Children’s Poems, Rhymes and Haiku

You’ve reached the Poetry Portal! Here you’ll find a selection of fun, nonsense and thoughtful poetry, haiku and rhymes.

Bunny

You know the shadow rabbit
We make on the wall
Using our hands and torches
Or lights in the night?
Have you ever wondered at all
Whether it gets to play in the day?

Colour

Looking through your eyes
What colour would today be
Paint me a picture

Watch

Watch the sea at night
As Faeries turn white horses
Into unicorns

Gremlins

I’m evicting the grumpy gremlins
That live in my head
And those that migrated
To my stomach and toes

Some of them whisper into my ears
Making me bad tempered and mean
So they’re off on their holiday
To have a great time
Playing with the sloths and the slime

When they return ready to settle
I think I’ve found them a good place to live
Down with the trolls under the bridge

Ants and Us

Head in hands discouraged
World filled with maybes, what ifs, and could be
My eye’s corner then spies an ant
Optimistic as ever
Taking on the endeavour
Of moving something ten times its size
And, wait for it,that something was V shaped!
It struggled, turned in circles
Backwards and forwards
Completely undaunted
From now I’m determined to be like that ant
Full of maybe, shall we? We can!

Attic

Their attic’s haunted
Ghosts and ghouls hang there and chat
No one below knows

Skip

Hail skipping down roofs
Trips off noses and toeses
Keeping us amused

Beyond

Beyond horizons
Lands of imagination
Never out of reach

Big?

Is this a BIG day
Or a much much smaller one
Or somewhere between

Imagine

Imagine the scene
When a bee, elephant or
Gaggle of geese sneeze

Easy

Riding a bike
Is SO easy you say
Well that might be true
When I’m going straight
But kerbs are awkward
And turning takes learning

Sacha and Me

Sacha and me in a hollowed out tree
Snuggling up with some bears
Above our heads are dusty cobwebs
Collecting fallen leaves
There are rickety stairs going nowhere
All sorts of sounds, bumps and creaks
But we’re cosy and safe and never alone
Where we little bear cubs call home

OK

“Don’t want to!” cried Ty
“You don’t have to” replied mum
“OK then, I’ll try”

In My Head

My body’s in bed
Altho’ attached to it firmly
By my neck
There’s nowhere I can’t go to
In my head

Travel back in time and into space
To persuade the meteorite
To change its course
And see if this keeps
The dinosaurs safe

A miniaturised me
Buzzing around
With bumblebees
As they collect the nectar
To make the honey

Lounging around with unicorns
Eating cake on a cloud
Being the kind of lion
That makes the pride proud

Orchestrating the band of animals
Running a campaign
To close zoos forever
And give them far more space

Where, when would you go to?
What would you do?

Between

Can we touch the sky
Is the sky touching the land?
If not, what’s between?

Smiles

Smiles travel much further than frowns
Frowns hang around tied to the ground

A smile to a friend you greet on the street
Is further shared with the people they meet
The wonderful thing is that this then repeats
Your smile has travelled for miles

A smile bestowed on someone who’s lonely
Can be taken home and popped in the mirror
For them to collect when they need it next

Imagine where your smiles could go….

Nothing

My body’s Earth bound
In my mind I run, swim, fly
Nothing holds me back

Slime

Once upon a time
There were buckets of slime
In a multitude of bright colours

My little cousin Mo
Felt like trying some painting
And decided to start with the wall

Caked top to toe in slime
With a huge happy smile
Mo looked like a rainbow had melted

Snore

Do butterflies sneeze
And trees bite
And the Earth snore
In the middle of the night?

Glint

A hint of a glint
Of mischief in her eyes
Quick everyone!
Take cover, run hide!

Drip Drip

The tap drip drip drips
The leaves rustle
Outside is a mole
In top hat and tails
Doing a soft shoe shuffle

Shivers

Day shivers awake
Sends dandruff snowflake sprinkles
Sky-diving Earthwards

Thinking

The fearsome dragon king
Flexed his magnificent wings
And smiled thoughtfully,
This was a truly awful thing
As thinking made him cranky

An idea then smacked him “Clang”
Bang in the middle of his brain
Things would never ever be the same
He’d do the stalking, the talking, the fire and the flames
But he decided he’d never do any thinking again

Misbehave

You can’t misbehave
Deep in a forest glade
Too many eyes are watching

From the earth to the trees
Birds, bugs, bunnies and bees
Assorted prying eyes

Up in the branches
Furtive glances are taken
Below bushes and underground

They all hold their breath
Waiting patiently to see
Who did what with whom, when and how

Puddle

When my mind is in a muddle
I wish for a big puddle
A magic one to Narnia

what would you wish for? 

Do You Yo?

Do you or don’t you
Think that dodos are extinct
I know I yoyo

Sad

This is what is always said
“Oh someone got out of
The wrong side of the bed”
How can I?
My bed is up against the wall
I know it’s their way
Of trying to be funny
Thinking I’m grumpy
But what’s really bad
Is that I’m very sad
Just because I’m small
No one actually listens to me
Ever
At all

Hmmmm

I was wondering
if unicorns poo rainbows
what might dragons poo?

If

If and when you can
Stand or sit tall
So the gnomes
That made their homes
In your ears
Don’t fall off your shoulders
When they visit the elves
That sit there already

When I forget and slump
They all have to jump
And hearing them fall

Isn’t nice at all

Bugs

Fluffy clouds scudding
Bluebells tinkling on the breeze
Bugs dance with delight

Within

Always remember
We each have our own magic
Around and within

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Poems© Charley Elbow