Plastic pistols, cowboy hats
action men, palitoy combat

Hotspur, Tiger and Hurricane
leather footballs, broken panes

Matchbox, Corgi, Airfix, Meccano
Stickle Bricks, and (only) red and white Lego

Triang scooters, Raleigh Choppers
Dunlop plimsolls, orange space-hoppers

Down the park’s obstacle course
Witches Hat, iron rocking horse  

Bumps and scrapes, grazes and cuts
rub it all better, just-get-back-up

Home before dark, in time for tea
Billy and Ian, my sisters and me

In an ideal
joy-and-happiness-society,
would every working person
get time off work
to rest,
to rejuvenate,
to play,
to self-entertain,
to self-educate,
to care for and improve one's mental-health,
to travel and explore,
to do family-joy,
to do friendship-joy,
to do romance-joy,
to do joy and happiness activities?

Let’s pretend Sundays last forever
and spend hours drowsing in the sun.
Let stress slowly fade, like a passing parade
and our cares will seem light as feathers.

I hear clouds still collage on blue canvas,
and deciduous leaves turned bright colors
we’ll picnic, we’ll laugh, and lay in the grass
and this Sunday will outshine all the others.

As a child I was told to take shelter in a storm.
"Wait for danger to pass, where it's safe and it's warm."
Was the plea sent down wet steps and the outmatched door
To chase my staccato strides.
I'd lose it, if I could help it,
In puddle waves and wind-whipped tides
Over rocky shores and steep divides
Then stroll down the lane with thunderstorms n' hurricanes.
While the sky cracked with tension and the red oaks strained,
I never felt small nor ever afraid,
Of the forceful rumbles their limbs obeyed,
I felt alive n' emboldened by every squall
Raised higher and higher by the climatic cure-all
Until I could meet it face to face n' eye to eye
And hold its gaze, as though it were mine,
Until the blackened-beaten town and the next day's fight
Seemed bold but inviting, a blinding light.

Clacking belongs to hollow shells,
And echoes stilled, and tongueless bells.
Toys are made flimsier than tools,
And sloth is banished from the schools.  
When clacking’s ceased, adults relax.  
Childhood is hardship and attacks.