Best Apprenticeship Poems
He worked at the local newspaper office.
I worked for his employer’s wife as a mother’s helper.
He had served his apprenticeship
and was now a full fledged printer
earning a magnificent sum of eight dollars a week.
My wages were three dollars per week.
Mrs. Miller found reasons for sending
me to the office frequently
and he was easy to talk to.
It wasn’t long before
he asked me to go to a movie
and I readily agreed.
Movies tickets at our local theatre
were twenty-five cents, usually.
The first movie we went to was called
“The Housekeeper’s Daughter”
starring Joan Bennett.
I don’t remember a thing about the story.
The next week he called again
and this time
the movie he wanted to take me to was
“Gone With The Wind”.
I protested that it was too expensive.
This time he would have to spend
fifty cents each on tickets
and the movie was so long that
there was an intermission
and I knew he would want
to buy refreshments, but
I didn’t take much persuading
and we went all out for that
evening of entertainment.
This time I did remember the story.
From that evening forward ,
he was a daily caller at our home
and my mother did her best
to keep him fed.
Most of our dates were merely
a stroll down town and back
as we had no car.
We heard on the radio that
Major Bowe’s Amateur Hour
was coming to a bigger town
about thirty miles away
and both of us decided we would like to
attend that function.
Money would be a problem
on our wages, so we decided
to save up for it.
One of us bought a dime bank and
we each put any spare dime we could,
into the bank.
It held five dollars.
We managed to have
five dollars worth of dimes
by the time the big day arrived.
Dad lent us his car
and off we went.
I don’t know what the tickets cost
but we had enough to buy them
plus enough to
indulge in an ice-cream soda
at the big town soda fountain.
1940 was the year our story started.
In March of 1941
he left for Detroit, Michigan
where he had heard he could find work
at a decent wage.
He sent a telegram
that he’d found a job
at $50.00 a week.
He had a minister and marriage license.
I had never been away from home before
but I traveled to Detroit and
we were married in July of 1941.
Honorable Mention
.
Cry for the human race
Cherubs borne equal; loving, we look the other way
Cry for the human race
As we reach for mistrust, envy and greed
Cry for the human race
For we are one; brothers; sisters. One family
Cry for the human race
For trust is gone.
Cry for the human race
For twisted tongues; false wars; fallen heroes
Cry for the human race
Our humanity diminished; saviours forgotten; roots trodden
Cry for the human race
For the learned are lost; politicians thwarted
Cry for the human race
Centuries of apprenticeship; lessons unlearned
Cry for the human race
As Mother gives up her bounty; her tears run dry
Cry for the human race
As whales breach and cliffs stand in glory
Cry for the human race
For we cannot see our reflection
Cry for the Cherubs, for they are lost to mankind.
Tick, tuck the clock is ticking,
Time wasting to much debating,
Cultures dividing people hating,
Nation crumbling Politician’s bawling.
Youths rampaging mothers crying,
Cash decreasing poverty rising,
Fathers departing children waiting,
Communities uniting parties deciding.
Quick fix job wanted education needed,
Discipline crucial apprenticeship essential,
Change necessary walls collapsing,
Growth dormant economy crying.
It's conventional thinking unravelled,
Waiting on the horns of a dilemma
With brand new ideas : the road less travelled,
Takes me back to sixty-five – the summer.
Exams completed, leaving school behind,
I took a different route from friends and peers.
Engineering was what I had in mind
Instead of academic based careers.
An ad. in local paper caught my eye :
“Electrical Apprenticeship. 5-year
Sandwich Course, Electricity Supply”,
Leading to electrical engineer.
Yes. I took a less frequented pathway
And followed it to where I am today.
I remember living in one room dingy and dire
with old lino on its rotting wooden floor.
I remember crystallised spit dangling from guard at the fire;
as mother cleaned, he'd only honk the more.
I recall how we went hungry, waiting for the paltry sum
he allowed us for board and keep, the cheap fink,
and how he served apprenticeship to becoming a true bum
by treating as priorities his fags and drink.
I remember all the rows he caused demanding back the cash
which was supposed to feed and clothe his we’ans
I remember every Christmas morn' the gifts received were trash
because he'd pissed the present-money down the drain.
I recall one awful night my mother hunting high and low
with a hungry bedraggled child on either hand,
she finally catching that boozy stinker sate in the Dungloe.
How he fumed, outraged that food she dared demand.
I remember his begrudgement of those sparse few days away–
one hour upon the beach or at the fair:
how just when we were relaxing would be dragged from play.
Homeward-bound: him the ‘bookies', us despair.
