Leaving School Poems | Examples
These Leaving School poems are examples of School poems about Leaving. These are the best examples of School Leaving poems written by international poets.
~ Based on the song, "What Did You Learn in School
Today?" written by Tom Paxton; popularized by
Pete Seeger ~
What did you learn in school today, son
What did they teach in school
I learned how to protest my country, Dad
They taught me that violence pays
What class did you learn that in, my son
Do you remember the teacher’s name
I learned that in Geometry, Dad
And my teacher’s Mr. Uppin Flames
Why you leaving the house now, son
Not ‘til your homework’s done
My assignment’s to attend a protest rally
Hey, Dad ~ Can I borrow your gun
Oh, what did you learn in school today
What did the teacher say
I learned how to protest the US of A
My teacher said violence pays
Twenty-four days before Christmas in 1958 there was a huge fire
at Our Lady of the Angels, a Catholic grade school in Chicago
Eighty-seven children and three nuns died in this fire.
One of the children who passed was Mary’s little sister, Karen.
She was to be a first grader forever.
Mary was in the fourth grade at the time.
Mary spent years trying to forget that day, the worst day ever.
The frantic nuns, the commotion, the smoke, the frenzy.
Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting on the sidewalk across the street.
Watching the school burn up, wondering where Karen was.
A sister who never came home.
Mary felt shame for leaving her.
She had wanted to run in there and rescue Karen.
But the adults restrained her.
Her family waited for hours hoping for a miracle.
Watching the front door, praying Karen would walk inside.
She never did.
Eighty-six other children did not return home either.
Probably led to heaven by the three nuns.
This morning we jogged early
I was back in my flat by six-thirty
From my tenth floor view of the Charles River basin,
The morning was incandescently flushed by the peach-colored sun.
The transparent clouds seemed stylistically stained, artfully workshopped,
which offered a softened, Tiffany glass effect wholly worthy of worship.
I can’t stop to admire it. I’m jamming things into suitcases.
Cramming things into boxes, giving things away.
I had a second interview Monday afternoon, for Johns Hopkins med school. They put the question to me:
“The semester starts in 18 days - can you do that?”
“Yes,” I replied, and just like that, I'm a Blue Jay.
Of course, I had to withdraw from the masters program but Harvard gave me a full (95K) refund - I think they’re more excited about my med school admission than I am.
I’m not afraid of discordant notes.
They change the landscape.
Take us to new emotional places.
Any major work is going to have them.
.
.
A song for this:
Hang on Little Tomato by Pink Martini
It's Amazing by Jem
A bird flew over me,
leaving a feather falling,
landing on my head:
Oh, it had to be a dove,
I’ve never felt so peaceful:-
Trees’ leaves were ripped off,
leaving nakedness behind
with teasing winter:-
Nude trees not ashamed
as winter winds teased them;
their hope barked in spring:-
Through thrusting winter,
naked trees never gave in;
waiting coming leaves:-
I’m finally going to get on that platform
on the 18th of next month,
for a first-time, one-time performance.
The once, seemingly impossible will come fully true,
which seems like a lot narratively.
It’ll be like leaving home—but we’re crashing out.
Moving on to other plot points, big topics and intense missions.
We’re all caustically optimistic.
Although there’s a cellular-level pull to move on
we can’t help but feel a hesitancy to jump into our multifarious futures.
We’ve never been improvident.
In my personal pool of experience, when I feel alone,
friendless and unseen, this unintelligible fear noise arises,
and I'm tempted to tap out. But I never have.
.
.
Songs for this:
walk but in a garden by LLusion
What Dreams Are Made Of by Evann McIntosh
I Like You (A Happier Song) [feat. Doja Cat] by Post Malone
It’s one in the morning.
I zoomed into Lisa’s room
and threw myself on the bed where she lay reading
in a near virtuoso, Fosbury flop.
She bounced, jostled by my mechanical bed wave.
“I hate goodbyes,” I said, indignantly.
“You’re not strong on hellos” she said, not looking up.
“They’re so bone-marrow deep,” I went on, “they steal hope away.”
“Did that sound pretentious?” I asked her silence, a minute later, somewhat self-consciously.
Lisa took the yellow, #2-pencil out of her mouth—just long enough to answer.
When she studies, she chews on them, seemingly eating them like french fries.
“Yeah,” she says, “but I get cha.”
“I know,” I said, smiling at the ceiling, because in a rooted and real way, she always has.
I’d be a different person if we’d never met.
I feel very grateful for that.
“Your boy’s flown?” She asked, using her pencil to hold her page and finally looking up.
It was an ironic, near-rhetorical question, she knows he’s gone and she knows I know she knows he’s gone.
“Yeah,” I admitted.
.
.
