Garbage Delight
The poems
were written by
Dennis Lee
The pictures
were drawn by
Frank Newfeld
Dedication
for Julian and for Hugh Kane
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Being Five
The Moon
Half Way Dressed
Peter Was a Pilot
Quintin and Griffin
Bath Song
Skindiver
The Last Cry of the Damp Fly
A Sasquatch from Saskatchewan
Muffin and Puffin and Murphy and Me
Worm
The Aminals
The Summerhill Fair
McGonigle’s Tail
The Swing
Suzy Grew a Moustache
Inspector Dogbone Gets His Man
The Coming of Teddy Bears
The Muddy Puddle
Bigfoot
Smelly Fred
Goofy Song
Bike-Twister
The Big Blue Frog and the Dirty Flannel Dog
I Eat Kids Yum Yum!
Garbage Delight
The Snuggle Bunny
“What Will You Be?”
The Operation
The Fly-Nest
The Tiniest Man in the Washing Machine
Beat Me and Bite Me
Periwinkle Pizza
The Tickle Tiger
The Pair of Pants
One Sunny Summer’s Day
The Big Molice Pan and the Bertie Dumb
Bloody Bill
The Bratty Brother (Sister)
The Bedtime Concert
Goofus
The Secret Song
About the Authors
Copyright
About the Publisher
Being Five
I’m not exactly big,
And I’m not exactly little,
But being Five is best of all
Because it’s in the middle.
A person likes to ride his bike
Around the block a lot,
And being Five is big enough
And being Four is not.
And then he likes to settle down
And suck his thumb a bit,
And being Five is small enough,
But when you’re Six you quit.
I’ve thought about it in my mind –
Being Five, I mean –
And why I like it best of all
Is ’cause it’s In Between.
The Moon
I see the moon
And the moon sees me
And nobody sees
As secretly
Unless there’s a kid
In Kalamazoo,
Or Mexico,
Or Timbuktu,
Who looks in the sky
At the end of a day,
And he thinks of me
In a friendly way –
’Cause we both lie still
And we watch the moon;
And we haven’t met yet
But we might do, soon.
Half Way Dressed
I sometimes sit
When I’m half way dressed,
With my head in a sweater
And I feel depressed.
I’m half way out
And I’m half way in
And my head’s nearly through
But the sweater’s gonna win,
’Cause the neck-hole grabs
Like as if it’s glue,
And my ears don’t like it,
And my nose don’t, too,
And I can’t stand sweaters
When they grab this way,
And they jump on a kid
And decide to play.
I’m half way dressed,
And I’m half way dead,
And I’m half way ready
To crawl back to bed.
Peter Was a Pilot
Peter was a pilot,
He flew a jumbo jet,
He crashed in Lake Ontario
And got his bottom wet.
Quintin and Griffin
Quintin’s sittin’ hittin’ Griffin,
Griffin’s hittin’ Quintin too.
If Quintin’s quittin’ hittin’ Griffin,
What will Griffin sit ‘n’ do?
Bath Song
A biscuit, a basket, a bath in a hat,
An elephant stuck in a tub:
Seize her, and squeeze her, and see if she’s fat,
And give her a rub-a-dub-dub.
A biscuit, a basket, a bath in a hat,
An elephant stuck in a spoon:
Seize her, and squeeze her, and see if she’s fat,
And give her a ride to the moon.
Skindiver
Wiggle your toenails
And jiggle your toes:
Skindiver’s coming
To land on your nose.
Wiggle your tummy
And squiggle your tum:
Skindiver’s coming
To bounce on your bum.
Wiggle your headlight
And jiggle your head:
Skindiver’s coming
To tuck you to bed.
The Last Cry of the Damp Fly
Bitter batter boop!
I’m swimming in your soup.
Bitter batter bout:
Kindly get me out!
Bitter batter boon:
Not upon your spoon!
Bitter batter bum!
Now I’m in your tum!
A Sasquatch from Saskatchewan
A sasquatch from Saskatchewan
Is chasing me across the lawn.
My friends are going to stare and grin
When they observe the shape I’m in.
