Hi everyone,
Next on our summer topic suggestions is this one from Jeanne Poland, who sent this entertaining challenge.
“Today a house fly sat on my deck rail and said hello. 
Please entertain us with some summer bugs. I want kindergarten science on your blog. I’m sure you wrote the poems already.”
Jeanne, here are two I may have posted before. The first is from the book called bugs, poems about creeping things. The second appeared in The Book of Giant Stories. I have many bug poems but kindergarten children might like these. I’ll look for others but in the meantime the floor is open for others to post their own bug poems, including the clever Jeanne herself.
Centipede
David L. Harrison
Never kiss
The centipede,
Pick him up
Or hug him.
The centipede is
Humorless;
All you’ll do is
Bug him.
In his youth,
The centipede
Never learned
To play,
Never learned to
Hug
Or kiss.
Now he’s
Odd
That way
So never kiss
The centipede.
I say
Not once
But twice,
The centipede’s
A waste of time.
He simply
Isn’t
Nice.
The Gnat
David L. Harrison
A careless giant once sat
On top of a very small gnat.
The gnat looked around
And said with a frown,
“That giant has ruined my hat!”
Clever poems.
Thanks, Veda. I’m still working out the bugs.
Oh, Fly
Oh, fly,
you flew
onto
and not
my food.
What a relief!
you’d bring me grief
as you’re
a vector
of disease.
But you on leaf?
My mind’s at ease.
And there is much
to please
my eye.
For oh, you are
a lovely fly.
Just
do not go
and multiply.
Spider to the Poet
I am the spinner of fables,
You a spinner of fibs.
Let us make a poem together
About bluebottle flies and high-flown lies,
Then put it on the World Wide Web.
Both poems from BUG OFF, ©2012 Jane Yolen, Boyds Mills Press
Love them both, Jane. I love those first two lines of Spider to the Poet. Thanks.
genii, the two of you
I want to say, “oh, poor maligned centipede,” but I can’t since I have no sympathy for the creature that makes our frisee its home and freak me out when I wash a head. 😉
Very fun poems…plus bonus ones from Jane…what a treat!
Teresa, when I lived in Arizona among the centipedes, scorpions, tarantulas, and rattlesnakes, I think my mother fretted about centipedes the most. They had a habit of showing up when and where you least expected them.
Today a silverfish shimmied in my coffee filter;
black on white, all too clear.
Next, a gnat swam up my coffee-
backstroked to the edge.
Neither was a picnic to remove.
One required a napkin squash;
the second, a spoony wash.
Tiny bugs bug me most:
my eyes, my ears, my throat!