Children's Poetry Bookshelf Competition 2007 - Poems

9-11 Year Old Age Group

The Stranger In My Nightmares (First Prize)

At the four crossroads
on Salisbury Plain
a dark figure stands,
alone in the rain.

His brown overcoat
whips around in the gale.
His black top hat
covers his face, pale.

Two glinting red eyes
and a sinister grin.
The foul reek of death,
the cold stare of sin.

In his black gloved hand
he is holding a knife.
It is sharp as a sword
and has claimed many a life.

This creature’s not human,
or any other being.
This thing is not dead,
but nor is it living.

A mist then surrounds
and a lamp flickers on
and when the mist passes,
the figure is gone.

By Haydn Robinson, aged 10
The Marist Catholic Primary School,
West Byfleet, Surrey

 

Us Dreams (Second Prize)

We turn up uninvited
and we leave when we want.
We never seem to stay long.

Sometimes we linger
until you wake up
and just when you think
you have caught us
we turn
and run away laughing.

We like sometimes
to scare you at night
and we may even try
to trick you to think
we’ve got something to say.

Whatever you do,
whatever you try,
you will never really understand us.

By Steffan Krasborg, aged 11
Maharishi School, Latham, Ormskirk

 

Talking Trees (Third Prize)

Trees talk
They talk to me.
Their whispering leaves.
A bird with feathers black, talks, calls and sings.
A cat gazes with knowing eyes.
Butterflies do what butteflies do.
Talking trees say my name.
A wasp buzzes silently.
A tree calls and says my name “Mataio!”
The Great Spirit is talking to me.
“Heh, lo-wa<cin” – I’m hungry – another tree says.
The Great Spirit speaks through nature.
Maybe some day others shall listen too.
They taught it to the listening Sioux.
They said to the Sioux “The white people are too big in armies and they are hurting
Us and the birds, the wasps, the butterflies and the cats.”
All of this years ago.
Maybe what they said to the Sioux
They’ll say to you.

By Mataio Austin Dean, aged 10
St Jude’s Church of England Primary School, Southsea

 

My Dream (Highly Commended)

As I fell asleep in my bed
listening to the rain on my window
sounding in my head,
like a thousand tiny soldiers marching by
this is what I dreamt.

I woke to the crash of thunder
and a crack of lightning,
while feather-like snow floated down.
As I walked along snowmen appear
like ghosts in the gloom.

The rain came pouring down like glitter, melting the
snowmen like butter.
The sun rises like a phoenix from the flame
and sets fire to the night sky,
creating a rainbow of colour before my eyes.

The heat bakes the ground
like a cake,
burning it in places.
The filling of ice cool water
tumbles from its cracks.

I hide in the shade of trees
and fall asleep to the rustle of leaves,
only to hear a shrill call of a bird
suddenly waking in my bed –
to my bird-like alarm.

By Kathryn Towell, aged 9
Breckland Middle School, Brandon, Suffolk

 

Dreams (Highly Commended)

As I lie in bed at night
and listen to the electric light
go out, I wonder who I will be tonight.

A towering dinosaur?
A tiny amoeba?
A renowned poet?

A passing cloud?
An ancient wood?
A crawling city?

Who knows? I think,
as my eyes begin to wink
and seem to fill with ink-
blackness.
Dreaming
Dreaming
Dream-
ing .
Sleep.

By Robbie Wastell, aged 10
Rhodes Avenue School, London

 

7-8 Year Old Age Group

Dreams (First Prize)

The night army of the dreaming ones –
Vague films of sweeping birds and trampling ogres

At night, with a shield of love,
A knight who can fight
Any darkness away

Under the duvet
I let
The army of light
Fight monsters with nightmare clubs.
I let the swooping birds sweep away worries
With their bright orange tail feathers

The last thing I have ever known
That did not belong to the night army
Was darkness itself

It’s a paradise
When I am asleep

By Frank Amundsen, aged 7
Balgowan School, Beckenham, London

 

My Dreams (Second Prize)

I dream in black and pink
Of Mummy turning into a zigzag
The Gelth creep into my bedroom
And my heart goes wobbly.
A fairy wriggles and whispers in my pocket.
Oscar, the purple dog, sings opera, elegantly.
A boyfriend is squeezed in my jewellery box
And I twirl and squiggle into an ugly puppet,
Collecting diamonds in a world of spikes
And Jammy Dodgers
Or Flamenco dancing on a thunder cloud.
Then my Mummy cuddles me as tight
As a knot.

By Anna Seall, aged 7
Dolphin School, Hurst, Berkshire

 

Round the Corner (Third Prize)

Sometimes my dreams have
trees made of sweets.
I’m smaller than a germ
munching my way through.
In my sleep I can zip into the TV
The black and white fizz
Takes me inside another world
There’s no wars there in my good dreams.

But sometimes I dream of
Googley monster omnivores
they eat anything in their path
Burrowing down under the earth where
there are flames and crashes and things that go Rhoaaarrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!
I wake up hot as lava
Turn on the light
Read my books till
the dream’s tail disappears
round the
corner.

By Nathan Barrall, aged 7
Fawbert & Barnard’s Primary School, Harlow, Essex

The Paper Girl’s Dream (Highly Commended)

Happily Lucy in pink pyjamas wakes up.
The newsagent has sparkly, frosty windows.
The heavy papers in her bag rustle like trees when it is windy.
The old terraces stood like a row of soldiers.
The street lamp is a cricket bat full of light.
Lucy gets tired.
The doorstep is soft and comfy.
She falls asleep.
Her dream is about her.
In her dream she turns into a pink pyjamaed paper girl.
In her dream her legs rustle.
She had a paper nose,
And a paper smile,
And paper eyes and paper hands and paper ears.
In her dream she finds a pretty pink paper flower.
Her paper flower drops out of her pocket.
She wakes up.
She finishes her round delivering papers.
She finds a paper flower at the bottom of her bag.

By Madeline Cowgill Smith, aged 7
Goosnargh Oliverson’s School, Preston

 

The Cloud (Highly Commended)

People’s heads are bricks.
A dream is a cloud
That flies above the stars
All the way to heaven.

By Sarah Hannaford, aged 7
Monkfield Park School, Cambourne

 

Boudicca’s Dream (Highly Commended)

We will win, win the vicious battle.
Right now I feel I have a
hole in my heart,
I want Britain same as it was
before.
Family to survive I want,
Romans back in Italy I wish, wish.
I feel brave but very lonely,
I hear the swords clanging.
swishing and glowing,
all around me.
My orange, long hair is floating in the
air,
I’m going to take my spear to kill
those savage Romans,
I don’t want my daughters to die,
I want my daughters to marry.

By Daria Mutter, aged 8
Derby High School, Derby

 

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