Muffin and Puffin and Murphy and Me
Muffin and Puffin and Murphy and me
Went to Vancouver to swim in the sea.
Muffin went swimming, and swallowed a shark
Puffin saw whales in Stanley Park
Murphy got lost and went bump in the dark
And I had a strawberry soda.
Muffin and Puffin and Murphy and me
Came back from Vancouver, and back from the sea.
Muffin is puffing from eating the shark
Puffin is huffing from Stanley Park
Murphy is frightened to sleep in the dark
But I had a strawberry soda!
Worm
Some people think a worm is rude,
’Cause he’s mostly not in a talkative mood.
And other people think he’s dumb,
’Cause he likes you to call, but he doesn’t come.
But I’ve got a worm, and his name is Worm,
And he lives in a jar with a bunch of germs,
And Worm is as smart as a worm can be.
I talk to him and he listens to me:
I tell him the time I fell downstairs
And I teach him the names of my teddy bears
And we both sit still, and I hear the things
That you hear when a worm begins to sing –
About dirt in the yard, and tunnels, and drains,
And having a bath in the grass when it rains.
And we plan about snacks, and not washing your hands
And the letter J. And he understands.
The Aminals
At night the aminals go marching
Round and round the room.
There’s Bigfoot, and McGonigle,
And Hannah V. Varoom.
And round they march and round they march
And halt and say, “Beware!”
And all of them are friends of mine
So none of them are scared.
Now, Bigfoot’s kind of squishable,
The softy of them all;
McGonigle is silly
’Cause he likes to climb the wall;
And Hannah’s pretty big I guess,
She’s maybe six or twelve,
And all of them have shadows that go
Marching by themselves.
And every shadow makes another
Shadow right behind.
They’re marching on the table-top,
They’re marching up the blind.
And every time they meet they seem to
All get in the way,
And so they all Beware, and then
They march the other way.
Round and round the aminals
Are marching round my room.
There’s Bigfoot, and McGonigle,
And Hannah V. Varoom,
Their shadows, and their shadows’
Shadows, more and more and more,
Marching like the Mounties round and
Round the bedroom floor.
The Summerhill Fair
I found a balloon and it went up a tree
I learned how to ride on a pony for free
And I looked at a girl and she knew it was me
When I went to the Summerhill Fair.
The fishpond was fine, they had monsters and toads
And Dad got a plant and it broke in the road
And I think I remember which pony she rode
When I went to the Summerhill Fair.
Next year there’s a fair at the very same place
I hope I run frontwards and win in the race
And I’ll recognize her by the dirt on her face
When I go to the Summerhill Fair.
McGonigle’s Tail
What shall I do with McGonigle’s tail?
It came off again, ’cause he swang on the rail.
I’d give it to Bigfoot to tie up the spoons,
I’d give it to Hannah to put in her bed,
But she’d probably call it Rebecca or Fred.
I’d keep it myself, and I’d put it on too,
But they’d probably say I belonged in the zoo.
It’s long and it’s off and it can’t be For Sale:
What shall I do with McGonigle’s tail?
I tried with some glue,
But the glue wouldn’t do:
It squished and it squashed
And it fell on my shoe.
I tried with a pin
But it wouldn’t stay in:
It bent and it went
For a sort of a spin.
So I took out some gum,
And I chewed on it some,
And I plastered it round
With the end of my thumb –
And McGonigle’s tail
Is as flippy as new,
And it hangs from the rear
Like it used to do.
And here he is back
On the banister rail!
And that is the tale
Of McGonigle’s tail.
The Swing
The swing swings up
And the swing swings down
And the swing swings wishing-wings
High above town.
And when I go high
And I feel it sway
I’ll hang for a minute
Or hang for a day
And when I go low
And I make it whizz
I’ll come down forever
And feel it fizz
But the swing swings up
And the swing swings down
And the swing swings wishing-wings
High above town.
Suzy Grew a Moustache
Suzy grew a moustache,
A moustache,
A moustache,
Suzy grew a moustache,
And Polly grew a beard.
