Nightmare On Toast: A Baked Bean Poem for Kids using Personification

Nightmare On Toast

My brothers and sisters

deceased and digesting.

I try to lie still

but I tremble and pray like a coward.

A sword and four daggers

descend, casting shadows.

I don’t want to die!

But I’m scraped from the plate and I plummet

Land splat on a family

of crushed, soggy tea bags

Caged up in a carcass

of dry bones and flesh decomposing

The lid slams. I feel like

I’m trapped in my old tin

But this time I’m suffocating

in the stench and the darkness

Then light flares, an air surge

I gasp for my life

But the fingers above

knot the plastic black sack as I’m screaming

The teabags beneath me

colliding and jolting

in time with the footsteps

Then just for a second we’re flying

A thud and we crash

I fall under the carcass

past slimy, dead lettuce,

between mouldy parmesan cheese

A distant sound screeches -

approaching and hungry

A monster whose rumbling

belly vibrates the whole street

A cannibal beak

stabs and tears the black membrane.

I spill from the hole

and roll into a crack on the pavement.

A fog of hot monster breath

gases and chokes us

Its metal jaws grinding

The magpie escapes to its tree top

The bag and its innards -

scooped up and lobbed skywards,

One gulp then devoured.

I grieve for the family of teabags.

Weeks pass and I shrivel.

Bean baked by the sunshine.

Surrounded by moss

and my neighbours, the ants and two earwigs,

who presume I’m a small lump of gravel,

living life in a crack on the pavement

growing old in my home on the pavement.

©2011 Mark Bird

💡 KS2 Poetry & Literacy Lesson Ideas for Teachers:

Inspire young imaginations with creative poetry, writing, and drama activities based on Nightmare On Toast, a lively personification poem for kids! Invite children to write their own personification poem for kids from the viewpoint of forgotten or discarded food items. Encourage them to imagine a dramatic escape scene, just like the bean’s adventure. For drama, students can act out the journey of the bean, using mime and sound effects to bring the story to life. They could also create a ‘bin monster’ character and perform short improvised scenes. For an art and writing crossover, children could design a “Lost Food Diary” entry, illustrating and narrating what happens to other scraps of food after a meal. #personificationpoemforkids #poemaboutbeans #bakedbeanpoem