Dance on the wind to the Centre of All Things where discarded dreams sprout and wishes bloom...

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Journey through inner space and outer space in this collection of imaginative poetry for children and children at heart.

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Published by A. Greenhead, New Zealand, 2023

Copyright  ©  Alan Greenhead, 2023  All rights reserved.

www.planetbob.yolasite.com  agreenhead2@gmail.com

Cover photograph by A. Greenhead.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Omapere

On Why the Artist is Now Blind

Spring Day

Rubbish

The Night Garden

Space

Spring Saturday Morning

A Dream

Love Poem

Journey to the Centre of the Birth

The L phabet Takes O ver

The Lord's Prayer - revised version

Today

Space Race

Supreme

Omapere

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On golden, summer-warm sand, walking.

Feeling wind through hair and sand through toes.

Watching sand glitter like a jewel-box.

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Wondering if some giant or god,

Who leaves nebulae footprints along galactic shores,

Also marvels at how the stars sparkle

At His feet.

On Why the Artist is Now Blind

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Can you imagine the artist's exquisite pleasure

When, while absentmindedly mixing hues

On his grimy palette,

He discovered a totally new, never-before-seen

Colour? (quite by chance)

Radiant, sublime gineer!

A colour to paint saintly haloes with -

Auras, crucifixions, people ascending

To Holy realms.

A colour not meant for earth-bound eyes,

That dazzles into blindness,

But worth the sacrifice of one's sight (for another) - that single, momentary glimpse

Of Eternity.

Spring Day

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The kind of day that makes you want to:

Take a bucking bronco ride on a shooting star.

Bounce on a trampoline-marshmallow-cloud,

Hug a mountain and drink a lake,

Letting it run down your chin,

Laugh

Warm honey-giggles

And chase them away.

The kind of day that smiles and says

This is  all for YOU!

Rubbish

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Yesterday I found God

In the bottom of a rubbish bag,

Wedged in between an old cigarette packet

And some mouldy cheese.

He was beautiful.

Such a shame He was put out

With the morning trash.

The Night Garden

Sacred place, of quiet solitude and serene secrets.

The heavy air breathes, dripping with hushed silence;

Bodies buzz with each resonant exhalation -

Aum...

Soul-charged and entranced I watch, drunk on its perfume -

Garden of Delight.

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Here all beauty has its source; nurtured in glistening pools of sweet amrita,

churned in gurgling ambrosia falls,

matured in nectar-filled cups of night-lily and moon-tulip.

Life trickles down from the rocks, and behold, the rocks live!

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In this corner silver-lipped azaleas jostle and huddle in chattering groups,

gossiping like schoolgirls.

Over here rainbows sprout among the undulating swathes

of graceful amaryllis,

and the irises sing so sweetly from the rock-garden,

that to hear their syren-call, silky-bright, would leave you forever empty

listening for the call again.

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Glowing fuchsia-bells hang

from clematis-necklaced branches,

reaching down to stroke the cheek of the unsuspecting passerby,

while tiny, elfen shapes frolic in the bird-baths,

or dart twinkle-quick through the diamond stems of dancing daffodils, too quick for sighting.

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The orchids stand alone,

their proud heads held aloft in quiet contemplation,

and the cumulus-soft moss-mounds purr

in the dark corners, inviting the weary traveller.

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All things thrive in the stillness

of perpetual moonlight,

and the gentle pulse of creation;

the air is thick with their laughter.

Discarded dreams fall in sparkling showers -

magic grows here; wishes bloom and seed

among the sleeping freesias.

Space

(or "a solution to the world's overpopulation problem")

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Physicists say that the world, though apparently solid,

Is mostly made up of empty space.

I wish I could climb inside,

Wedge myself in between the particles,

Hide,

Jump out in a blaze of electrons yelling

YAAAA!

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Perhaps a ghost is just a person who got lost in the empty spaces.

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Maybe missing children lie trapped in the atomic maze

Of a wall, a tree, a river.

Having fallen in they can't get out,

Imprisoned somewhere between bark and leaf.

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Maybe there really is room for all those people.

Spring Saturday Morning

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A thousand bright

shining

colours

SPLASH!

over you. The gurgling air tastes of lemonade

fizzing!

in your mouth.

Cotton wool clouds catch you

in a warm

hug

and the breeze is scented with

freshly baked loaves of...

SPRING SATURDAY MORNING!

A Dream

Suddenly

I was shrunk to the size of a molecule.

Looking around I saw a delicious landscape

Of sun-soaked meadows and rolling hills,

Where rainbows sprang, dripping with colour -

The Land of Atoms!

They clustered around me,

Floating balls that jostled and chuckled

And changed colour in psychedelic glee.

They bid me join them,

At first friendly, then forceful, like obstinate children.

