk and I’ll sing while I chew.
NEW CLOTHES
New shoes, new shoes!
Daisy loves shopping for new shoes!
She loves each lace and heel and toe,
She just can’t wait for her feet to grow!
New shoes, new shoes!
Daisy loves shopping for new shoes!
New shirts, new shirts!
Anthony loves shopping for new shirts!
He loves each sleeve and button and cuff
And pockets and collars and all that stuff!
New shirts, new shirts!
Anthony loves shopping for new shirts!
New clothes, new clothes!
Marty hates shopping for new clothes!
He won’t go anywhere near a store,
He’ll run in the bathroom and lock the door!
He can’t see any reason for going,
He wishes his body would just stop growing!
Shopping for clothes drives Marty crazy
(Not like Anthony or Daisy)
It doesn’t make sense but that’s how it goes
Some people love and some people hate
Going out shopping for
New clothes!
LONDON BRIDGE
London Bridge is falling down.
Falling down, falling down,
London Bridge is falling down …
If a bridge in your town was falling down,
Would you make up a cute little song about it?
I hope not.
My fair lady.
BEDTIME
When Polly yelled, “I won’t go to bed!”
This is what her mother said:
“I don’t care if you don’t go to bed!
I don’t care if you turn off the light!
I don’t care if you brush your teeth!
I don’t care if you’re up all night!
I don’t care if you’re tired in the morning!
I don’t care if you’re awake till then!
I don’t care if you get your rest!
In fact, I don’t care if you ever sleep again!”
Since Polly found this all quite boring,
She fell asleep and started snoring.
WHY IT WOULD BE GOOD
TO HAVE A REALLY
BIG FAMILY
If I had twelve sisters
And thirty-one brothers,
When you got me mad
I could play with the others!
OLIVER’S PARENTS IN THE MORNING
Oliver’s parents are very, very strict. This is how strict they are in the morning:
1. When Oliver’s radio alarm goes off, Oliver’s parents say, “Oliver, turn that rock music up as loud as it will go so it wakes the whole neighborhood! Otherwise, we will be very upset with you!”
2. At breakfast Oliver’s parents say, “Oliver, you’d better make sure you spill at least half of those Sugar Crumblies on the floor, and don’t you dare clean them up either!”
3. After breakfast Oliver’s parents say, “Oliver, you must get dressed very, very slowly so the school bus has to honk a lot while it’s waiting for you. Otherwise, you will be in deep trouble.”
Oliver’s parents are very, very strict. Aren’t you glad they’re not yours?
OLIVER’S PARENTS AT BEDTIME
Oliver’s parents are very, very strict. This is how strict they are at bedtime:
1. At bedtime Oliver’s parents won’t let Oliver change into his pajamas until they have said, “Oliver, will you get into your pajamas!” at least six times.
2. After they tuck him in and say good-night, Oliver’s parents won’t let him go to sleep until each of them comes in from their bedroom to bring him a glass of water.
3. When they have company, Oliver’s parents say, “Oliver, after we kiss you good-night, you may not go to sleep! You must get up quietly and sneak downstairs, to see what’s happening at our party! Otherwise, you will be in deep trouble.”
Oliver’s parents are very, very strict. Aren’t you glad they’re not yours?
RACHEL
Rachel is a loud friend.
She loves singing loud.
When she plays games,
she pretends that
She’s the ringmaster or
the steamroller or
The Pirate Captain or
something else noisy.
She likes to bang on things,
such as
Garbage cans, big cardboard
boxes, and pots.
She says someday she’ll be
one of those people
Who drills holes
in the sidewalk.
So when you want her to come over and visit you,
Sometimes your parents say, “Rachel? Hmmm.…”
Then you have to say,
“She’s my best friend! We’ll stay in my room and be quiet!
I promise! Please …”
Then Rachel will come over and say,
“Let’s play Explosions in Outer Space!”
You have to say, “Not now, Rachel. Come on.
Today let’s just read, okay?”
Rachel is a very good friend
But this shows that even good friends
Can be hard sometimes.
GRANDMA’S KISSES
They’re the biggest, wet, juiciest kisses in town.
When she gets you, you think that you’re going to drown.
My brother and I always argue the worst
To make sure Grandma kisses the other one first.
Oh no, here she comes! Quick, let’s dodge the explosion!