Suzy looked peculiar,
Peculiar,
Peculiar,
Suzy looked peculiar,
And Polly looked weird.
Suzy got the garden-shears,
Garden-shears,
The garden-shears,
Suzy got the garden-shears
And Polly got a bomb.
Now Suzy’s face is smooth again,
Smooth again,
Smooth again,
Suzy’s face is smooth again,
And Polly’s face is gone.
Inspector Dogbone Gets His Man
Inspector Dogbone
Is my name
And catching bad guys
Is my game.
I catch them hot
I catch them cold
I catch them when they’re
Nine days old
I catch them here
I catch them there
I catch them in
Their underwear
I like to catch them
By the toes
Or by the moustache
Or the nose
From Corner Brook
To Calgary
There’s not a cop
Can copy me
’Cause every time
I catch a crook
I hang him up
On a big brass hook –
Yet here I sit
In the old Don Jail:
Come gather round
And I’ll tell my tale.
One day, as I
Was walking out,
I caught a bad guy
By the snout
He robbed a million-
Dollar bank
I grabbed his snout
And gave a yank
I grabbed his snoot
And gave a flick
But then he played
A bad-guy trick:
His greasy beak
Was big and tough –
But with a snap
He bit it off
And just like that
His smelly schnozz
Had vanished down
His smelly jaws!
At once I grabbed him
By the knee:
He ate that too
And laughed at me
His neck, his arms,
His back, his feet –
The man would eat
Till all there was
Was just a mouth –
Which swallowed itself,
And scampered south.
The case was gone!
The case was gone!
The nose and the toes
And the face were gone!
I had no crook
I had no crime
My mighty brain
Worked overtime
And figured out
A mighty plan
For Dogbone always
Gets his man.
I had no crime
I had no crook
The only person
Left to book
Was one whom I
Had long suspected –
Inspector Dogbone,
Whom I arrested.
I didn’t quake
I didn’t quail
I threw myself
In the old Don Jail
And here I sit
Till the end of time,
Easing my soul
With a Dogbone rhyme,
The victim of
A bad guy’s mouth,
Which swallowed itself
And scampered south.
But please recall
As I rot in jail –
Inspector Dogbone
Didn’t fail!
And please remember
When you can –
Inspector Dogbone
Got his man!
The Coming of Teddy Bears
The air is quiet
Round my bed.
The dark is drowsy
In my head.
The sky’s forgetting
To be red,
And soon I’ll be asleep.
A half a million
Miles away
The silver stars
Come out to play,
And comb their hair
And that’s OK
And soon I’ll be asleep.
And teams of fuzzy
Teddy bears
Are stumping slowly
Up the stairs
To rock me in
Their rocking chairs
And soon I’ll be asleep.
The night is shining
Round my head.
The room is snuggled
In my bed.
Tomorrow I’ll be
Big they said
And soon I’ll be asleep.
The Muddy Puddle
I am sitting
In the middle
Of a rather Muddy
Puddle,
With my bottom
Full of bubbles
And my rubbers
Full of Mud,
While my jacket
And my sweater
Go on slowly
Getting wetter
As I very
Slowly settle
To the Bottom
Of the Mud.
And I find that
What a person
With a puddle
Round his middle
Thinks of mostly
In the muddle
Is the Muddi-Ness of Mud.
Bigfoot
Bigfoot’s sort of Blobby, so he can’t exactly Walk,
And he sometimes doesn’t answer, ’cause he does forget his Name,
And he likes to go to School, except he mainly eats the furniture –
But Bigfoot’s like a Terror,
Bigfoot’s like a Tiger,
Bigfoot’s tough as anything in Bad
Guy
Games!
Suppose that I’m pretending there’s a Robber in the bedroom
And he’s hiding in the closet, ’cause he knows I’d Mash him flat,
But he makes a mighty Charge, and he fights me to the window-sill –
Then Bigfoot’s like a Terror!
Bigfoot’s like a Tiger!
Bigfoot’s like a Lion in a Laun-
dro-
mat!
Or maybe I go out, and I’m being a Detective,
And I think I meet a Midget with a Long Black Veil,