The Dirigible Balloon
Poetry for Children

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Listen to Brian reading his poem ...
So
it’s like this:
My show builds up
to this trick where
I pull a rabbit out of my hat.
Sorry, yes, I did forget to mention that I’m a magician.
Anyway, the rabbit.
Ta-dah!
But then we see
the rabbit has its own little hat
and he pulls from it
a hare.
The hare, you see
also has a slightly bigger hat –
Sorry, yes, I am getting to why I called you –
So the hare pulls out of its hat
a Labrador!
And then I come out
of the Labrador's hat.
Thank you, it is quite hard to do.
But today
it went wrong.
The Labrador was wearing a hat
I had never seen before
and instead of me,
he pulled out a tiger
which, fair play to the Labrador,
I’m not sure how he did it
or where he found this tiger.
But see,
the tiger
was also wearing a hat
and she pulled a polar bear from hers.
At this point
the stage was getting a bit crowded.
And it didn’t stop there.

You can probably see why I’m calling you.

So, could you tell me
if you take strays
at your whale sanctuary?

About the Writer


Brian Mackenwells

Brian Mackenwells is an Irish writer, living in Oxford. Despite being quite tired, he has written for the BBC Boring Talks about pencils, told stories on stage about not getting sick in zero gravity, performed standup about strange superheroes, co-wrote a full-cast audio drama every month for five years, and his Irish-language film-poem ‘Cur Síos‘ was chosen for the ‘Irish Selection’ category at the 2021 “ó bhéal” Irish poetry festival.