Too late! What a kiss! That’s no kiss, that’s an ocean!
PURPLE
If purple was the only color in the world …
You would read about “Snow Purple and The Seven Dwarfs.”
You would sing about
“The Purple Grass Growing All Around, All Around,”
And you would drink purple juice for breakfast.
You’d write with chalk on the purpleboard,
And cross the street when the light turned purple,
And visit the President of the United States in the Purple House.
You could even write a poem that begins:
Roses are purple, violets are purple.…
It’s a good thing there are other colors.
THE BRAIN
Think about this:
You use your brain to think.
So right now, as you’re thinking about your brain,
You’re thinking about the thing that thinks.
What do you think of that?
WASHING MY NECK
I
have
one
thing
to
say
about
washing
my
neck—
Blecch!
FOUR THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE
When Rebecca says: “I’ll die if I don’t get invited to Robin’s party.”
When Rebecca gets invited, and she tells Mom: “I can’t possibly go to Robin’s. I don’t have anything to wear.”
When Rebecca says to Dad: “I’ll just go drown myself in the bathroom if I can’t stay out till midnight.”
When Rebecca says to me, just as her date is ringing the doorbell: “If you say one single word to him, I’ll sneak into your room tonight and murder you.”
ONE THING THAT IS TRUE
I’ll gag if I have to eat these …
CARROTS!!!!
MOVING
Mom and Dad told us we’re moving
To a better city
With a
nicer house
And a better school
With great new friends
And even the weather will be sunnier.
What I want to know is
If everything’s so great where we’re moving
How come we didn’t decide to live there in the first place?
SARA MESSENGER’S MOTHER
When Sara Messenger’s mother died,
Sara went into her room and cried.
She locked herself in and she wouldn’t eat
But when she came out, her room was all neat
With her bed all made and no books on the floor
And her dolls on the shelf and her socks in the drawer.
Her Mom had always complained of the mess.
That’s why she straightened it up, I guess.
And all that night when people came,
You could tell that Sara wasn’t the same.
A couple of weeks have passed since then,
And I wait for Sara to come back again
’Cause she’s almost not Sara now, not the same one
Who’s all laughing and goofy and jumpy and fun.
My parents say time will pass and then
She’ll be the same old Sara again.
They say things happen and no one knows why
Like babies are born and old people die
But her Mom wasn’t old and Sara’s so sad
And that isn’t fair and it makes me mad.
BUGS
A bug flew in my ear
I couldn’t hear too well.
A bug flew in my nose
And then I couldn’t smell.
A bug flew in my mouth
And then I couldn’t talk.
A bug flew in my shoe
And then I couldn’t walk.
A bug flew in my eye
And then I couldn’t see.
My parents called the doctor
Oh, what was wrong with me?
The wise old doctor said,
“You don’t need pills or drugs.
You’re simply suffering from
A curious case of bugs!
Your head is very hot
But quick, before it’s hotter,
I’ll reach into my bag
And grab my big bug swatter!”
He swatted every bug
In my nose and shoe and eye
And now I’m good as new …
Except sometimes I get weird
Whenever bugs fly by.
MY FLOOR IS SOMEBODY’S CEILING
My floor is somebody’s ceiling
And my ceiling is somebody’s floor.
So maybe my table is somebody’s chair
And maybe my here is somebody’s there,
And maybe my circle is somebody’s square
And my window is somebody’s door.
These are things I have wondered before,
But I think that I won’t anymore.
No, I think that I won’t anymore.
A NIGHT I HAD TROUBLE FALLING ASLEEP
I had a sleep-over at Eliot’s house.
“I’ve lost my pet,” he said.
“So please wake me up in the middle of the night
If you find a big snake in your bed.”
LAURA
Laura’s new this year in school.
She acts so opposite, it seems like a rule.
If someone says yes, Laura says no.
If someone says high, Laura says low.
If you say bottom, she’ll say top.
If you say go, she’ll always stop.
If you say short, Laura says tall.
If you say none, she says all.
If you say beginning, Laura says end …
But today she asked me to be her friend.
I said maybe
But not quite yes.
Then I said, “Want to take a walk?”
And Laura said, “I guess.”
THE WASHING MACHINE
There once was a boy named Eugene
Who had a strange washing machine.