Frightened, I ran,

A cloud of multicoloured balloons bouncing and giggling in pursuit,

Swirling past and around like a swarm of swallows.

So I grew

To the size of a mountain,

And strode over rivers and hills,

Through interdimensional byways,

Back to my own world.

And so I know as well as anyone

The danger of meddling with the power

Of the atom.

Love Poem

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I met a Goddess today.

Sure, She pretended to be a normal enough girl,

Spilt coffee down Her front

And said Her name was Sharon.

But I knew.

It was like the sun was sitting next to me.

Journey to the Centre of the Birth

She came

In my moment of blackest despair,

A creature of light and laughter

No bigger than a mouse and shiny as a sun,

Dancing on the wind,

Singing,

“Come with me on a journey to the beginning of silence

And the deep peace

At the heart of all things.

We'll ride the cosmic light-trails;

Slide down the silver threads

That hang between the stars.

Solar songs and soul-suns will light light our way

And the smile of death speed us.”

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Taking a hand like a silver droplet in mine,

I was suddenly as tiny as her.

We flew

At the speed of thought,

To the spaces between leaves

And under the bark where only

Flat people can go ,

Met a sun that loved its children

More than any mother,

And a man who had the world but lost it,

Saw a land of singing creatures that lived inside a single droplet,

Passed the solar light-gardens

Where gods and giants worked

And new galaxies sprouted from the radiant soil.

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We dived into seas of splendid song,

Through the hearts of suns,

To a mile-high room, lined with shelves that held lost time,

And through halls of dreams

Where past loves and memories of childhood

Called and begged reunion

From behind each doorway,

Over seas of insanity

To the kaleidoscopic shores of creation.

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And there she stopped

And exploded

Singing,

“ I am you, and you are  He,

And we are She.”

And as the world collapsed in light

The white-coats found me and locked me here

("Mad," they said).

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But tell me,

Who is the fool?

For I have been to the Centre of All Things,

And made it my home.

The L phabet Takes O ver

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A don't B lieve what I C! D L phabet S taking O ver

D whole Y world. N no time at L we have been O verc M.

T people are L screaming and cray Z in D streets,

not knowing F even reading A book S safe N E more.

O pen D books N out flies D words, snapping and biting at NE thing they C.

X cept for D poets,  E V one S in panic;

D poets, they just stare and look up at D sky,

in ХТС.

I don't know what S going on.

Do U?

The Lord's Prayer - revised version

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Dear Father / Mother/ Being of indeterminate gender

Who art in Heaven / Paradise / Nirvana / other realm of transcendent perfection

Hallowed be thy name

Thy kingdom / dictatorship / democracy / commune come

Thy will be done

On Earth as it is in the aforementioned planes of being

Give us this day our daily bread

(preferably brown and fibre-rich)

And forgive us our trespasses, lies, unwarranted outbursts

and general carrying-ons,

As we forgive those who financially compensate us sufficiently

Lead us into the odd temptation

But deliver us from evil, taxes

and unscrupulous car-salesmen

For thine is the kingdom

The power and the glory

Till death do us part

Amen

Today

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A day that that was

holiday-happy wondrous,

golden-sunshiny marvellous.

The sort that makes you shiver with

chuckle-bubbly, chocolate-giggly excitement,

and wish you could stuff it all -

every buzz-tumble, sparkling moment -

in a jar,

and keep it on a  shelf

for a rainy day.

Space Race

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The American Space Program's greatest project -

Mankind enters inner space

(Not the ocean, but a return to the womb!).

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The technological requirements were enormous -

Shrinking a man to the size of an embryo,

The craft's nearly disastrous lift-off

(thruster malfunction in the fallopian tubes),

And the 'splash down' by caesarean

(Some said all those billions should have been spent on needy children).

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But who can forget those first incredible pictures?

An astronaut's initial tentative womb-walk,

Afraid to venture too far from the CM,

For a moment a frightened child with lifeline clutched close like a favourite toy

(Boldly going where everyone has gone before),

Seeing it all from behind a helmet’s window-

A foreign body adrift in a strangely familiar world.

Yes, who can forget the wonder of that living, liquid cosmos, where new worlds have their birth

(Silent but for the primal throb that speaks a language we have forgotten).

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Now there are those that say our future lies

Not in the stars,

But in

inner space.

Supreme

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Let me

blaze along the galactic axons

of your cosmic brain,

dive into the golden ocean

of your transcendent bliss,

and soar

on the wind of your divine breath;

a metamorphosing larva-foetus

in the cocoon of your vast dreaming.

Dance on the wind to the Centre of All Things where discarded dreams sprout and wishes bloom...

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Journey through inner space and outer space in this collection of imaginative poetry for children and children at heart.