I remember trudging up to Creggan to the ‘Housing Place'
every week with mother and sister, come rain or hail,
and how that worthless, selfish, monster did not even have the grace
to commend her dedication, instead railed.
I can picture his expression when she got herself a job,
determined not to lose her new clean home.
I remember his wild tantrums when she'd saved up for a hob–
the delivery man was perplexed at oral foam.
I remember those miserable times as if they were today,
how he made odd help with homework living hell–
so that now a friend's assistance, however gracefully
put, grates my tortured psyche so much I cannot tell.
When we started working, my sister dear and I,
it seemed for him a licence to give less.
Many weeks he'd keep house-money and, as the months went by,
we discovered he'd drunk the rent; that was a mess.
So now sot has retired, and it seems his mind has gone–
for he's telling all how great he was those years:
he built house on the prairie. He was such a con:
the only thing he constructed was a legacy of fear.
Ardent galleon cutting foamy high tide
Each sliver born to venture yet farther
Captain and lady, stout crew by their side,
Still hailed by stalled gray frigate in harbor
You’re bailing water again, foundering
Says the unsubtle, frantic semaphore
Wan efforts to stay afloat floundering
Desperate colors, guilt cannot ignore
Ours not the only ship with billowed sails
Sure hands ride in closer proximity
Yet only our craft you insist to hail
Another failure for your litany
Ere, as your crew, began my sailing craft
On fair seas, through inky nights’ frozen rain
How could I surmise, you color me daft,
My apprenticeship owes eternal chains?
Leaks in careworn hull not of our making
A Dramamine rerun, your sophistry
To sail in your wake, sadly mistaken
Your dry dock is not our trajectory
5/9/16
© Thomas W. Quigley
Chiraq
Date: Sun, Nov 15 2015 at 9:22 PM
("Killings")
("Victims")
"Imprisoned"
Highest ("Statistics")
In the ("System")
And of ("Disease")
Feeding the belly of the Beast "Obese"
Separated from Fathers & "Mothers"
Become "Hustlers"
Of the Streets Become "Brothers"
They Judge US by "Colors"
Only rightfully Almighty God Judge Can "Conduct"
"Poverty"
"Animosities"
Against the "Society"
Of the "Rivalries"
"Fighting" amongst Each "Other"
Mothers "Crying"
City "Dying"
Children in the City caught into "Violence"
Police "Sirens"
Ambulances "Flying"
To the scene "Outlining"
Of the Innocent "Lying"
Guilty of the Choices "Decided"
Drugs, & Guns "Imported"
From the "Forces"
To Openly "Extorting"
In the Man's "Voyage" Of "Torrents"
College "Tuitions" an "Unemployment"
Not Enough "Fruition" in the Schools Educational "Fulfilment"
I'm Speaking of Knowledge & "Wisdom"
Not in Texts "Written"
An History or Historic "Recipients"
It's Books "Written" of Historic "Apprenticeship"
"Inventions" Etcetera "Printed"
But in schools today not "Descended"
Math, Science, Reading, (Language) "Arts"
Speaking a "Language"
"Nameless"
to say isn't the "Hearth"
Of a "Nation" Created from the "Arch"
Of Gods "Blueprints"
It's not Blue's Clues to find the Blue "Scripts"
The (Media's) "Encyclopedias"
Is "Onamotopoedia"
Same Sound repeating the Image of the "Deceivers"
Amongst the ("Receivers")
Gangs, Sets, "Organizations"
Built on ("Foundations")
Amongst the Creation of the ("Nation")
That has been "Forsaken"
This the life "Chose"
Of ("Those")
Generations from Generations ("Rose")
Pray for a Change but I'll never "See" it
Because we Endangered Species in Existence upon ("Extinction")
I Hate Chicago an the World for number of ("Reasons")
I ain't on the Outside looking ("In")
Looking from Both sides of the ("Tent")
I ("Vent")
Is life all that has to offer to ("Exist")?
Edward ( Bud ) Atfield
Brother / Uncle
There is little to inspire this,
a day of reflection, but loads of hope.
There is a brother / uncle I will miss,
who has reached the end of life’s rope.
At the end of the Grim Reapers noose
his spirit, his soul to be free – let loose.
Time passed – eighty three years- age and cancer
have now taken their toll, he now knows the answer.
The time has come, to leave for changes
as his life’s flow, ebbs and rearranges
it’s atoms, it’s energy, it’s essence, it’s meaning,
to find all, in the new, that he will be feeling.