Of the socks Gene would wear
It ate half of each pair
Leaving one blue, one red, and one green.
(Which must be why Eugene wears socks that don’t match.)
THE CUDDLIES
“Oh, the Cuddlies! The Cuddlies!
Beware of those terrible Cuddlies!
Those kittens and bunnies and teddy bears
Give us the shivers and quivers and scares!
Lock all the doors and hurry upstairs!
Beware of the terrible Cuddlies!”
In Monsterland on a cold dark night
When monster children are sleeping tight
A wolf may howl in the yellow moonlight
And no one is scared at all.
But if a kitten comes into sight
Or a furry bunny all soft and white
Then monster children scream with fright
And you can hear them call:
“Oh, the Cuddlies! The Cuddlies!
Beware of those terrible Cuddlies!
Those kittens and bunnies and teddy bears
Give us the shivers and quivers and scares!
Lock all the doors and hurry upstairs!
Beware of the terrible Cuddlies!”
IF SHOES COULD FLY
If shoes could fly,
(Oh, what a treat!)
Then we’d wear birds
Upon our feet.
RAIN
Once, when I was little, I was at the beach
And it began to rain
So hard, drops so big you could see each one falling.
I didn’t have my yellow raincoat with me
Or my hat or umbrella.
I wasn’t even wearing a shirt or shoes or socks,
Just my bathing suit.
The rain poured down drops so big you could feel each one hit you.
Most people ran to keep dry,
But not me.
They yelled at me to come with them,
But I just stood there getting wetter.
I just stood there getting so wet
And laughing.
WHAT RALPH SAID AFTER HE ASKED HIS PARENTS FOR A DOG AND THEY EXPLAINED HOW HE WOULD HAVE TO FEED IT AND CLEAN UP AFTER IT AND WALK IT
Instead of a puppy
How about a guppy?
AT THE ZOO
We went to the zoo
But who looked at who?
We saw the gorilla
Looking at Willa.
We saw the yak
Staring at Jack.
We saw the cheetah
Peering at Rita.
We saw the snake
Gazing at Jake.
We saw the pony
Glancing at Tony.
We saw the lamb
Catch sight of Pam.
We saw the hippo
Watch Ms. De Filippo.
We saw the duck
Peeking at Chuck.
We saw the lion
Glaring at Ryan.
We saw the panda
Observing Amanda.
We saw the llama
Eyeing Steve’s Mama.
And we saw the gnu
Smiling at you.
That’s who looked at who
When we went to the zoo.
COW IN THE CITY
A cow took a trip to the city one day.
She nibbled on the sidewalk ’cause there wasn’t any hay.
She mooed at the cars ’cause there weren’t any sheep.
And at night she went to a hotel to sleep.
She got into bed and it broke with a crash,
So back to the country she ran in a flash,
And safe in her barn, mooed a long happy moo.
(If I were a cow, that’s what I’d do, too.)
SWORD SWALLOWING
Sword swallowing’s one nifty trick
But it’s also as dumb as a brick
’Cause a sharp
blade of steel
Isn’t much of a meal
And the handle will make you quite sick.
(So if you have any swords around the house, try a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead.)
WHAT YOU SHOULD TELL YOUR PARENTS TO CALM THEM DOWN WHEN THEY SAY, “HOW COULD ONE PERSON’S ROOM BE SUCH A COMPLETE MESS!?!?”
I thought my floor …
Was a drawer.
CLEAN SHIRT
Dad said, “Put a clean shirt on!”
I did just what he said.
I got a clean shirt from my drawer
And pulled it over my head.
So why was Dad still mad at me?
What was it that I’d done?
I’d simply put a clean shirt on …
On top of my dirty one.
WEDDINGS
If you go to a wedding, here’s what it means,
No one wears sneakers and no one wears jeans.
Just your very best new clothes are all that you wear
And everyone in your whole family is there,
Even some cousins that you’ve never known
And the grown-ups all say, “Oh, how much you have grown!”
So everyone’s sitting in one big church room
(Except Ted and Aunt Carol, the bride and groom).
Then all of a sudden things quiet way down
And an organ starts playing and people turn ’round
And real slow my favorite aunt Carol walks in
And she’s prettier now than she ever has been.
She’s a bride and she’s really great looking today
(When normally she just looks kind of okay).