I found a lamp. A dirty lamp.
I rubbed it to a shine.
A genie from the lamp said he
would grant a wish of mine.
I made a wish. A simple wish.
It practically came true.
I wished I had a million dollars
and a pickle too.
I got the million dollars,
but I really can’t say why
I never got the pickle.
I think I’m going to cry.
I tried to find a dinosaur.
I started in my yard.
I dug and dug for days and days.
The work was long and hard.
I dug through dirt and mud and muck.
I dug through rocks and soil.
My arms grew sore. My legs grew weak
from all the sweat and toil.
I shoveled tons of gravel out.
I moved a bunch of stones,
until, at last, to my surprise,
I found some fossil bones.
I put the bones together in
my bedroom on the floor.
When I was done, those bones had formed
a half a dinosaur.
My parents weren’t too happy when
I told them of my goal.
I found a half a dinosaur,
but then they found the hole.
My phone must be
a lonely phone.
It often does things
on its own.
It likes to blink
and buzz and beep
to wake me up
when I’m asleep.
I sometimes find
it’s made a call
without me touching
it at all.
If it gets bored,
before too long,
it might decide
to play a song,
or maybe shoot
a video,
or send a tweet,
or watch a show,
or play a game,
or send a text.
I never know
what’s coming next.
Today I left
my phone at home.
While I was gone
it wrote this poem.
I’m feeling sick and getting worse.
I think I’d better see the nurse.
I’m sure I should go home today.
It could be fatal if I stay.
I’m nauseated, nearly ill.
I have a fever and a chill.
I have a cold. I have the flu.
I’m turning green and pink and blue.
I have the sweats. I have the shakes,
a stuffy nose, and bellyaches.
My knees are weak. My vision’s blurred.
My throat is sore. My voice is slurred.
I’m strewn with head lice, ticks, and mites.
I’m covered in mosquito bites.
I have a cough, a creak, a croak,
a reddish rash from poison oak,
a feeble head, a weakened heart.
I may just faint or fall apart.
I sprained my ankle, stubbed my toes,
and soon I’ll start to decompose.
And one more thing I have today
that makes me have to go away.
It’s just as bad as all the rest:
I also have a science test.
There’s an echo, echo, echo,
in my room, my room today.
It’s an echo that I wish,
I wish, I wish would go away.
It’s a problem, it’s a problem,
for no matter what I do,
if I make a sound, a sound,
the echo, echo makes it too.
When this echo, echo, echo,
started, started yesterday,
I was not amused, was not amused.
It’s not okay, okay.
Now I must be silent, silent.
I’m afraid, afraid to speak.
If I’m talking, if I’m talking,
it might last, might last all week.
It’s annoying, but it seems, it seems,
it’s here, it’s here to stay.
It’s my parrot, it’s my parrot
saying everything I say.
I wasn’t doing anything;
just lying on my bed,
when my dictionary tumbled down
and smacked me on the head.
Then Harry Potter toppled off,
and Judy Moody too.
I almost got knocked out by
Wimpy Kid and Nancy Drew.
Then Fancy Nancy whacked me.
All those Goosebumps were intense;
they landed with A Series
of Unfortunate Events.
So now I’m in a pile of books.
It’s something of a shame.
This never should have happened;
I have just my shelf to blame.
I have a bunch of batteries
I need to give away,
and if you’d like to have them,
you can get them all today.
I didn’t want to throw them out.
They’re yours to take instead.
I probably should warn you, though,
these batteries are dead.
I have a lot of tiny ones.
A few of them are large.
And you can have them all right now,
completely free of charge.
Here’s a little ditty
that I wrote about my city,
which I think is very pretty
and I think is very nice.
All the people are appealing.
There is such a friendly feeling
that is calm and spirit-healing.
I would call it paradise.
You can walk around the park, it
is just over by the market.
In the day or after dark, it
is a lovely place to be.
All the trees and all the flowers
have such soul-restoring powers.
You can walk around for hours,
so I hope you’ll come and see.
If you visit for a while
you are sure to get a smile
so that, mile after mile,
you will want to walk some more.
I expect you’ll like our city,
which is nice and very pretty
There is just one little pity;
you may find your feet get sore.
The dentist told me, “Brush your teeth,
and don’t forget to floss.”
I promised I would do it
and told him, “You’re the boss!”
When I got home, I brushed my teeth,
then found the perfect stance.
I swung my hips and swept my arms
as I began to dance.
I wiggled back and forth until
I figured I was through.
