Poem for 8 year old boy

Wow! - this is all great! - heaps of thanks!!

This is the one I am going to start him with - it is full of nonsense, but also something serious underlying it:

Me and Him by Richard Edwards

“What did you do when you were young?”
I asked of the elderly man.
“I travelled the lanes with a tortoiseshell cat
And a stick and a rickety van.
I travelled the paths with the sun on a thread,
I travelled the roads with a bucket of bread,
I travelled the world with a hen on my head
And my tea in a watering can.”
Said the elderly, elderly man.

“And what do you do now that you’re old?”
I asked of the elderly man.
“I sit on my bed and I twiddle my thumbs
And I snooze,” he replied, “and I plan
To make my escape from this nursing home place
Whose matron is strict with a pale pasty face….”
“Then come with me now and away we shall race!”
I said to the elderly man;
And he jumped out of bed and we ran.

And now we wander wherever we want,
Myself and the elderly man.
With a couple of sticks and a tortoiseshell cat
And a rickety-rackety van.
We travel the paths with the sun on a thread,
We travel the roads with two buckets of bread,
We travel the world with a hen on each head
And our tea in a watering can,
Young me and the elderly man.

Oh, that's a lovely one.

What about Hillaire Belloc’s ill-fated “Matilda” who told “such dreadful lies, it made one gasp, and stretch ones eyes!”

He may think he's a bit too old for Stick Man by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
But I'm not!
I enjoyed the film too.

What about the little boy who wouldn't eat his soup?
I can't remember any more than that, but I used to love those quite grim, cautionary tales.

I remembered this one when I was going to sleep last night - may be too young for an eight year old, but it’s easy to memorise.

The Peddlar’s Caravan by William Brighty Rands

I wish I lived in a caravan,
With a horse to drive, like the pedlar man!
Where he comes from nobody knows,
Or where he goes to, but on he goes!

His caravan has windows, two,
And a chimney of tin, that the smoke comes through;
He has a wife, with a baby brown,
And they go riding from town to town!

"Chairs to mend and delf to sell!"
He clashes the basins like a bell;
Tea-trays, baskets, ranged in order,
Plates with the alphabet round the border!

The roads are brown and the sea is green,
But his house is just like a bathing machine;
The world is round and he can ride,
Rumble and splash to the other side!

With the pedlar-man I should like to roam,
And write a book when I came home;
All the people would read my book,
Just like the Travels of Captain Cook!

And who could forget the great (and crazy) Spike Milligan’s nonsens poem .

On the Ning Nang Nong

On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the Cows go Bong!
and the monkeys all say BOO!
There's a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea pots jibber jabber joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang
And you just can't catch 'em when they do!
So its Ning Nang Nong
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning
Trees go ping
Nong Ning Nang
The mice go Clang
What a noisy place to belong
is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!

'Timothy Winters'

Timothy Winters comes to school
With eyes as wide as a football-pool,
Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters:
A blitz of a boy is Timothy Winters.

His belly is white, his neck is dark,
And his hair is an exclamation-mark.
His clothes are enough to scare a crow
And through his britches the blue winds blow.

When teacher talks he won't hear a word
And he shoots down dead the arithmetic-bird,
He licks the pattern off his plate
And he's not even heard of the Welfare State.

Timothy Winters has bloody feet
And he lives in a house on Suez Street,
He sleeps in a sack on the kithen floor
And they say there aren't boys like him anymore.

Old Man Winters likes his beer
And his missus ran off with a bombardier,
Grandma sits in the grate with a gin
And Timothy's dosed with an aspirin.

The welfare Worker lies awake
But the law's as tricky as a ten-foot snake,
So Timothy Winters drinks his cup
And slowly goes on growing up.

At Morning Prayers the Master helves
for children less fortunate than ourselves,
And the loudest response in the room is when
Timothy Winters roars "Amen!"

So come one angel, come on ten
Timothy Winters says "Amen
Amen amen amen amen."
Timothy Winters, Lord. Amen

Charles Causley

Geekesse I had forgotten about that one. There was a Timothy Winters in our street when I was growing up. It also reminded me of Blake’s poem The Chimney Sweeper.

I used to love reading this one as a child, it evokes Halloween.

The Hag
The Hag is astride
This night for to ride,
The Devill and shee together;
Through thick and through thin,
Now out and then in,
Though ne'er so foul be the weather.

A Thorn or a Burr
She takes for a Spurre,
With a lash of a Bramble she rides now;
Through Brakes and through Briars,
O'er Ditches and Mires,
She follows the Spirit that guides now.

No Beast for his food
Dares now range the wood,
But hush'd in his laire he lies lurking;
While mischiefs, by these,
On Land and on Seas,
At noone of Night are a-working.

The storme will arise
And trouble the skies;
This night, and more for the wonder,
The ghost from the Tomb
Affrighted shall come,
Call'd out by the clap of the Thunder