Riding
The color
Wheel

From
Liftoff
To splashdown

Onyx
Eyelids
Heavy with rheum

Waking to
Laminated
Stick-ons

A vinyl ocean
Of unco adhesion
And snap vacuum

Jettisoned
Trinkets
Of youth

Soaring
Prophetically
Overhead

Acquiescing
As scenes
Of upended worlds

The simple playgrounds
Both remembered
And loved

Hunter was happy
The rain was now done
He could go out in the yard
And have some real fun

Staying inside
when there was so much to do
He had to go hunting
For his alphabet zoo

Hunter like letters
And numbers and things
He also likes dreaming
and the joy that it brings

He pulled out his toy box
And he dragged it outside
I'm going to go hunting
He put his hat on with pride

An old hunting helmet
And one wellington boot
A runner, his jacket
And a toy gun to shoot

I'm off to go hunting
I'll will fill a whole zoo
Just call me for dinner
And with that...he was through

A boy's mind is special
They can imagine the world
Is a magical jungle
That to them is unfurled

A zoo from a toy box
All in order....you'll see
He would fill up his zoo
From A back to Z

First came an aardvark
Then a ******, all stuffed
Then a cheetah, a donkey
All cuddly and puffed

E made him think
Yep...an earwig or two
It fit with the letters
And it would go in his zoo

F was a frog,
Made of rubber and green
G ...a gorilla
With a smile, not mean

H was a horse
with a cowboy as well
The zoo, it was growing
And to him, that was swell

I....had him thinking
It's my zoo after all
So, if I can't get a letter
It won't matter at all

J was a jacks game
Not an animal too
But, the jacks looked like spiders
And this was Hunters zoo

K...that was easy
A Kangaroo with a pouch
L was a llama
With three legs and a slouch

M was a monkey
A whole barrel he had
He played with these some
He wasn't doing half bad

In all of an hour
He had collected a herd
Of stuffed toys, ***** and jacks
And he still had no bird

N was a nerf ball
Or a dinosaur egg
It could be what he wanted
He'd now found that fourth leg

The llama assembled
O was easy for him
An octopus floaty
That taught him to swim

P was a parrot
With feathers all red
Q...that's a tough one
He thought to himself in his head

R was a rhino
With no horn, it was broke
S was a snake
His dad bought as a joke

T was a tough one
A terra-dac-til said he
Not knowing the spelling
And that it started with P

U ...under water
so he found a stuffed fish
This was not all that easy
V...well tosh tish

I'll catch two of another
If I can't think of one
Hunting out in the yard
Is really quite fun

W...a walrus
with a moustache and tusks
Like the gorilla before
made of coconut husks

X...was a tough one
Another dinosaur came
Made from his xylophone
And this dino was tame

Y was a yak
He didn't know what it was
But, he just liked the name
So, a yak ....just because

Z was a zebra
blue and black with no white
He'd colored it in with a marker
When he got bored one night

He'd been out for a while
When he heard his mum yell
Time to come in
Bring your toy box as well

All through his dinner
He told of what he had caught
Of the alphabetic adventures
And the creatures he'd got

He watched tv for a while
Then it was bath time and bed
Where Hunter the hunter
Now had a full head

Now, he was dreaming
Of all he must do
This was Hunter the hunter
And his alphabet zoo

There's a roaring applause from the porcelain dolls
The performance was flawless they say
Just a single retort, from an old rocking horse who said
"too back and forth for my taste"


But the tragedy stands that the raggedy Ann
it was written for didn't attend
Did this marionette fall to pieces? You bet.
But in ways that scotch tape cannot mend.


Now I'll start a new score marbles strewn on the floor
at my core a toy soldier I'd be
With an etch a sketch shake I'd create a blank slate
Make a solo that's soley for me.


Even toys know that life is no story book
and that some Lego bricks just won't latch
Now this puppet will only write choir songs
he promised her "no strings attached"

Playmates
by Michael R. Burch

WHEN you were my playmate and I was yours,
we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and the sorrows and cares of our indentured days
were uncomprehended . . . far, far away . . .
for the temptations and trials we had yet to face
were lost in the shadows of an unventured maze.

Then simple pleasures were easy to find
and if they cost us a little, we didn't mind;
for even a penny in a pocket back then
was one penny too many, a penny to spend.

Then feelings were feelings and love was just love,
not a strange, complex mystery to be understood;
while "sin" and "damnation" meant little to us,
since forbidden cookies were our only lusts!

Then we never worried about what we had,
and we were both sure—what was good, what was bad.
And we sometimes quarreled, but we didn't hate;
we seldom gave thought to the uncertainties of fate.

Hell, we seldom thought about the next day,
when tomorrow seemed hidden—adventures away.
Though sometimes we dreamed of adventures past,
and wondered, at times, why things couldn't last.

Still, we never worried about getting by,
and we didn't know that we were to die . . .
when we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and I was your playmate, and we were boys.

This is probably the poem that "made" me, because my high school English teacher called it "beautiful" and I took that to mean I was surely the Second Coming of Percy Bysshe Shelley! "Playmates" is the second poem I remember writing; I believe I was around 13 or 14 at the time. It was originally published by The Lyric. Keywords/Tags: playmates, boys, children, schoolmates, schoolboys, friendship, toys, playthings, fate, destiny, adventures, death, mortality

A broken heart
But a toy to someone who was bored
You need to put those pieces back together
Sweet little doll
Sad little soldier
those piece will get lost if not fixed

I will help
I will sew those broken pieces together
Using the faiths string
And I will use gallons of glue
To fix the cracks that cover your sad eyes

Those scars will heal
Just as glue drys and stitches are forgotten
But I cant promise someone wont do it again
Girls play with boys hearts as though they were puppets
Boys play with the girls as though they were dolls
  
                             These hearts arent toys
                       And they arent a easy fix

When I built a time machine, I traveled back to 1977 and gave my younger self a hard smack.
When I was a child, I bought the Star Wars action figures and removed them from their packs.
I told my younger self not to do that because it ruins the value of the dolls.
Even though I traveled back in time, he ignored me, he didn't listen at all.
He continued to remove the figures from the packs and so I traveled back in time again.
This time I took a gun with me and I got so angry that I shot my younger self in the shin.
I begged him not to remove the figures from the packs but he ignored every word.
He told me to f* off and then the little ******* gave me the bird.
He thought I was bluffing and he left me with no choice but to pull the trigger.
That bullet was painful enough to convince him not to ruin the value of my figures.
That bullet is still in my shin and when I sit down, it really hurts and I cry like a little *****.
But it's worth it because a collector paid me $1,000,000 for my figures and now I'm rich.