I am, oh so sorry that I will not be there
to say goodbye, offer best wishes as you fly
off to places far beyond the sight of these blind eyes
as we stare off into the blackness of, we know not where ?
I see where you once stood, standing before us, in our
memories hoard, now and forever more, during this hour.
I fondly remember your mentorship,
emulating, to be a mechanic, my apprenticeship.
I fondly remember the hours we drank, did talk.
In – but not all – your footsteps I tried to walk.
Love Bill .
B. J. “A ” 2
April 7th 2004
Those that went before him
Were promised an orphan
By the brutality of the elements
The pestilence of society
They were the pleaders of history
The wounded veterans
Of internecine strife
Victims of little prejudices
Whose faith in the probable
Had been shattered
By those profound revelations
Woe the iron-bound skeptics
When he- a dreamy scholar
Intellectual in times before
It was fashionable to be a freethinker
Bulldozed the great rock
Against those false morals
And put up a philosophical defence
To release the human mind
From the shackles of centuries
Of directional misguidance
They- with inspired confidence
And (one might say)
Controlled reflex
Drew a smile as from a catalogue
Oh there was life in that smile
And leaning on the years
Found intellectual companionship
In makeshift ingenuity
He battled selfishly
Against those callous endearments
And sentimental mountebank sporting
Not on musical instruments
But on people’s obnoxious egotism…
You might think
This anonymous sage
Earned a medal:
There were demonstrations of affection
Tempered with epileptic passion
And resistant impulse
But his social corpse
Could not be sustained by precedent
And was soon ousted
By those immortal phrases
About humane civilization
His roving energetic mind
Pregnant with unexpressed thought
All those volumes of memory
Delineated by consternation-
Withdrew from mother’s apprenticeship
Into mazy fairylands
To spend eternity.
No longer at work
now in retirement
having worked since school
many a task I was sent
Began apprenticeship with electrics
blew a fuse I'm colour blind
then work in sweetie store
before redundancy not too kind
Worked in many a warehouse
looking after many a stock
from food to clothes
kept busy no time to talk
Made redundant again last year
decided to take a rest
believe it's well earned
after giving my very best
poetgord@2013
When I was young I thought I thought I could Fly,
Off the roof of the garage without a jet pack.
Life experience taught me different.
But even when only four I knew I could not get to the top of the garage,
Without a ladder or a helping hand from someone six foot plus.
Not so for the latest generation of,
Wanna be high flyers,
Who think they can fly to the top of the money tree,
By bypassing the bottom rung of the ladder,
Metaphorically speaking, of course,
As most, have never been up a ladder in reality, in their life.
Anyone pushing seventy or beyond,
Will most likely remember that few got to the top of the money tree,
In their chosen field,
Without serving some sort of apprenticeship,
Which required stepping on to the bottom of a ladder,
Both, metaphorically and physically.
There are few among us who have no sympathy,
Or respect for teachers, if we are not still in school,
And there is no doubting the stress they are under.
But when In NZ the teachers have rejected a pay rise,
That would see a teacher starting on only $1.99 above the,
New Minimum Wage,
I say only, as for most who served apprenticeships had high hopes,
Of one day earning $1.99 an hour.
And most did and much more over time.
Some of us even decided to change on a change of career,
And you guessed it,
Another apprenticeship and back down the ladder we went,
Never for a moment did we think we could fly to the top of the money tree,
Without a jet pack,
Or a winning streak at the races.
Having served an apprenticeship both metaphorically and physically speaking
Having switched from the printing trade to Early childhood teaching,
Having been up and down ladders Metaphorically and physically speaking,
Having been in and out of sight of the top of the money tree,
Metaphorically and physically speaking.
And as I stand here in sight of the top of the tree of life experience,
Metaphorically physically speaking,
I can see the money tree is getting taller by the year,
And most will have lost their hair before they get anywhere near.
So, with all that life experience under my belt,
I feel quite entitled to ask,
Where did we go wrong?
Who failed whom?
And who stole all the ladders?
Both physically and metaphorically speaking, of course.
A few of the famous had their preferences. Jack
Kerouac went on the road with his Underwood early thirties
portable Royal Standard. Isak Dinesen, the Danish Dinosaur,
(said with love, she was my hero) used a 1918 Corona No. 3
to serve up "Babette's Feast". An Underwood Standard
Portable was William Faulkner's choice. And, Hemingway?
A portable feast, He! He chose The Corona #3.
