With Peppermint Scent

*

With peppermint scent dropped from fluorescent kites that towed away back and forth by curly wind in the monotone cyan sky,
There the sun was never too shy to get high,
On a land where unpaved road stretched out from my murky shoes and took an infinite zigzag shape to a place where the mighty mist might elegantly awake,
There the cake eaters gathered ‘round to make a bake
And bulb trees are all covered by transparent blanket on which colorful polkadot danced along by the rhytm of sunrise and sunset


Merry sounds from the gig on the clouds flashed their voices in rainbow laserbeam,
Warm wavy river was wandering wildly and filled fully by fluffy fishlike ice cream,
Endless corridor of small-sized purple umbrellas flickered, tapped, rotated, then smashed inside the longing lucid dream,
It’s kinda noisy over here,
Blurry, artsy and cutie,
And i presume you think it’s crazy, too...
But with peppermint scent fell down as I made a grin, right there i started to step in


Traveled around inside the longest taxi I have ever known,
Saw the biggest family of rabbits busy mixing shiny carrots with cherry pies,
By an universal remote control the channel in the television switched,
it screened the light of the entrance of the hall of the mind of the beautiful people,
The place where yellow bursts in amethyst then tacitly turns into dark raspberry that built a sturdy emerald palace from where gently rise up the electric lime


There are pumpkins, packed up in automatic trolleys
They played screeching harmonicas, took a journey along the rousing alley
For their life upon kitchen table has always been so dreary
Now they headed for a mission to a zero degree of worry
A girl rode an apple,
Aeroplane spin on gramophone,
A howling wolf sang a melodic tune,
Arsenic toxic blew into luminous metallic firework,
It looked really magical,
Colossal, comical and epical,
And with peppermint flavor washed up my face, I tried to catch the right words that I chased


Alphabet and numbers are borned out of the leaf queen,
Sunglasses reflected the echo of muted happiness narration,
Balloons flew above the spectators’ hat inside a huge digital colosseum,
Elephants fleet are lined up in railway with their ancestor’s drums held by their trunks,
Circus tents spread out the fragrance of adrenaline,
Face powder kept the hanging garden white and clean,
The professor and his dog planted the epitaph of our sins,
While the amazing sphinx drove away our yellow submarine


This is about time
That I want to live in a dream in my record machine,
In a tip of color in my painting canvas,
Under the highlight of my projector ray,
Around the interlocking ink of my paper sheets,
Enter the world where the mantra is believing,
The landscape is all breathtaking,
Heart-throbbing, mouthwatering, groundbreaking,
And with licorice peppermint taste tightly smothers my feeling, here I stands at the dawn of somewhat everlasting.

The Words of Mr. Silverstein

"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be." 

(Shel Silverstein)

i never quite like poems though, because their words are always obscure, out of reach, elusive, and sometimes meant just to be like that. so when i found these kind of poems from mr. shel silverstein, which are constructed by simple words to convey some simple messages, wrapped neatly in simple structures to get across simple meanings about life, especially in the eyes of a child, then i could only describe them by a simple word: brilliant!  

Messy Room

Whosever room this is should be ashamed!

His underwear is hanging on the lamp.
His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair,
And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp.
His workbook is wedged in the window,
His sweater's been thrown on the floor.
His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV,
And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door.
His books are all jammed in the closet,
His vest has been left in the hall.
A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed,
And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall.
Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
Donald or Robert or Willie or--
Huh? You say it's mine? Oh, dear,
I knew it looked familiar!

Sick

'I cannot go to school today, '
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
'I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox
And there's one more-that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut-my eyes are blue-
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke-
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb.
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is-what?
What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is...Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play! '

 Whatif

Last night, while I lay thinking here,
some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
and pranced and partied all night long
and sang their same old Whatif song:
Whatif I'm dumb in school?
Whatif they've closed the swimming pool?
Whatif I get beat up?
Whatif there's poison in my cup?
Whatif I start to cry?
Whatif I get sick and die?
Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?
Whatif I don't grow talle?
Whatif my head starts getting smaller?
Whatif the fish won't bite?
Whatif the wind tears up my kite?
Whatif they start a war?
Whatif my parents get divorced?
Whatif the bus is late?
Whatif my teeth don't grow in straight?
Whatif I tear my pants?
Whatif I never learn to dance?
Everything seems well, and then
the nighttime Whatifs strike again!

