Three Poems for Alice

from Old Grampy's Book of Rhymes

1.

fatcat

The fat cat sat on his suitcase,
And thought: 'I could up and away
To see the trattorias of Turin
Or the cafés of Cathay.

They might give me pilchards in Panama,
Or halibut in Nome.
But on the other hand, I get
Some very good fish at home.

So shall I up and travel?
I think, on balance, not.
So the fat cat sat on his suitcase,
And did not move a lot.

2.

invisible man 

The Invisible Man put his coat on
And went out one day for a walk.
The townsfolk all gaped in amazement;
Their faces much whiter than chalk.

The Invisible Man asked them, puzzled:
“Have you never seen nothing before?”
But because his loud voice came from nowhere
The citizens trembled the more.

“I just did this for laughs,” he said sadly,
“For I’m really a humorous bloke.
I knew these poor folks couldn’t see me,
But I hoped that they might  see the joke.”

3.

ape

Your grampy had a grampy
And he had a grampy too,
Whose grampy had a grampy,
The way that people do.

If we could trace our family back
Forty thousand generations,
We'd discover a million years ago
Some very fine relations.

They lived among the twisted trees
On Africa's vast plains.
They were monkey-faced and hairy folk,
But they had tip-top brains.

For they invented language
And that's a marvellous thing,
For when you've got a language
You can talk and joke and sing,

And older generations
Can pass on the things they know.
We owe a lot to those monkey-folk
A million years ago.

George Simmers

If you have any comments on this poem, George Simmers would be pleased to hear from you.

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