The young lady at the Safeways checkout looks across my groceries and says, “So, you gotta riddle for me today?”
I like it when this happens. Someone I’ve done riddles with before remembers me, and wants another one. So I’m standing there with the shopping wagon, my 4 year-old granddaughter Jayla inside, and I say:
“Why walk or run when you can hop it/I keep the future in my pocket. What am I? ”
She prices my cheddar cheese and green beans and slides them along.
“Huh!” she says thoughtfully.
Suddenly, Jayla’s voice comes from the shopping cart.
“Kangaroo!”
We’re all laughing and I reach through to pat her on the back. On the way home I discover that she knows the answers to 11 of them. It blows me away.
I tell riddles every day. I love it. There’s laughter. There’s teasing. Clues. Wild guesses… There’s the joy of finding the solution. I know of no other language form with such breadth of appeal. Children like them, and teenagers. Adults. The 90 year-old lady at the Food Bank learns my riddles by heart. She says they’re good for her brain.
Pomegranate Publications publishes 2 packs of my riddles. To my pleased surprise they’ve sold over 30,000. I am, I think I can say, one of the world’s most successful riddlers. How about that for a niche?
Sample riddles
Strange it is
that I have no tail or head
Strange it is
that I have no legs
that I pull on my hot yellow robe
dive between two soft pillows
and disappear into the dark red cave.
Hot dog
I am where loud beasts rest a while
ticking to themselves
as though remembering their journeys
Some beasts tag their spot
with warm fluids
Dominant beasts mark their territories
Dead beasts are dragged away
by big beasts.
I don’t know where they go
But some of them come back to life.
Car park/parking lot
Sometimes we are together
in a close embrace
Sometimes we are parted
and thrust into dark caves
Sometimes we dance
with the members of other tribes
the hot wet dance
the hot dry dance
Socks
One in me
Two in you
One in him
One missing
– Vowels
Fine it is to feel
when a current of water
flows around me
and I vibrate
Fine it is to feel
when a current of air
flows around me
and I vibrate
The first is quiet
The second sings.
-Reed
Four long ground-standers
Four short down-hangers
Two crookers
Two lookabouts
One whiskabout
and a bellow-box
-Cow
We tell the world
That you were here
Sometimes we’re hard to see
Sometimes we’re clear
We show your touch
Both weak and strong
And you may curse these lines
If you did wrong
-fingerprints
I bring you music
I cover cold creatures
To read me you must step on me
-Scales
We glow in your room.
We grow in your garden
Only the name
Is the same.
-Bulb
My round mouth
will never talk.
Where I vomit
there you walk.
-Concrete mixer