PEOPLE POEMS
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Vesuvius Dan
By Jonathan Sellars
There once was a man
Named Vesuvius Dan,
Whose sneezes were things to be feared.
They rose from his chest,
Through his throat they progressed,
Then out of his nose they appeared.
They were huge, they were loud,
Spewing snot-splattered cloud,
Their blast zones were seven miles wide.
Windows would break,
The sleeping would wake,
And the police would shout, “Quick, get inside!”
One day in a gruff,
I thought, Right, that’s enough!
These sneezes can go on no more.
So I begged, “Dan, oh please,
Can’t you hold your next sneeze?”
He thought for a while. Then said, “Sure.”
That very same day
When a sneeze came his way,
Dan did as Dan promised he would.
Up the sneeze rose,
To the end of his nose,
Where he held it as best as he could.
He gripped his nose tight,
He fought the good fight,
But the sneeze was volcanically loaded.
It had nowhere to go,
Yet still needed to blow,
So…
Vesuvius Dan’s head exploded.
Sorry Dan.
Mr Song
By Jonathan Sellars
Steven Carmichael Ben Gavin LeBron
Harry Sebastian Martin Saint John
Herbert Greg Matthew Archibald Andy
Patrick Pete Jasper Ezekial Sandy
Emmanuel Gabriel Jonas Nathaniel
Dominic Christopher Marmaduke Daniel
Laurie Carl Kevin Bartholomew Jimmy
Augustine Alistair Reginald Timmy
Ryan Lorenzo McHuffington Song
Has a name that I think
Is surprisingly long.
Baby Teeth
By Jonathan Sellars
This is the rather strange story about
A boy whose baby teeth wouldn’t fall out.
He hadn’t lost one by the time he turned seven,
Or eight, or nine, or ten, or eleven.
It was something no dentist he went to had seen,
He still had them all at the age of thirteen!
He twisted, he pulled, he chewed rock-hard bars,
He tied them with string and attached them to cars,
But whatever he tried, it was simply no use,
Not one of those baby teeth ever came loose.
In fact, by the time he’d grown into a man
He was still on a five-year old’s dental care plan.
“All I wish,” he would cry, “is to lose one or two.”
He wished and he wished till… that more than came true.
For he woke up the day that he turned forty-four
Without any teeth in his mouth anymore.
They’d all fallen out, all at once, in one go!
But he’s got a new problem…
His big teeth won’t grow.
Hercules Jewel
By Jonathan Sellars
Hercules Jewel was a boy at my school,
A tyrant, a terror, a crook,
Whatever he saw he wanted,
Whatever he wanted he took.
So there was surprise in nobody’s eyes
When he took a cake from me,
A cake that I’d made that morning,
A cake that he gobbled with glee.
I wasn’t annoyed but instead overjoyed,
This was all part of my plot,
For baked in that cake were chillies,
And oh those chillies were hot.
He let out a groan, then an ominous moan,
Smoke spurted out of his ear,
And needing a drink he ran to the sink
With flames firing out of his rear.
I have to admit that after a bit
I did feel a little cruel,
But it’s hard to feel that sorry
For tyrants like Hercules Jewel.
Mary May Palmer
By Jonathan Sellars
Mary May Palmer’s a trainee snake charmer,
She plays on her pungi each day.
But the tunes that she makes aren’t enjoyed by the snakes
Who as fast as they can slide away.
Yet although Mary’s sad that her charming’s so bad
Her mother applauds with delight.
For she’s a snake fearer and when Mary’s near her
She knows they’ll be no snakes in sight.
Jonathan Smonathan
By Jonathan Sellars
Jonathan Smonathan lives on his own,
And loves nothing more than a whinge and a moan.
He gripes about weather, he groans about food,
He grumbles and mutters whatever his mood.
But the thing that he whines about most of the time
Is the fact that his name is a name that won’t rhyme.
Nothing you see, can be rhymed with a Jonathan
(Well, nothing that is, except of course Smonathan).
He’s jealous of Jayden’s and Lily’s and Greg’s
And Rohit’s and Michael’s and Asha’s and Meg’s.
It’s silly, he knows, but raging like fire
A rhyme for his name is his burning desire.
He doesn’t want many, he just wants a few,
Five or six words that rhymed nicely would do.
He’s hunted, he’s rummaged, he’s searched all around,
But the words that he’s seeking just cannot be found.
He’s even resorted to new word creation,
Like ‘ponathan’ (meaning a foul-smelling station).
Or ‘tonathan’ (carrots that look like small toes).
Or ‘wronathan’ (someone who’s cross when it snows).
But he’s sent them to ‘Head of New Words’ Greta Grot,
Who’s shaken her head and said, “Certainly not.”
So alas he seems destined to live his whole life
Unhappy, despondent, in simmering strife.
Poor Jonathan Smonathan,
If only he knew,
On his record of birth,
His name’s down as Hugh.
Mr McMarsh’s Eleven Moustaches
By Jonathan Sellars
Mr McMarsh had eleven moustaches,
They all grew right under his nose,
The smallest was merely a whisker,
The largest reached down to his toes.
Each morning he carefully combed them,
Then pruned them like delicate flowers,
But he did it all ever so slowly
While locked in the bathroom for hours.
Oh, how his wife used to hate it,
She’d scream, “Hurry up!” through the door,
Yet Mr McMarsh just ignored her,
Until she could take it no more.
One day she declared, “That’s enough now,”
And burst in the room with a crash,
Then ripped from his face his moustaches
And threw them all out in the trash.
Now Mr McMarsh is moustache-less,
With not one hair under his nose,
And his wife’s bought a very sharp razor
Should any hair dare to regrow.
Les Laser
By Jonathan Sellars
Les Laser loved how fireworks
Lit up the night-time sky,
Yet his parents wouldn’t buy him one
And he couldn’t work out why.
One evening Les decided
He’d make his own at home,
So strapped some paint and charcoal
To his neighbour, Nigel’s, gnome.
Up, up, up, the rocket flew
Ten metres off the floor,
But then it stopped, came back to earth,
And KABOOM!
Les Laser was no more.