Adventures Beneath Your Hair: a surreal food poem for kids

Adventures Beneath Your Hair

Picture yourself in a world, wild & wacky
A mystic theme park popping up in your head
Go there whenever you want to escape here
At school, in the bath or in bed

Anything’s possible, get there in seconds
Ride your roller coaster to inside your brain
Hands in the air, scream out fear, suck in laughter
Each visit is never the same…

Upside down fly on a fried chicken nugget
Yahoo through exploding banoffee pie clouds
Spud-sucking vampire sausages circling
Ms. Rumble–De-Thumps in the crowd

Old Feta Forest on Manchego Mountain
With parmesan parrots in blue stilton trees
Melting in funshine, dissolving and bubbling
Stream Cream gushes into Lake Cheese

Alien rabbits with worms up their noses
All ogle the cheese pool with green fried egg eyes
Most grab their surf boards of quarter pound burgers
A few water-ski on french fries

Just then, a rocket shaped carrot car screeches
A hand grabs my collar and pulls me inside
Everything blurs, roller coaster's derailing
I’m catapulted from the ride

Falling, crash landing down into the kitchen
Mum’s snapping her fingers in front of my stare
“Eat up your fried chicken nuggets,” she’s saying
I’m back at home, sat on my chair

Hands in the air, scream out fear, suck in laughter
Your own wonder funfair is open up there
Entrance is free, change the world with your magic
Adventures beneath your own hair

©2011 Mark Bird

💡 Literacy Lesson Ideas for Teachers and Students:

Adventures Beneath Your Hair" opens a portal into a deliciously surreal world, blending food, fantasy and absurdity with joy and flair. It’s the perfect springboard for creative poetry that breaks all the rules. Inspired by the wild imagery and freedom of your poem (and The Beatles’ iconic lyricism), children can explore their own dreamscapes made of odd snacks, nonsense creatures and impossible journeys. Encourage them to invent edible landscapes, mix animals with vegetables, or write from the viewpoint of a food item on a bizarre quest. Surreal poetry lets them stretch their imaginations far beyond the classroom—into the places only they can see when they close their eyes. The weirder, the better!