Dan Lukiv

Beast Beneath My Bed, poetry for children Dan Lukiv

First Edition: LukivPress (Quesnel, BC), 1999. [Distributed through the Quesnel Public Library].

Second Edition: CanTeach (Vancouver, BC), 2002.

Revised Edition: LukivPress (Sardis, BC), 2021.

Various poems in this collection have appeared in one or more of Ahoy, Tale Spinners, The Speaker, Coffee Break, Carson Communique, Robin's Nest, Kwil Kids Quarterly, and Time for Rhyme.

The author performed (singing, playing guitar) "I Love You" and "I Have a Car" at McNaugthon Café (June 13, 2013).

An excerpt

The Beast Beneath My Bed

There's a creepy-crawly monster
Underneath my bed;
It's a horribly hairy beastie
With an ugly purple head.

I know it's there;
I know it is;
I hear it in the night.
It'll groan and spit and even hiss,
And maybe take a bite.

Yes, maybe take a bite
It will,
And eat up both my feet,
So never do I let them hang
Outside my cotton sheet.

I worry much
About this thing,
This thing that lurks below.
I chew my nails
And try to sleep
And utter not a peep.

But down below
That toothy nest
Of jaws and paws and claws
Is waiting just to eat me
While I try to get some rest.

If only I could teach it
Not to treat me so.
Just how do I do that?
Does anybody know?

The author

Dan Lukiv is a poet, novelist, columnist, short story and article writer, and independent education researcher (hermeneutic phenomenology). His creative writing has appeared in 19 countries. Recently, he has been experimenting with temporal shifts and narrative strings in his haiku and senryu.