Growing up with
You get what you got
You better be grateful
You weren't forgot
The South is unforgiving
The heart better be stout
If you show intelligence
You're booted out
Can't have thinkin' minds
Upsetting the cart on its way
Target children are carefully picked
For dumping what parts won't play
You can never expect care
And you better forget consideration
Your own birthday won't give you cake
But your presence is required for participation
Scarcity and sluggish movement
In the process of growing fruit
Gives every pawn a small portion
In accordance with what the person is willing to do
...for Leftovers
Written by Trudy Schrader on 09-24-2026
The Earth Awoke in White — Winter
Kevin Davis 2024
One day my air began to change—
A chill swept through my fields and range.
My creatures stirred, their work begun,
To face the cold that would soon come.
Crystals formed on tree and grass,
Along the roads they gathered en masse.
The snow—a wonder, white and cold,
Soft to the touch, a sight to behold.
Some creatures slept through winter’s call—
Bears and bats in slumber’s thrall.
Others stayed with food in store,
Warm and safe behind their door.
But children stepped from cozy dens,
In coats and gloves with booted friends.
They built snow people, carved with glee,
Snow angels bright with purity.
They built snow forts, their laughter rang,
While frozen winds around them sang.
And when the cold bit through their skin,
They hurried home to warmth within.
Winter brought school days, holidays bright,
Decorations gleamed through frosted night.
Yet quietly I waited for winter to thaw,
For new life stirring beneath my law.
It’s 6.43am,
I’m awaiting my train.
I tune into the station,
Listening to the invisible spring birds
Belting a Beltane call and response;
A syncopation in freewheeling jazz tracks.
Dipperty-dee, dipperty-dar,
Dipperty-dee, dipperty-dar,
I alight the shining lines,
Slide into my seat.
Watch the sun seep up and over rooves,
The rumble and tumble of the dustbin lorry,
Barking dogs,
People in a hurry,
Mobile but fixated by scrolling truths -
Reels of what's new, what's circumstantial,
And rolling news of worlds financial.
Woo-ah woo!
I'm borrowed fleeting glances
Of dolls house windows of toy town houses,
The click and flick of kettles
As the busyness of the new day blinks in.
Full steam ahead!
Clickerty-click, clickety-clack,
Clickety-click, clickety-clack.
Then a pause.
A beeperty-beep, and a whoosh of the doors
As they slide open.
An improvisation of passengers board,
Spilling into the carriages with costa-lot coffees,
Half full.
Commuting, suited and booted into the city.
Electricity!
With a murmuration, they're away from the station.
Dipperty-dee, dipperty-dar,
Dipperty-dee, dipperty-dar,
These evangelical rendered words
From Shamsur Rahman
Joe, I am nobody known to you. I am somebody simply likewise soaring to the tapestry skyline with this harbinger song of mine bridging the gap, the song merging with your orator keynote
soaring once more.
Joe, when the whiplash sound cuts through your skin
your blistering aching skin
They, their laughter and louder
the civilization and the throwback scar.
Their booted hills dehumanize you, spine bone an afflicted offensive
Then the sand and the humankind carved a nomenclature, pensive.
Joe, when they dumped you beside the garbage can, in late hours
with conveyor news about you, tied in blue, the mayhem mimicry
bursting seventh floor forecasting an awe of pain
for a picked up self , to beside a forthcoming homecoming reign.
Even though I never met you Joe
These evangelical rendered words and your pondering lookout
a face with a pensive shade of an awe, on and on
an imagism of a motif , foretelling a long saga of strife
in Asia, Africa and Latin America, all encompassing, Joe!
(I have no rush)
For a century and more
the socialist drumbeat and march
Workers of the world unite
no more capitalist oligarchs
Bloody Soviet-style communism under Vladimir Lenin
gave way to mass murderer, Iosif Stalin
The Weimar Republic fell before ‘enlightened socialism’
swiftly changing to jack-booted Nazi fascism
Cuba’s revolution, North Korea’s, the Viet Cong’s
O, Civilization, where has the world gone wrong
Today we see misery in Venezuela, Pakistan and Iran
Repeating the tragedy of China’s Mao Zedong
For a century and more, the socialist drumbeat and march
food deserts abounding, humanity’s throats dry and parched
There was a time when fire was sacred
We used it to cook, to warm, to speak to the dark together.
Now that same fire circles the world in silence
Sleeping beneath oceans of space
Dreaming of command... each nation whispering ‘safety’
Yet forgetting warmth forever.
