Long Schoolhouse Poems

In the heart where your naivety resides
you wonder what haunts the sun
and why pain enjoys your childhood eyes,
when you see warm blood run
then you know that death can color
and like you, death loves a dramatic...

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Kentucky's late summer sunshine
sunk deep into their skin
as the boy rode on the back
of his Grandfather's coppered horse,
the tobacco harvest would begin soon,
aromas of sweet leaf darkness
were wafting in the field heat,
to the big barn...

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GUNSHOT WOUND TO THE HEART 


From a two-room schoolhouse high on a hill over the Fundy Bay, I sat at an old wooden desk daydreaming. The ink stains and etchings which were dug deep into...

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"Present!"

It's a lackluster answer (1) to simple life question,
"Hi! How is it going Mom? You feel OK?"
She was lonely for sure, saw no chance of a rescue,
She fought for her kids, though art dreams went...

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If you're passing by Soup Creek our peace loving town
Do pay us a visit but wear a big smile not a frown
Our town is open to everybody all colours and creed
But check in your guns...

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Grandma’s Hands


You wish me plenty good things
Your safe travels and good fortune 
I rightly claim 

Your purpose and plan you’ve acclaimed
Your poise and gentle grace , angelic 

Your only spoon of rice you gave your...

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"My mind was once the true survey,

Of all these meadows fresh and gay,

And in the greenness of the grass,

Did see its hopes as in a glass..."
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Windswept village,

Ancient 1836,

Tornado torn,

Blasted to bits.

 

Here is the...

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I remember you holding me in your arms
Rocking me gently while singing lullabies

I remember when you lived a short walk away
Relatives were local and get-togethers were the norm
I remember your amazing purple mohair sweater
You knit...

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There’s a bluestone building near the Calder, east of Castlemaine,
One hundred yards back off the highway, beyond a tree filled lane. 
For one hundred years this building stood alone at Faraday
serving as the schoolhouse where,...

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Prognosticating Present Plight...
Perhaps Preset During In Utero Protean Stage?

Reviewing, sans my life
and arduous hard time
lock, stock, and barrel on regular basis,
and of late composing
this, that, or another rhyme,

now I acquiesce past 
trials and tribulations
contributed positive,...

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In our leisurely drive across the country one of our delights
was an old school house in Nebraska…where we were blessed to spend the night.

We were already in the middle of nowhere….when ‘turn here’ our GPS...

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UP THE VALLEY

            The road up the valley that time forgot.
            In fifty...

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Take me for a stroll down your memory lane, when you were but a girl,
Tell me about grandfather, and how back then it was a completely different world.
Tell me about grandma and the things she...

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You’ve been walking down that dusty road,
for what seems like a country mile
Kicking the can with nary a smile
Headed for the schoolhouse,
you and your companion
A bus rolls by ... there’s a lot of dark faces
peering...

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Today, meandering through the clutter of the local antique store,
I almost tripped and fell over an object partially hidden on the floor!
My hands came to rest on an old-fashioned school desk sitting there.
It reminded me...

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June has arrived-at last it is summer'
I'm up with the sun,(tho' in class I did slumber.)
But unlike others in that schoolhouse mob,
I can't be bothered to look for a summertime job.

Each day my buddy and...

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A canopy of innocence, invisible to me
hung over playful joy shielding all that would come to be.
The world was mud and grass and trees, oh, puddles,swings and bikes
shrieking, shouting, rampant running anywhere we liked.
A watchful...

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When you are rich you can do what you please
Building and naming stuff what you may.
So when Ford decided to build his own church
he named it Martha-Mary chapel one day

In 1923, he purchased 3,000 acres...

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Not safe in God’s House
In trouble at the Schoolhouse
In danger at the White House
Especially, in our own house
We’re hunted like the old time
Prosecuted
And persecuted
Like breathing was a crime.

Too much racial hatred
This is a new, new...

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Some children won’t be around this Christmas
Their families still locked in the throes of grief
The holiday season will continue with briskness
But they’ll find no solace, no respite, no relief.

Their families still locked in the throes...

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A soggy teddy bear
lay on the shoulder of the highway—
head twisted, limbs askew,
its damp fur clinging to gravel
and its sightless eyes beseeching heaven.
I watched from the backseat,
wondering if it was dropped in sorrow
or thrown in...

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The Empty Academy Schoolhouse

It stands on a vast green lot,
No trees to shelter it from heavy, gray clouds
on the rolling foothill horizon.
Its thin coat of white paint peels,
revealing bare, dry-rotted wood.
The rickety porch boards,
once sturdy...

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He lifted invisible horses
One fever-burnt son kept hallucinating
In bed beside him;
Picked them up and carried them downstairs and out the door
To soothe the boy.
He had the strength for that, 
My father's father did.

  ...

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Gently sloping emerald hills, 
Old, gray fences brightened by daffodils,
Majestic trees ready to burst into bloom,
Strangers smiling and waving at me.
That’s my Kentucky.

Gleaming horses peacefully grazing
Behind white fences,
Old, leaning barns speaking of tobbacco and history,
Spring...

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I grew up in a very small town,
A small town in which I still live,
A town where even my parents grew up,
A town for which all I would give.

Down on the corner, the small barber...

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