I’m really glad the dentist told me
that’s what I should do.
Now every time I brush, I floss.
It’s fun, but I don’t see
how dancing after brushing
can prevent a cavity.
I don’t watch TV.
I mean, who’s got the time?
I only watch YouTube,
and Netflix, and Prime,
and Hulu, and Crackle,
and Roku, and Tubi,
and Vudu, and Hoopla,
and Yahoo, and Mubi,
and Google, and Apple,
and Vimeo too,
and Disney, and PopcornFlix.
That’s all I do.
There’s so much to stream!
It might seem like a crime
to not watch TV,
but, then, who’s got the time?
Whenever I eat dairy,
it makes me have to toot.
You might think that sounds scary.
I think it’s kind of cute.
A sip of milk, some butter,
a tiny bit of cheese,
will make my tummy flutter
and cause a “bottom breeze.”
An ice cream cone or custard,
some yogurt or some ghee,
and then that noise you just heard…
That probably was me.
You might think I’m unlucky.
You might think it’s unfair.
But I don’t find it yucky;
it’s just my dairy air.
In school we’re learning lots of things
that make us really smart,
like Reading, Writing, Science, Math,
Technology, and Art.
There’s Music once or twice a week,
Computers every day,
plus Spelling, and Geography,
and Recess, when we play.
We take some time for Typing,
and we also have P.E.
I think that’s almost everything;
the rest is History.
Spring is here!
At last it’s here!
I’m so glad
I gave a cheer!
I’m so pleased
I had to say,
“Wow! Yippee!
Hip-hip hooray!”
I’m so thrilled
I did a dance.
Then I went
and wet my plants.
Your elbow’s pretty hard to reach,
although it’s awfully near.
Just try to lick your elbow,
or to put it in your ear.
You cannot reach your elbow
with your shoulder or your nose.
It’s practically impossible
to touch it with your toes.
Your elbow won’t go near your neck,
your forehead, or your eyes.
If you could touch it to your spine,
I think you’d win a prize.
I tried to lick my elbow once,
and I came pretty close.
But then I stopped and realized,
like, OMG! That’s gross!
I’ve heard that you can’t get in trouble
for something that you didn’t do.
My mother said that was correct.
My teacher confirmed it was true.
I’m guessing they must not have meant it;
imagine my shock and dismay
when I found out I was in trouble
for not doing homework today.
A tiny, spiny dinosaur
was racing through my house;
a tiny, spiny dinosaur
no bigger than a mouse.
That tiny, spiny dinosaur,
it leapt up on my bed.
It punched me in the stomach
and it hit me on the head.
It chased me from my bedroom
and pursued me down the stairs.
It knocked the TV over
and it broke a pair of chairs.
I don’t know where it came here from
or how it got inside.
The only thing I know is that
I need a place to hide.
I’ll have to catch that dinosaur
before it gets too late.
But, oh, it found my brother’s room…
I guess that I can wait.
Hello, my name is Hector.
I’m a candy cane collector.
I collect the finest candy canes
from all around the world.
My candy canes are quite a sight.
While some are dark and some are light,
they’re mostly colored red and white,
and all of them are swirled.
A few of them are blue or green,
or purple, pink, or tangerine,
or pumpkin-hued for Halloween,
or rainbow-colored too.
I go to countries far and near
to buy them all and bring them here,
three hundred sixty days a year;
it’s what I like to do.
I tour the world on ships and planes,
and buses, bikes, and subway trains
because collecting candy canes
has always been my mission
I hope you’ll come and see someday.
I’ve set them out. They’re on display.
And, best of all, I have to say,
they’re all in mint condition.
“Just boring old bones,” thought young Michael McLiam,
“I can’t figure out who would want to come see ’em…”
“…And here,” said Miss Jones, “if you’ll step right this way,”
And she pointed to some rather dusty display,
“We are showing a dinkysaur fossil today.
This dinkysaur skeleton’s almost complete
Except for a couple of bones in his feet
And the parts where his legs and his anklebones meet…”
Michael McLiam then let out a yawn
And he thought, “Of the places our classroom has gone
Why THIS is the boring-est trip we’ve been on.
“They haven’t got anything fun or exciting
Like raptors in cages or carnosaurs fighting.
They haven’t got mammoths or saber-toothed cats
Or cavemen with bear skins and primitive bats.
No, nothing exciting at all on display
In the Natural History Museum today.
They just have the curator, boring Miss Jones,
And a dusty display of old dinosaur bones.”