We touch the flame again...
To prove we can still... feel
The race is not between nations; it is between consciousness
Silencing collapsing under booted heel.
___*___
When meaning fades, spectacle takes its place
Screens hum, elders vanish, stories thin to noise, leaving little trace.
Yet one ember still glows... The will to Pause, to care.
Or, must we go back again on a tyrant’s dare.
Light is not lost; it only waits for hands that remember…
Before the next siren, the next test, the next flame... bursting from embers.
Stop… Remember what first fire was for…
Then light your life for warmth again
As better learnèd men.
the buzzing was abnormally loud
I thought it was a giant super bee
Possibly manufactured by North Korea
My eyes took a few seconds to find it
She was fast moving
The largest hummingbird I have ever seen
I tried to take a video of her
but she disappeared before my phone booted up
sign outside of this restaurant says
I got booted from the coffee club
because I wore a tea-shirt
Who thinks up this stuff?
And why haven’t I heard it before?
I thought I had heard all of these cutesy petootsie sayings.
Guess not.
BACK TO SCHOOL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In August, young Sam felt quite cool,
with a backpack, he headed to school.
He packed up some peanuts,
and a few silly musical cuts,
in his lunchbox then thought, “Aren’t I a jewel?!”
His classmates all chuckled and cheered,
as he whispered, “I’m ready, don’t fear!”
With a pencil in paw,
he scribbled with awe,
“Math’s nuts! Let’s eat lunch, I declare!”
The teacher, the scholarly Miss Owl, hooted,
“Pay attention, Sam, or to office you’ll be booted.”
But he daydreamed of the oak trees,
and the buzzing of sweet honeybees,
while plotting his next acorn loot.
While I was at work my yards were busy
a nameless, white flower plucked
from my front garden
lay on the brick shelf by the gate
wrapped in cream silk
its stem inserted
into a (dry) plastic flower tube
A gift set down in forgetfulness
or just discarded
While out the back a soft touch indoor football
orange against the fake grass
lost and over wall booted
Beret shaped and brushed
Trousers pressed, bulled shoes,
Booted and suited for
Eighty years old news.
Victory in Europe
End of a long haul
Time to celebrate
And reflect on it all.
Not a full peace though,
For three months more
Fighting continued
In the Pacific War,
Finished by an event to
Separate future from past,
The devastation caused
By that first nuclear blast.
Eighty years later most
Of those Veterans gone
As the world in its way
Has managed to carry on.
Uncertain days now,
Imperialism raising its head
And in spite of all the effort
Fascism isn’t quite dead.
Beret shaped and brushed,
Blazer and trousers pressed
Well bulled shiny shoes
Medals displayed on chest,
Fully booted and suited
We’ll stand on parade
In hope for the future and
To honour sacrifices made.
Was it a clash, a scrimmage or an attack?
The warrior was speechless; his name was Max
Did they carry armor? Did they throw you down?
Did it happen in the woods or in London town?
Were they wearing colors? Did they have banners too?
Were they booted up or did they wear a tennis shoe?
Did they wear crowns or hats? Did they carry shields?
Max ran off screaming toward Wrigley Fields.
Some of them are living ghosts,
they have buried their roots
under newer foundations,
or they still live anonymously
under a rock of poverty.
If you asked me to name them
I could not, for they all had names
too similar to mine.
The whole street,
all its doors and windows,
its narrow-broken pavements
have been obliterated by the nazis
or the iron booted rent collectors.
Postwar postmen have no addresses
to slot through.
In my mind
is a diorama of a history
that I missed by being born late,
yet the street knew me before I knew it.
Now the ghosts are dying one by one.
Those that left the street
to become pink and abundant
were happy to be alive for a while,
as I was,
until inevitably
the diorama turned into a carousel
of long gray sunsets.
Yellow above the dredged-up earth.
hard hats, husky men
bent on constructive destruction,
Brush burning,
they flame throw their wands of
progress.
It all has to be done, done to be mended,
done to be done with.
Nature got too messy,
it overgrew its concrete margins,
it got above our work-booted
aspirations.
Clean-up crews sweep and press
against the head-on-winds
of a riotous environment.
Steel, hammers the seeded mud
crushing it of any taint of green.
Everyone knows this is obscene,
lips and ears must be temporarily closed
like the bleak roads ahead
and those dug over
below our feet.
Not merely rejected
Violently ejected
Booted out of the house and over the hill
Family is relieved she is down there still
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