Do you feel sorry for me?

I was hurt today
(says Ruby)
with a very bad hurt.

There was blood on my knee
and I banged my chin. See?
Do you feel sorry for me?

We were running too fast.
Lauren got a bleeding nose:
I crashed her with my head.

Ellen squealed Ee! but I just cried.
I have to scoot slowly now
because it hurts my knee.

Do you feel sorry for me?
Do you feel more sorry for Ellie,
or do you feel more sorry for me?

Iceburg Land by Dylan aged 5

One day ice was falling over the land,
One day ice was falling over the land,
Over the iceburg land,
And in there was an ice crazed man,
An ice crazed man.

Yeah!

And the ice bite is ice
And the crack of the ice is the ice man
Ice man cracked on him.

Ha!

(c) Dylan Battersby Gifford, aged 5

Sketching

An outline is easy:
The Ice is a hermit crab,
Fakaofo is a kite.

But sketching one’s lack of limits
the other’s lock of limits
is not likely.

Crunched inside
a prosthetic shell.
Grounded on a short string.

Light on The Ice

Lord, lord, the light on The Ice.
Light to suck on, light that will not
spit you out.
Pixillated blocks that shift
and split and never fit.

And the white knit
over your head,
white you can feel,
cashmere atoms
divine malign,
white that walks you nowhere blind
in a lit night, with God
ground into motes
and no horizon.

Flatlantis 2

A land lightly sketched
in pencil.
A drawing never shaded.
Lines to let the light through,
that’s all.

A dotted line.
A pattern never finished,
never used, never made.
To be erased
by the sea.

MV Tokelau

Lie in one place
your innards slosh.
Lie in one place
there is only one place.

Lie in one place
for 30 hours.
Lie in one place
arising expels banana.

Lie in one place
and it’s all right,
truly, except
the stars are trampolining.

Jandals on the line

Going to Tokelau
you practise
wearing jandals.

Mine sport diamonds
(not) and a stiff
white sole.

Trip over mats.
Thump like a herd of piglets
on the stairs.

Geoff's patient stole
one yellow one
by mistake.