As you will see in this collection of My Favorite Childhood Poems, most of these poems deal with very depressing issues such as “the end of the world”, “nuclear holocaust”, “death”, and “suicide.” It would seem strange to think that these would be a child’s favorite poems. I will attempt to explain.
This is Not a Picture of Me
I grew up during a time when the “end of the world” was always imminent and lived with a mother who was frequently depressed and suicidal. She was also of the “hippie” generation. We were very poor and I had no books of my own but I loved to read. A friend of my mother’s gave me a box of books when I was about 7 years old, and among the books in the box was a real treasure. It was a book of collected poetry called Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle
and I loved it! I still have it to this day, and it is from this book that all of the poems in this section derive.
I was, of course, due to the world and situation in which I lived at the time, particularly drawn to the poems involving “the end of the world”, “nuclear holocaust”, “death”, and “suicide” and that is why these poems have been included here.
Little Miss Muffet
Crouched on a tuffet,
Collecting her shell-shocked wits,
There dropped (from a glider)
An H-bomb beside her –
Which frightened Miss Muffet to bits.
“A planet doesn’t explode of itself,” said drily
The Martian astronomer, gazing off into the air –
“That they were able to do it is proof that highly
intelligent beings must have been living there.”
If this little world tonight
Suddenly should fall through space
In a hissing headlong flight,
Shrivelling from off its face,
As it falls into the sun,
In an instant every trace
Of the little crawling things –
Ants, philosophers, and lice,
Cattle, cockroaches, and kings,
Beggars, millionaires, and mice,
Men and maggots all as one
As it falls into the sun….
Who can say but at the same
Instant from some planet far
A child may watch us and exclaim:
“See the pretty shooting star!”
Naked On A Strange Planet 