Mine was a plain old ordinary Royal, circa 1947,
punched with vigor on its stepladder keys in typing class
under the watchful eye of Ms. Marguerite, whose
married sister shared an infatuation with my wildly handsome
teenage brother. Though no suspicious spouse aborted
his apprenticeship of love, brother and I--Thank you
Republic of Korea-- were tapped by Fate. Off to the Navy,
dallying sibling, while I, young wife two years out of school,
bereft of spouse, my life in limbo, honed my craft
under the Sisters of Saint Joseph (those voluminous
black birds) on hot summer afternoons in
a second-story convent classroom.
In the courtyard below, lantana bloomed,
buzzing with the adoration of bees, and butterflies
flew free from the straitjackets of their cocoons
to an unfettered life, like me, the Army wife.
Korea, being my betrothed.
We slum dwellers strive through arduous thistles of hardship
We tough it out through the mere adroitness of apprenticeship
We writhe morosely, carrying the world over our shoulders
But we tussle toughly the travails like soldiers
We're the slaves that bolster the aplomb of the upper crust
The hapless mendicants whose ascendancy the haves must thrust
The loyal ignoramuses that politicians use for their puissances
The impoverished natives the government uses to seek aid for its juissances
The kooky denizens that researchers scrutinate as a case study
The inane old guard whom the civilized take as nerdy
We sleep like foiled wolves and wake like champion lions
We carouse in our wobbly shanties like they're our Zions
We wade through the filthy excrement as our daily tracks
These afflict no more, for we've in vain raised our flacks
We accept to be the encumbrances the society discard to roaming sellers
But we know behind the hurdles what we dream, we slum dwellers
Battle of the Sexes
Date: Tue, Jan 19 2016 at 1:14 PM
He's not just Battling her Mind, Heart, but Spirit
Her Heart & Mind, and Soul to Triggering
If there's any Conflictions, Afflictions, To Endearing
Her Soul, Heart & Mind to Cheer Within
Through Her Flaws & Blemishes
To Love her Unconditioned
To Listen
More than Talking to Offering Apprenticeship
Fulfilling her Heart, Soul, & Mind Wishes
Of Love Continuous
In One with God as The Union in Unison Blending
As One in this Chemist Mixing
to An Ingredient Sufficient
Through Differences
Through this Love Commission
Stimulating
Motivating
Insinuating
Amazement
For her Beauty Radiating
Within her Heart Generating
And Soul Illuminating
Her Mind Designated
Through Trials & Tribulations
Temptations
Frustrations
Satan
And Treacherous Persuasions
For the Love to Be Undertaken
By the Satanist
Patience
And Being Patient
Through the Storms Facing
HAND in Hand Consolidated
Being Gracious
In the Love that Was Formulated
Respecting Her Mind, Soul, Body
Being Truthful in Honesty
Even if it's through Poverty
In this Wicked Economy
Two Anamolies
Two Souls Embodied
In One Another Commonly
Pushing Her towards Greatness to Be Greater
Making Her Breathless
Bringing Life through Kisses through the Breath Or Wind
Till the Last kiss has to Be Savored
Battle of The Sexes
Sans Whole Body Out Of Country Transplant
hmm...methinks mebbe aye
can empty the ocean
one teaspoon at time bine bye
and after about
a bajillion years cry
tears of joy, when mine
petrified organs of sight decry
solid sea floor to mud dill
across to Iceland eye
would readily forsake
United States citizenship,
and buzzfeed akin to a human fly
hooping genuine emotional
physical, or spiritual
philanthropic gratuity
could be accepted
'pon being bequeathed
from this guy
'course after friendly
bantering initiated with "hi"
and once settling upon lingua franca
as modus operandi
this wholesome casual
conversant chap would appeal
himself as (non GMO gluten, and
monosodium glutamate free) bonemeal
suitable *****sapien reserved
quite pleasingly congenial
to shake hands after
mutual agreement reached,
whereby roundly accepted
apprenticeship contractual stipulations
understood asper "Art of the deal,"
an awesomely empyreal
corroborate burning man
Matthew Scott Harris
in effigy "FAKE"
immolation funereal
faux "cremation ashes"
topped with goldenseal
thee initial process
to detox and psychologically heal
from Trump Bite US strain A
(or alternate spelling
D. trump pen lumpen throat
or a similar
facsimile concocted "FAKE"
illness thereof - NOT IDEAL
for man, woman, or child,
who quickly become fodder material
(a bio-hazard devastating
entire folks future generations genetics)
symptoms easily mis
taken for nasopharyngeal
infection, where optimal
cure comprises bland oatmeal
with jelly beans, thus I app peal
to provide sanctuary else this real
threat to life and limb
will find me to suffer fools
unless via quaffing hemlock
rigor mortis from grim reaper ICE steal!