The Judgmental Puddle. A Piece for the Homeschool network.

Cafe Locked Out

This piece was written thirty years ago, since then my country has grown into the poem and let me know that I Was a purple buddle.

It’s to do with how we are educated to hate. But it’s written for children. It can even be sung.

Interested to know if the homeschool network could use it.

The Judgmental Puddle

In Bubble Town all the people were round

and all their houses square,

and no matter how much you looked around and around

you’d find no sad people there.

Round they were, four colours round;

Like little coloured bubbles.

Red and yellow, purple and green

bubbles that didn’t like trouble.

BUT TROUBLE CAME

Big Trouble

In the form of a grey,

and not very round,

but very judgmental,

puddle.

The puddle was left after a long night of rain

That cold and stronger kept pouring,

And although most of the bubbles would listen to the storm,

It would be safer to say

‘You were snoring’

And anyway, what’s wrong with rain

when it cleaned and washed and promised,

to make flowers bloom and to remove all the rubbish

from your house and your streets

and your wallets.

And so it poured and rained

and rained and poured

and then left, as a gift,

the puddle.

An odd drop of water,

a mirror on the floor

that wouldn’t reflect . . . some people.

Purple people.

It wouldn’t reflect the purple bubble people.

Red and yellow, yellow and green,

But purple . . . Uh uh.

They asked it why

but how could it reply?

The rain hadn’t left it a mouth.

All the people knew

was when the purples looked down,

well let’s just say,

it wasn’t looking good . . .

This was trouble.

Grey puddle bubble trouble

Especially when all the people were so used to being liked.

Now purple bubbles were a strong part of the town

Doctors and lawyers, key cutters and clowns.

They worked in the banks, they worked on the farms,

They were happy, they were friendly and they were proud.

They lived next to the greens, had coffee with the reds

and played chess in the parks with the yellows,

and before the puddle had judged them unfit

the only difference they’d known was, well

nothing.

But then it didn’t stop here.

Oh no.

This was trouble.

Grey puddle bubble trouble,

Especially when all the bubbles were so used to being liked.

But then it didn’t stop here.

Oh no.

As the days passed the puddle got pickier.

It became a colder and pickier much pickier puddle

That refused reflect any coloured bubble who dared to

keep a purple friend.

But look down again,

once you were friends no more,

And there you’d find yourself

in this mirror on the floor.

Smiling green and red and yellow bubbles

Bubbles that didn’t like trouble.

But more trouble came

With every new day the puddle grew pickier

it became a pickier and pickier and even more pickier puddle.

Until, for no reason given, it would no longer reflect

any of the red, yellow or any green bubbles

Who happened to live on a street

where there were bubbles who were of a certain colour

A certain Purple colour.

In case you haven't clicked on,

this puddle really didn’t like

Purple.

Oh what trouble.

What big coloured bubble trouble,

And so to save the peace,

the purple bubbles were all move into the one part of town.

Purple Place, Which was sort of err. . .

downtown.

Then in the Coloured Bubble Town’s single newspaper,

The Coloured Bubble Town’s Gazette

a story was printed of one yellow inventor who’d come up with an idea to make things better,

How about, he wrote, if purple bubbles wore bags on their heads,

and on the front of the bags, we could paint yellow bubbles, or green or perhaps even red

and they’d have eye holes and arm holes and big friendly smiles

that would confuse, or rather trick the puddle.

But the purple bubbles wrote back

and all their angry letters said ‘No!’

One purple bubble who was sick to death of all this trouble,

wrote in and asked

‘What does it matter who puddle doesn't reflect ?

All it is is some shallow grey water’

But a red bubble wrote back to the Coloured Bubble Town Gazette and said

‘Only a Bubble

who had never seen itself in the puddle

would ask something stupid like that.’

So, frighted that they too would anger the puddle

all the yellow and red and all the green bubbles

stopped shopping in those purple bubble shops

And so

Purple popular pancake patties

Purple popping popcorn stores

Plastic purple pencil providers

Profound poetical purple prints

Purple primrose potted plants

Purple, not pink, playful plumbers

And Purple, pampered poultry Performers

One after the other,

because of no business,

had to start closing down.

This was bad.

Coloured bubble town was becoming sad

A town meeting had to be called.

In Coloured Bubble Town’s main meeting square

All the bubbles talked and talked

And all the talk was about the puddle

Until after hours and hours had passed

All the red and yellow and all the green bubbles

decided that, to stop all the trouble, it would probably be best

If any bubble that happened to be purple. . .ish

‘Just got going.’

‘Just got going where?’ the purple bubbles asked.

‘Just got going gone.’

And since the purple bubbles naturally refused

I mean coloured bubble town was their home,

The other bubbles at pin-point began marching the purple bubbles out of town.

On buses and trucks, in trains and eclectic cars

packed with their fridges, dream catchers and guitars,

the purple bubbles,

their bubble heads held high,

left Coloured Bubble Town . . .

forever.

I don’t understand,

one little red bubble cried,

Wouldn’t it be easier just to get rid of the puddle?

Oh I don’t know, whispered his big bubble mother,

that seems to me to be an awful lot of trouble,

And anyway, you should be grateful to the puddle,

For if it wasn’t for the puddle

not reflecting purple bubbles

You might have grown up without ever knowing

That purple bubbles were bad.

Michael GG