Poetry for All the Family

Welcome to the web page for ‘Poetry for all the Family’, and thank you for taking an interest.

‘Poetry for all the Family’ is an beautiful collection of poems written by the author of the The Earthlife Web. So it will not be a suprise that some of the poems have a nature theme, or even that a number of them are about insects and their relatives.

This is a delightful and highly entertaining little book. It starts off with a nonsense rhyme, and then progresses through a number of simple rhymes about various invertebrates, including harvestmen, tarantulas, scorpions, mosquitoes, and collembola to more serious poetry about love, wisdom and the beauty of the natural world. As the author was an entomologist before becoming an English teacher all the rhymes are factually rigorous, and the book is in some places as educational as it is entertaining. The rhymes are delightful, and many have been enjoyed by adults on the poetry websites where they first saw the light of day.

Please do buy a copy of this book if you can, I am sure you will feel you have received value for money and you will be helping a good cause. I have been building this site for 8 years now and I would hate to see it dissappear, however as I earned only $370.00 in the month of December 2002.

Lean Mean Killing Machine part only

Dear Centipede you are so clean,
so beautiful and yet so mean.
A body that is thin and lean,
you move like a well-oiled machine.

Each leg exactly in its place,
when you step out at walking pace.
With fangs held up before your face,
your dinner ready to embrace.

 Opilione the Harvestman part only

The harvestman, she’s not a spider,
she has no poison glands inside her.
No fangs, no web, no spinnerets.
She really makes a lovely pet.

You can keep her in an ice-cream box,
with dirt and leaves, and a few rocks.
One other thing you must include
are smaller bugs, they are her food.
Silk Worm

Dear Bombyx mori in a tree,
making silk from Mulberry.
You are much cleverer than me.

Who even when I eat the fruit,
cannot make as nice a suit,
not even one old worn out boot.

 Another Dead Mosquito

A little mosquito once sat on my arm,
her evil intent was to cause me some harm.
To stick in her proboscis and suck up my blood,
leaving behind a sore itch I must rub.
I think its quite mean doing something like that….

So I raised my right hand and I swatted her flat.
Evolution part only

“Evolution” said the bear,
“could give you quite a scare,
if you thought about it
when no one else was there.

Your ancestors were not like thee,
the less so, the more distantly.
My progeny, what’re they be,
will not in time, be bears like me.

So each of us is but a step,
on a trail from whence to where.

 Dear Friend part only

Turn back, turn back and live again,
give not your victory to the pain.
Life’s a potential, you must choose,
you either win, or else you lose.

And if you lose, then be forgiving,
you still can learn the ways of living.
Like Phoenix, rise up from your tears.
You’ve joy to find in future years.
A Beautiful Language

There’s an ear in hearing and an I in sight,
the English language gives me such delight.
I speak it in daylight and I speak it at night.

I speak it to horses, and cows and to trees.
I speak it to bugs that float past on the breeze.
I speak it to people whenever I please.

In fact, I speak it with joy most days of the week.
Though there is one small problem, that causes some pique.
Everyone else here, speaks a language called Greek.
Unity part only

Oh mother Earth, and father Sun,
it is with joy that we’ve begun
to know when it is said and done
that all and everything is one;
the parts make up the whole.

In every living mote detect
the source of light it must reflect,
then quiddity bids us respect
all life, and so we must protect,
ourselves and them alike.

 The Fool’s Lament part only

I am, I am, a modest man.
You know I’m not an also-ran.
For you I’ll do the best I can,
and you need only be my fan.

I yearn, I yearn, oh how I burn
for the respect I can not earn,
without the truth I will not learn,
but even this I don’t discern.

“I know, I know”. My ego says.
And so my spirit slowly pays
my life away in angry days
and breaks my heart in many ways.
Blue sky Villanelle part only

How lovely is the blue of a clear sky,
to match the many greens within a tree.
love for it bids me live and never die.

It makes the sky a perfect place to fly,
what fun to float on feathered wings so free.
How lovely is the blue of a clear sky.

Whene’er my woes make me forget to try,
when mind and heart set out to disagree,
love for it bids me live and never die.