A Load of New Nonsense

ISBN 9780955997556

One stormy night I lay in bed. I just couldn’t nod off.

The alien beside me had a most annoying cough.

He’d landed here the night before. He’d flown through space and time.

He’d brought a Snoo, a wild Faloo, and this here book of  rhyme.

He said that, on his planet, it was forbidden to write prose

And, though his world was just like ours, it was different, I suppose.

There were monsters, talking animals and a person just like me.

They spoke in perfect English. “Like what we speaks,” I  told he.

He’d spent his whole life writing. He’d been ridiculed and  goaded.

And whilst his spaceship flew away, his planet had exploded.

He asked me, as he lay there, if I could grant him just one wish:

To take a look inside this book and possibly publish.

And then he breathed his dying breath upon that bed of mine.

But, before he died, he whispered, “I’d charge six pounds ninety nine.”

So look into your heart (and in your pocket, I’d suggest)

And help me lay that last remaining alien to rest.

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Tales from an Alien's Toe

ISBN 9780995997518

‘Twas late Hallowe’en- trick and treaters had been.

My sweet bucket had none left in it.

I was going to ignore every knock at the door

Till one knocker went on for five minutes.

I couldn’t take any more, so I opened the door

And the alien there said, “I know -

I look like an alien that you once knew.

Well, I would - I was made from his toe.

When his planet exploded a bit of his toe did

And travelled to Earth all alone.

I hear you have his Snoo and his wild Faloo.

I have come here to take them both home.”

Then I cried, “But he died and I took all of that cash

From those people who purchased my book.

If they think he’s alive, that he’s really survived,

Then they’ll surely think I am a crook.”

“Then I shall disappear before they see me here,

But I must have four pounds for the fare,

And three for the Snoo and the wild Faloo -

Seven pounds should get all of us there.”

“But I have no money,” I said, “What’s so funny?”

As he smiled with his hands on his ears.

Then he pulled off his face and within that black space

Was a book about all our worst fears.

“Just take it and flog it to buy us that rocket,”

He mumbled through lips that weren’t there.

So I reached for that book and I had a quick look

As he grew a new face and some hair.

So I’ve a new book this time of the alien’s rhymes

And I ask you to buy one or two,

To send him back there to his home in the air,

With the Snoo and the wild Faloo.

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Bits of kids' brains

ISBN 9780995997532

I’d visited bookshops; I’d visited schools;

I’d run out of ideas in my head.

So I asked all the kids that I met on my travels

To come up with some titles instead.

Then each of them opened the tops of their skulls

And fished round in the goo and the guck,

Till they happened to find something deep in their mind

That they thought could go into my book.

Some ideas were random; some ideas were crazy;

But I was not one to be bested.

I had not a doubt they would not catch me out –

I would write everything they suggested.

So I took their ideas and I turned them to rhyme,

And I wrote down their ages and names.

Here, with eager intent, I now proudly present

That collection of bits of kids’ brains.

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