The rain is drumming on the rooftop,
tomorrow the river will flood.
The morning news spews outrage
about sewage in the Potomac,
apropos somehow.
Epstein
Iran
Tariffs
Democrats
Republicans
Jesus saves,
maybe not.
LIFE is full of memorable moments:
My brother died
my cousin died
my friend died
my classmate died~
Seconds tick by silently
as my elderly mother
waits to die.
My life is remarkably unmemorable
and that’s okay…
It's not
as if you have
a choice in the matter,
but if you leave a poem it's
enough.
88.
My 17th Leaf
Culled thee from new plant
Obvious ‘coz house new
And height still a foot
Though can grow meter
Here it's called “pasaw”
By Ozaraga
Father – school admin
Mother – professor
Daughter –ex-classmate
They're seven members
Third day January
This day Twenty Twelve
Third day of the year
Of Water Dragon
About 12 PM
Beside bamboo fence
Outside to open
Along a path walk
Near its native gate
Aligned with same kind
Just there to have lunch
With Ma'am Diday, Angie
Ma'am Beth and others
New Year left-overs
But Anne was not there.
-01/03/2012
(Dumarao)
*My Toladas Collection
Used to love to ‘thumb rides’
‘til in a hippie bus a classmate died
His body chopped to pieces
~ no more need for father’s speeches
Alone, I could see the lights
strung on top of Mercy Hospital
from anywhere
in the northside of Davenport
the reds and blues and greens
and I believed there was magic.
I was a senior in high school
out for a drive
in my mom’s Mustang at night
and A Kind of Hush
played on the radio.
A Kind of Hush
played on the radio
a hit for the season
a song about love.
I dated someone one year ago
and knew the touch of a kiss
but didn’t know love—
I could only imagine.
I passed the house
where Marcia, a classmate, lived.
Her dark blue Vega was parked in the driveway,
and I thought it was so cool.
I’d seen her in the hallway
by the cafeteria at school
many times, but I never found a way
to talk to her.
I looked to the skies
and could still see those lights
as I found my way.
When the song ended
I turned off the radio
but the song resonated
as the tires sung.
Every time I sat down to write you a poem
Don't know why but my lines couldn't catch its rhythm,
All these years I have been sharing my feelings through my words,
But when it comes to you I don't know why my vocab couldn't find the letter you deserve,
After a long thinking I finally found some,
Just read it cause talking to you kind of makes my heart feels numb,
Whenever I put a story one or two
Sometimes just sometimes it's directed to you,
I tried really hard to ignore you whenever you were around
Cause little did you know it's your eyes that made me want to drown,
Minutes after minutes my eyes searched the room for you
Deep down wishing you see me too,
I don't think you remember sending hearts to my poem one day,
But that simple gesture is something I still can't forget anyway,
I wanted to confess but a part of me believed you didn't think of me more than a classmate
Call me hopeful but I still think meeting you was somewhere written in our fate,
All I wished a little time with you or a few talks more
To say a couple of words I couldn't say before,
But now it feels the words are better off left unsaid,
Cause we both have a separate beautiful journey ahead,
When I grow up I want to be a mommy Lucy said.
I want to be a TV salesman said our classmate Ed
I want to be TOP CAT, I told them, in absolute glee
He was the most self-assured confident guy on TV
“When you’re blamed and shamed for something you didn’t do,
remember the one who looks out for you, He knows the truth”
Long ago when I was in junior school
I was made to look a ludicrous fool
A note was passed around, from desk to desk
Guess who got the blame when it came to rest.
It was me of course, teacher called me out
I got the blame for handing the note out
The culprit never owned up, he or she
And no one at all came forward for me.
The note said that so and so loved someone
The names on the note from mind have long gone
Deep down I knew that teacher disliked me
It was how she spoke to me nastily.
Too shy to say what I needed to say
On that horrid embarrassing school day
Not one classmate spoke up in my defence
The instigator had no penitence.
That teacher picked on me for any thing
She didn't care how much her brusque words could sting
So I was tarnished with the blame and shame
If only I had that time back again.
Teachers are sure to be fully aware
Some pupils are in need of tender care
Living their lives already traumatised
Needing love and not to be stigmatised.
You were too late
I'm no longer a classmate
You're debating to donate
Or leave me to deteriorate
Strongly articulated and voiceless
Crumble my mental fortress
Delved into the depths of fortis and rigor mortis
I don't understand where the lack of thought is
You were too late
Now its nothing to debate
Postmortem in your hand
Now you're new to analysand
There's one difference, you can't do when im dead
Put two new bullets in my same old head
Drag me by the ankles to your safe haven
Sadly the deterioration may hasten
Doll with an incredibly snarly blue mood
Gave us a horrible, nasty, surly attitude.