Songs for this:
4am by girl in red
Don't Stop The Music by Rihanna
blushing! by BETWEEN FRIENDS
Embryonic Stage
So comfy and warm
Not feeling a hint of harm
Oh, what’s happening
Birth
Good grief, it’s so cold
O’er and o’er again was told
“Beautiful baby”
Child Age
Play sports, make good grades
Life’s full of adventure days
Hates vegetables
Teen Years
It’s an awkward age
Parents struggle through this stage
Just stay sane through it
Young Adult Years
Leaving home first time
Into unknown, a steep climb
Where will it all end
Middle Adult Years
Work and family
Agony and ecstasy
Stalwart day by day
Older Adult Years
Body , soul, and mind
Seeking peace of special kind
Beyond ever known
She would do our heads in, but It’s not that I didn’t value her great teaching skills. Her strategies and patterns always stood out. The tool of teaching was used to best effective use by her, I can ensure you of that, in fact it was levels beyond the rest.a record, a memory that can’t be broken.
In years to come we will remember those days. Sometimes she would cry thinking we might all fail, other times she would laugh with us or at us. I suppose that’s all just part of life, but she did love our class From the core and heart, well that’s what I think.
We thank you for all your hard work and dedication, but in saying that, teaching us must have been so hard.
I want you to know that you will remain in our thoughts, as long as you promise to continue to do people’s heads in and always to stay sound
You better believe what your bringing
Cause I'm cracking out these lyrics and leaving your ears ringing
I'm like the angels that sing on high
See all of humanity and ask why
Cause I'll give you a reason to believe
Bring all hope and let all this doubt just leave
I'm relieved to see that your carrying your weight now
So lift it up high as the waters rise up how
you better remember you can swim
Your failure is vast while your success is slim
Be ready to assimilate what they sell you
See how they got you and control what you do
No way is this close to finish tho
I'll flex my mind and break you out of these chains so
I left my state to study afar.
A church college lured me to go west
where it’s so dry and no fireflies are.
But I was young and followed no star
that could lead me to what would be best.
I left with no really firm goal.
A psychology major I’d thought
to pursue. My apathetic soul
got off that bus. A different role
I took when a new bus I caught!
Off this new bus, I found myself flung
onto a path I had never thought of -
to ESL teaching I then swung.
Also I fell into marriage quite young
and always lived far from kinfolk I love.
What if I had never moved away?
Was my aimlessness part of my fate?
Would I be happier living today
where all through my youth I used to play?
One can’t know what one can’t recreate.
Something’s happening, let’s call it sunrise, for now,
and summer vacation in Geneva, in umm.. 10 hours.
My heart-beat is spiking, like a flag or kite flying.
I’m leaving an empty room - making one last pass with a broom.
I’m stuffing my bag, with the last few things, for escape on aluminum wings.
My dreams, woven in bright, butterfly tapestries, are rolled and folded -
packed between urgent fantasies and harsh, time-sensitive practicalities.
I know you’re there, a quarter-world away, good news, pegasus awaits,
to streak gulf-stream high, over choppy oceans wide with mechanical fire,
its ice-cycle crystal contrail points, like cherub cupid's arrow, toward you.
Forget pixels, tech instruments, remote lifeline connections,
and prayer-like whispers over thin, criss-crossed wires.
I’m making my move, coming compass-needle true,
to press up close, reintroduce, extemporize and seduce.
.
.
music for this:
Someday by Sugar Ray
sunburn by almost monday
This Charming Man by The Smiths
Heaven by Los Lonely Boys
I hated all those lessons and rules
Playing sports in the cold and the rain
Exams, tests and essays in schools
l won’t need this stuff in my brain
It’s a waste of my time, it's just lame.
I am leaving school in just one week
No more boredom and tectonic plates
A good job, with some training I seek
Will I miss going to school with my mates
I wonder now what my future awaits
An interview can be a terrifying thing
He said, “Why not a single GCSE?”
“To this role, what do you bring?!”
Five years, I had nothing to please
Seven interviews and now, great unease.
Starting work at eight in the morning
Not what I imagined it would be.
Mucking out sheds, won't be that boring
I look back now, and my errors I see
Will my mates have careers, unlike me?
Now I do the same things every day
I miss school, and my mates, I’m sad
In the cold and the rain, I now dismay
and think of the opportunities that I had
To waste all that time… “was I mad?!”
If only I'd concentrated on school
Had fun, but tried when it mattered
If only I could have followed their rule.
All that knowledge I could have gathered
My dreams and future are they shattered?
I can be a wretched fake, in private, intimate performance.
I’m an actress capable of imitating spontaneous pleasure -
by tricks of hesitation, convulsive vocal play and postures.
A mimicry undetectable to an immediate spectator.
Aww, thank you, I’ll sigh, as if leaving a good party.
“I’ve got a lot of homework to do,” I’ll add, a minute later.
To clear the stage.
i never thought this day would come
many were there, but now only some
once a friend of many
but this day took plenty
what went through his head this day?
leaving these young children to decay
depriving these kids of a future promised
candle light vigils for all who are missed
this school will never forget this day
it will always be remembered this day
the day the boy made the decision to attack
but no one was able to strike back