Have you seen a fleep asleep?

In pandemic time right now, some people are fighting for their lives. Medical and other heroes are risking their own lives to help them. Being no hero, I’m sitting at home writing a blog post.

I find blog posts much harder to compose than the 1000-odd words I write each day in the book I’m currently working on. One difference is knowing people will read my blog post–perhaps not many but at least a few. With a book, however, the time horizon is much more distant and the result less certain. In these unnerving times, making up stories and writing them down can feel more like an addiction than a vocation.

Which brings me to fleep asleep. A few years ago, I got a call from a literary editor who told me she was assembling a collection of her fifty best Australian poems for kids and could she use one of mine? I thought about it for .00001 of a second. Then I said yes. Sadly, the anthology never went ahead. But the poem lives on and I’m glad.

Have you seen a fleep asleep?

Have you seen a fleep asleep?
I saw one once, down in the deep.
It had four eyes and seven legs.
Its grandmother was cooking eggs.
Its flippers flopped, its snapper snored.
Its flanket had a broken cord.
I waved my winker in its nose,
Then hid inside a garden hose.
I watched it snort, I watched it sneeze,
I watched it scratch its seven knees.
I heard the frowling in its throats,
And saw it bite the backs of boats.
Yes, fleeps asleep are very queer.
I'd like to keep one, for a year.