I thought she was pretty, but not today.
Said many people, who did not want to stay.
Her mother had invited us to her birthday party.
There were six of us, and none ate hearty.
We felt sick at the way she treated us.
Never again! Said my classmate, Gus.
From time to time sets a bait,
Her patience she makes sure wait;
Over issues would she skate:
In sweet words the tempting state
And seek to mask thy sad fate!
It is not spurious her bet;
Her marked gift is a glass plate:
Something surely at real stake;
Time for you to right steps take,
Kate's to-be-voiced favors fake!
So, now it's clearly a bait,
You should not naively wait.
Kate you meet for an asked date
But sure make you are damned late,
Never using her front gate...
If, at last, it proved a bait,
'Very poor' should men rate Kate.
You to stop calling her classmate
You once borrowed her black slate...
Also ripe time to Kate hate...
A classmate brought a gun to school
Back when my son was six.
He showed it to some friends,
Which brought a teacher to the mix.
The loaded weapon was removed;
The police, of course, were called.
The news made all the papers
And the parents were appalled.
The child was transferred; no one
Ever heard from him again
And fortunately, nobody
Was shot or hurt back then.
Yet just this week, another boy,
His mom’s gun in his hand,
Shot his first grade teacher in the chest;
How can we understand?
The news reports said no one
Of that age did that before,
But that classmate of my son’s way back
Can only underscore
How we’ll never learn that guns in homes
Quite simply don’t belong
And allowing access to a child
Is criminally wrong.
you wanna go home, you wanna stay lone. You think they will bully you, but that’s rarely true.
Give them a chance, not just a glance, oooooooooooooooh oooooooooooooooh ooh ooh ooooh,
Your classmate is your friend, they won’t suspend you that’s way too untrue.
Oooooooooooh oooooooooooooooh.
When you cry, they’ll pacify you, when your sad they’ll make you glad Oooooooooooh ooh. if you jump and fall, they’ll help you climb the wall oooh.
Your friend will be your friend until the end, until the end, until the end.
I remember this classmate of mine in the middle school,
to the clutch of cancer early on he lost his father,
the destitute family cart his mother was forced to pull,
and the cloud of trying times in stormy sky he saw gather.
The study expenses they found difficult to meet,
so, from the school he thought of dropping out,
but his reassuring mother said he should never do it,
for she would soon find the way out, without any doubt.
He had no idea what that incredible way could be,
sure of mother’s confidence, he didn’t lose sleep over it,
for he knew his mother would do her best to see
her bright son finished the school study with credit.
He woke up in the middle of one sultry summer night,
found his mother’s bed empty, not slept on.
When this happened routinely night after night
he decided to find out where she could’ve gone.
He went out to explore on one night sweltering hot,
saw from the antique room a streak of light seep,
he found she was stitching there cloth bags in a lot,
sweat dripping from forehead on her eyes sagged in sleep.
________________________
February 17, 2022
Contest : The Sweat Shop
Sponsored by : Kai Michael Neumann
She is stranger than I the little girl informed her mother.
Her name is Jaycee, and she is funny, and she likes me.
Her mother was thrilled that Samantha had a friend.
It had been a long time coming.
She had made it to third grade without any real friends.
Jaycee says this, Jayce does that. Jayce wants to…..
Jaycee, Jaycee, Jaycee……. and so, it went.
Samantha was incredibly happy with this classmate.
Conferences were held in October.
Samantha’s mother mentioned Jaycee to the teacher.
Expressing how glad she was that Samantha had a friend.
The teacher said they had no one in the class named Jaycee.
Samantha’s mother described her – blonde hair, blue eyes.
Pigtails, and she likes wearing a pink shirt with a unicorn.
The teacher showed Samantha a photo of her daughter the next day.
You look so cute in this photo! Samantha said to the chair next to her.
Jaycee had died in an automobile accident ten years before.
She had been eight and was in the third grade.
Zero Tolerance is a prime example
Of the all-too common phenomenon
Of weasel words -words are words
designed to limit critical thinking
they sound good but they limit
one’s ability to see the real truth
behind the lie
George Orwell would be shocked
To see these double think words everywhere
Zero tolerance leads to zero common sense
When every infraction of the rules
Becomes a class A felony
Where a ten-year can be charged
With felony drug dealing
For offering a classmate a Tylenol
Under Zero tolerance for drug dealing
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