Keep a Bag of Googly Eyes

If I should ever lose an eye
While playing BB guns,
I wouldn't even fret or cry -
I've got a bag of new ones. 
It's wise to keep some googly eyes
In case they're ever needed.
Make sure the eyes are every size
So any face can be completed.
The sidewalk has a little crack, 
All crookedy and grim.
I add a couple eyes, and smack!
That crack is now a grin.
I put the googly eyes on lips
And two eyes on my thumbs.
So when I eat my tater chips,
They watch for falling crumbs. 
If I should meet a wandering nose
That's fallen from its face,
I'll give it three or four of those
To fill the missing space.
I'll need that bag of googly eyes
When enemies are near.
A hundred googly eye disguise
To fill their hearts with fear. 
So keep a bag of eyes with you,
I strongly recommend.
You never know who needs a few,
Or what's around the bend.

-B.C. Byron
Always be prepared for googly eye emergencies
Buy my book here

A few years ago, my family had a staycation (vacation where you don’t leave town) and planned a whole list of activities from arcades to miniature golf. One of the favorite things we did on that vacation was the googly eye walk. We took a bag of googly eyes in many sizes and looked for things in our neighborhood that could be turned into a face, then added the right pair of eyes with tape. I highly recommend this activity for a family outing. We found a tree with a branch that had been cut short. A pair of eyes made it look like a tree person with a long, woody nose. We found several cracks in the sidewalk that looked like crooked smiles and turned them into happy faces. We used a pretty good-sized bag of googly eyes and left the neighborhood much cooler than it was before. I didn’t get to see how people reacted to the eyes everywhere, but we did check back a few days later and some were still there. It’s a good memory for my kids and they’ve been asking to do it again.

It’s funny how many things already look like faces even before we added eyes to them. Human brains just seem to want to see faces in everything around us. I believe this phenomenon is called pareidolia. We tend to see living things in clouds, shadows, or just about any object with two dots and a line below it becomes a smiley face. We’re just hard-wired to want to find other faces to spend time with. We should really embrace that impulse, not just with a bag of googly eyes, but by actually going out and meeting people face-to-face. There’s a huge, satisfying difference between meeting someone on social media or in a video meeting and actually being near them.

But this poem is also about being prepared. Do you have a bag of googly eyes within easy reach at all times? I have a tactical pouch that I carry my car keys and money in. It’s also where I keep a flashlight, lighter, aspirin, compass, a bit of rope and several small tools. I’ll be adding googly eyes to the pouch. I’m prepared for being lost in the woods or tightening a screw, now I’ll be ready for those times when pareidolia strikes and the perfect almost-face appears on a wall switch or stumble on a smiley-shaped smudge on the floor.

Hole in the Ground

Hole in the ground
Hole in the ground
Just the right size
for a hand to go down.
Perhaps there's a treasure
or cute fuzzy creature.
Bet there's a prize
for this down-the-hole reacher. 

Aaaaaaa! 

Hand in the ground
Hand in the ground
Something took it,
can't be found.
Shoulda' thought it through
before reachin' down.

-B.C. Byron
Seems like a good place to find a treasure. I’ll just reach my bare hand in there…
Buy my book here

By now, you’ve read enough of my poems to start thinking that I’m the king of bad ideas. Ideas like using people as yo-yos, building homemade submarines and teleporters, and bouncing eggs on the floor are probably not the wisest activities. But this poem about sticking hands into holes in the ground is not from my own experience. A friend of mine told me a story about a hike he went on with some friends. There was a hole in the ground that captured the hikers’ attention, wondering what type of creature might make such a perfectly hand-sized hole. Was it a weasel? A fat snake? Gopher? Or maybe a malicious sprite? Of course this wondering led to a risky idea, as so often happens with a group of boys out hiking. They bet my friend $5 that he wouldn’t reach his hand into the hole. Seeing no creatures near the top of the hole, my friend thought this would be easy money. So he reached his hand in and…. thankfully, he still has his hand. In fact, it WAS an easy $5 payday. He also found a brand new Swiss Army knife inside the hole, and not a single hand-eater. Lucky duck! If you don’t know what a Swiss Army knife is, you are totally missing out. It’s the type of pocket knife that has dozens of little tools that fold out of it (blades, screwdrivers, spoon, fork, toothpick, the kitchen sink, and more). Maybe that knife is what was left over after the last kid reached his hand in and lost it to a little finger-grabber creature. Maybe it just fell out of someone’s pocket and caught the attention of a shiny-loving groundhog. Cool prize, cool story and some pocket money as well, but still a really, really, really bad idea. Don’t go reaching your hand into random holes in the ground. At least ask for $2000, or whatever the current price is for a prosthetic hand, before trying it out.

About this poem structure: I sometimes like to use a repeated phrase in poems and then change that phrase slightly in each stanza. Song writers often use this same technique to show the evolution of a story, slightly changing the mood from happy to sad, or bored to excited by adding or removing one word in the chorus each time. Listen for this technique in music and poems and give it a try. Pick a fun sounding phrase and twist all different ways, writing each variation down. Then start or end each stanza with one of the phrases. Happy poeming.