Never Again

Never, never, never again
Never will I play with Mum's scalpel pen
Never will I rumage through Daddy's drawers
And play around with his pair of saws

Never again will I pull out screws
Then run around without my shoes
Never again will I climb barbed wire
Or strike the matches and touch the fire

Never again will I draw on walls
Or destroy my Daddy's overalls
Never again will I drink cough syrup
Or try to climb the horse's stirrup

Never again will I put the plug in water
And electrocute the neighbour's daughter
Never again will I paint the piano
Or draw on my sister's iPod Nano

Never again is what I'll say
The moment before I run out to play
I'll smile sweetly and hide the crime
Because it's Mummy's jewels I've smashed this time

Ahahahahahahahahaaaa... Very nice. Clever and funny. The only lines I must critique are these:

Never again will I drink cough syrup
Or try to climb the horse's stirrup

As long as you've got a cough, drinking cough syrup isn't bad. I guess you could OD on it, but...OD on cough syrup? Not exactly a common way to go. And even if you don't have a cough, a normal dosage isn't bad for you, just not helpful. As for climbing into the horse's stirrup, what's dangerous about that? Normally the horse is standing still while you do that, waiting for you to get on. If you're trying to climb onto a very bad horse, or MAYBE if you're a beginning rider, this could be dangerous, but it's not in general.

Basically, the contents of those two lines doesn't really match up with the contents of the rest of the poem.

But other than that, very good. It made me giggle.

~Blue

I put the syrup thing in because my parents always tell me never to drink from the cough syrup, because you'll get really sick. One of my sisters drank a whole bottle once - not good. This is about a very young naughty boy, so basically the horse thing is about him trying to get on a fully grown horse. It's not that dangerous, so I guess the rhyme there is a little forced.
-Anna

Hahahahahaha this was a really good laugh. Sometimes writing about humor, and trying to make the audience laugh is a hard thing to do, but you did a really good job at it, and succeeded! I really enjoyed it because of the fact i can relate to most of it! The rhyming worked really well, and comes naturally for you! You did a really good job, keep up the good work!

This is actually rather cute. I agree that it has a rather cheeky tone, but what I like most about it is that it reminds me of my childhood years, reading Shel Silverstein and wondering how anyone could be so brilliant. He was not a metaphorical person, and most of his poems were simplistic and light, but they were my first real taste of poetry, so this brings back quite the wave of nostalgia.

In any case, there are a few things in which make this a bit wonky. Things that could definitely use a bit of work so why don't we break this down nice and neatly, ne?

First and foremost, your flow. Its a bit off.

Never, never, never again
Never will I play with Mum's scalpel pen
Never will I rumage through Daddy's drawers
And play around with his pair of saws

Take a look at this for instance. You use a rhyme scheme which is good for this sort of poetry, but your lines are uneven and don't seem to mesh well together. And why's that? Its pretty simple. You're syllable count is a little bit off.

For instance, lets so we want to write a poem like about a red balloon. Its a simplistic poem so we need to keep to a rather basic syllable count such as maybe 8 then 7 then 8 syllable'd lines;

There once was a yellow balloon
higher and higher it flew
Until it hit the suns hot rays
And down went the popped balloon

The poem in itself is rather cheesy, yes? But it flows because it has equal syllable counts which helps create a tone in which quirky ideas such as the one in which you wrote would come across quite swimmingly. Without this style syllable count, the poem in itself will flop because its diction is on the simpler side and the idea as mean't to be childish and quirky in the sense that it should be sing-songy, yes?

That being said, there are some lines that seemed a bit thrown in there. The ones in which you tried hard to rhyme like the saws and what not. I understand pens and what not (though ballpoint sounds a little less harsh than scalpel), but things that could ultimately harm a impale a child should probably be kept out of poetry that's directed for children.

Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed this. It was cute and quirky. Not a fantastic piece when it comes to making something truly profound, mind you, but definitely worth reading to a younger sibling. Fantastic job.

~Walker