The Little Boy and the Old Man

Said the little boy, "Sometimes I drop my spoon."
Said the old man, "I do that too.
The little boy whispered, "I wet my pants."
"I do that too," laughed the little old man.
Said the little boy, "I often cry."
The old man nodded, "So do I."
"But worst of all," said the boy, "it seems
Grown-ups don't pay attention to me."
And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
"I know what you mean," said the little old man.

A Boy Named Sue 

Well, my daddy left home when I was three,
and he didn't leave much to Ma and me,
just this old guitar and a bottle of booze.
Now I don't blame him because he run and hid,
but the meanest thing that he ever did was
before he left he went and named me Sue.

Well, he must have thought it was quite a joke,
and it got lots of laughs from a lot of folks,
it seems I had to fight my whole life through.
Some gal would giggle and I'd get red
and some guy would laugh and I'd bust his head,
I tell you, life ain't easy for a boy named Sue.

Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean.
My fist got hard and my wits got keen.
Roamed from town to town to hide my shame,
but I made me a vow to the moon and the stars,
I'd search the honky tonks and bars and kill
that man that gave me that awful name.

But it was Gatlinburg in mid July and I had
just hit town and my throat was dry.
I'd thought i'd stop and have myself a brew.
At an old saloon in a street of mud
and at a table dealing stud sat the dirty,
mangy dog that named me Sue.

Well, I knew that snake was my own sweet dad
from a worn-out picture that my mother had
and I knew the scar on his cheek and his evil eye.
He was big and bent and gray and old
and I looked at him and my blood ran cold,
and I said, "My name is Sue. How do you do?
Now you're gonna die." Yeah, that's what I told him.

Well, I hit him right between the eyes and he went down
but to my surprise he came up with a knife
and cut off a piece of my ear. But I busted a chair
right across his teeth. And we crashed through
the wall and into the street kicking and a-gouging
in the mud and the blood and the beer.

I tell you I've fought tougher men but I really can't remember when.
He kicked like a mule and bit like a crocodile.
I heard him laughin' and then I heard him cussin',
he went for his gun and I pulled mine first.
He stood there looking at me and I saw him smile.

And he said, "Son, this world is rough and if
a man's gonna make it, he's gotta be tough
and I knew I wouldn't be there to help you along.
So I gave you that name and I said 'Goodbye'.
I knew you'd have to get tough or die. And it's
that name that helped to make you strong."

Yeah, he said, "Now you have just fought one
helluva fight, and I know you hate me and you've
got the right to kill me now and I wouldn't blame you
if you do. But you ought to thank me
before I die for the gravel in your guts and the spit
in your eye because I'm the nut that named you Sue."
Yeah, what could I do? What could I do?

I got all choked up and I threw down my gun,
called him pa and he called me a son,
and I came away with a different point of view
and I think about him now and then.
Every time I tried, every time I win and if I
ever have a son I think I am gonna name him
Bill or George - anything but 
Sue.

All poems are written by Shel Silverstein

COCKROACHES

Is it someone out there waiting
for me?
A cockroach would sing
Waiting for silence for
The sacredness of early
Morning
The footsteps are still
Sleeping holding pillow
Under the warmth of
A brown blanket
Hiding the mind which
Prehistoric sunshine
Would fire a
Bullet
Can we go out now?
Said them to their
Worried parents
To sip a tasty pool
To dig a tiny hole
Of a new promised
Lands that is written
Where everybody would
merrily greet
When a hidden
Happiness
Would finally meet
A shattered nightmare
From their little kid
So how does it feel to
Carry a box of
Uncertainties
In a forsaken ship to
Release the unnamed
Guilty from home
To the frightening
Vicinities?

On the wall there’s
Hanging silently a
Mute painting
In which a smile that
Remains is just another
Sorrow to break a glass
Of feeling
I don’t know how to spell
The hurt that yet to come
So how long do we have
To wait under this old
Cupboard until we’re ready
To finally jump?
A smell of fragrant camphor
Build a rusty smell of cage
So now is the time that
Our place is beneath
A green hedge
And only we can imagine
All the precious memories
When the earth is in
An ice age
It is a ticking sound of
A modern clock
It is a resting pose of
Listless white socks
It is a standing wooden
Door in a cold longing
For a knock
It is the heavy breath of
Dawn clinking the stainless
Lock
Our father thinks we now
Have to move out
It is now that we wouldn’t
Ever get caught
So go
So go
A rushing puny step
From our honored leader
Ends up in a noisy tap
Of a gigantic morning
Paper.