And then Michael said, “Why, I know what I’ll do…
I’ll go out and start my own dinosaur ZOO!
“I’ll find me an island my zoo can call home
With plenty of space for some dinos to roam,
And then, one by one, or perhaps two by two,
I’ll find a few dinos to put in my zoo.
I’ll bring them back home to my island and free ’em
And call it ‘The Dinosaur Island Museum.’
“I’ll get an assistant named Wilbur or Horrace
To help me to capture a brachiosaurus.
This dino’s so big and his neck is so long,
His legs are so thick and his muscles so strong
You have to be sure you don’t look at him wrong.
To calm him, we’ll sing him a lullaby song.
The brachiosaurus’s brain is so small
I’m sure he’ll be sleeping in no time at all.
“We’ll tie him up tightly and set him to float
On the deck of our dinosaur capturing boat.
Just think what the people will say when they see him
At home in The Dinosaur Island Museum.
They’ll say, ‘Why, I’ve never seen anything like it…
A dino so big you could climb up and hike it.
A dino so big you could practically ski him,
All thanks to the hard work of Michael McLiam.’
“But I won’t stop there. No, I’ll have to have more
From places where no one has traveled before.
In swamplands and jungles I’ll go and explore
And bring back a helmeted corythosaur
Who uses the duck-bill he has for a snout
To dig in the muck and to pull the leaves out.
And people will say, ‘Why, it’s hard to believe!
What else do you think Michael has up his sleeve?’
“I’ll go to the farthest of far-away places
And bring back some creatures with very strange faces.
Like a stygimoloch, with a head like a dome;
I’ll capture a dozen and bring them back home.
“I’ll travel the world with occasional stops
To pick up some beast like a triceratops.
A stegosaur too, with those spines on his back
And the long, spiky tail, like a whip he can crack.
You have to be careful he doesn’t attack
So I’ll bring him back home in my stegosaur sack.
“Iguanodons too! Why I’ll catch them in scores!
And maybe a few dozen apatosaurs.
“A few that have armor and clubs on their tails.
And maybe a few that are bigger than whales.
I’ll bring back some dinos that travel in herds,
and some that look something like featherless birds.
“I’ll bring back so many and set them all free
That folks from all over will have to come see.
“They’ll travel from Fairbanks and Juno, Alaska,
From Omaha, Kearney, and Lincoln, Nebraska.
From China, Afghanistan, India too,
From Egypt, New Zealand, Tibet and Peru,
They’ll travel by airplane, by ship and canoe,
By sub and by sailboat to visit my zoo.
“And won’t they be stunned! They won’t know what to say
When they see all the dinos I have on display.
They’ll bring all their friends and their relatives too,
To show them the world’s only dinosaur zoo.
“But that’s not enough. No, not hardly enough!
I’ll have to get some that are terribly tough.
“I’ll head to the desert on one of my treks
And capture the biggest and meanest T. Rex.
“I’ll even come back with a cageful of raptors
To show I’m the bravest of dinosaur captors.
These beasts are so fierce that most people would flee ’em,
But raptors are no match for Michael McLiam.
“When folks see those raptors locked up in their cage
My dinosaur zoo will become all the rage
With people all over, no matter what age.
Old people, young people, teenagers too
Will want to come visit this wonderful zoo.
“And just when they think that I couldn’t get more
I’ll find some that swim and some winged ones that soar
Like an icthyosaur and a dimorphodon.
Then people will say ‘Oh, the places he’s gone!
Just look at the marvelous creatures he’s caught!
We’d gladly pay TWICE for the tickets we bought.
Why this Dinosaur Island’s the world’s greatest zoo!
Is there NOTHING that Michael McLiam can’t do?’
“And when I’ve brought every last dinosaur there
From the desert, the jungle, the sea and the air
I’ll open my Dinosaur Island Museum
And people will flock to my island to see ’em.
“Yes, that’s what I’ll do,” thought young Michael McLiam,
“As soon as we’re done in THIS dusty museum.”
Examine any fire hydrant.
This is what you’ll see:
Inside it’s full of H2O.
Outside it’s K9P.
I saw a crawdad camping
and a crab in a canoe.
I watched a clamshell clapping
and I heard a catfish coo.
I caught a clumsy clownfish
in a coral-colored cape,
and came across a cod who claimed
he couldn’t cook a crepe.
I saw a cocky crocodile
play cribbage with a crane.
I even watched a cuttlefish
consume a candy cane.
You could be kind of curious
how all this came to be.
It happened when I went to C
to C what I could C.