Schoolroom Poems

The School of Wisdom

The Schoolroom is the world
With God's wisdom unfurled
But fools govern today
To the oppressed's dismay

For His wisdom they disdain
So much they cannot explain
Proud because of their gain
He humbles the vain with bane

Man's wisdom cannot compare
Because he was never there
When He set the Earth's measure 
For His own good pleasure

O' man, you are not equal
God's wisdom the Prequel
You cannot correct Him
But one day confess Him 

All treasure has a source
Hidden from view of course
But what a valuable resource
If the effort we endorse

God's wisdom is exclusive
Treasure even more elusive
For only He knows the way
Fearing Him the Pathway 

Where His wisdom begins
Where Scripture underpins
Where Christ is the Center
Where the Spirit's the Mentor

May you find His treasure
His wisdom in good measure
His fellowship a pleasure
His loyal love a leisure

Graduation is forthcoming
Christ's return is upcoming
Where He'll meet us in the air
And His glory forever share

Number One At Last

NUMBER ONE AT LAST

Crouched over a desk with knees tucked under
Echoes of that old schoolroom haunt me still
The teacher’s comments as loud as thunder
It seemed to me I was put through the mill
Vocal contempt at my quivering quill
Always marked down across all the classes
A record of failures and no passes
But Autumn term and a new school beckoned
My life changed when I was prescribed glasses
I mostly came first and rarely, second

Puzzle Piece

Don’t underestimate telling someone they were missed. There was a black hole in a pew, in a schoolroom, at work; on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday… Widen that smile, that big toothy grin. Don’t underestimate letting that sunshine radiate. We feel the warmth, the tether, that we matter, altogether.

puzzle piece of you
your unique shape with borders -
see palms reaching out

9/28/2022

The True Story of a One-Eyed Kid

A doctor saved his eye
then he took it away
by hiding it from the boy’s face.

His hands were puppy dog tails
wagging blindly.
He played a game of Scrabble
with a Brail alphabet
as his only guide

He would enter a schoolroom 
through a hole in his mind,
peering curiously
into a strange fishbowl world.

He was a one-eyed peeper,
a tunnel stalker
walking through a tubular world.

When the patch came off
reality took on the shape
of a prison warden.

One eye had to work hard,
the other got a life-sentence
reduced to time already served
as the cell-mate of a cyclops.

Tears For Papa

I relive the nightmare of seeing my papa hanged
At six, I didn’t know I could cry so hard and so much
They dragged him to a tree while the crickets sang
It deprived me of any chance to feel his final touch

Growing up when the Jim Crow South was at its worst
I don’t care how hot it got, working in the scorching heat
They would offer me no water, let a black girl die of thirst
In my dreams, I saw papa swing from a Spanish Moss tree

It seemed I picked rough cotton or tobacco my entire life
I never went inside a schoolroom, much less learned to read
Mama gave me away at thirteen to be an older man’s wife
Birthing sixteen children. It’s for sure I knew how to breed

I lived too long and have seen too much. No tears left to cry
If you asked about my papa, I couldn’t bring myself to speak
On the news, I saw my great-grandson left on the streets to die
Now, those tears I saved for papa pitch slowly down my cheeks

Unwise Advances

Distrusted compliments
- screech like fingernails across
a schoolroom chalkboard.

No marked card - dealt from 
the bottom of the deck - will
ever unlock my heart.

Avoid the overt
- sly Valmont, the skittish game
is wise to advances.

Schoolroom Menagerie

she saved a bird
after
he landed
with feet in the air
near
the ceramic bunny —
someone’s brother
(in the garden)

ginger snaps
on her cool desk.
cages upon cages
of snakes
and an orange-cheeked
cockatiel.

i loved to talk
to that bird
“Twhoo, twhoo, twhoo”

the bird was there
in the afternoon
when
almost all
classrooms were dark.

one day they removed
all the fun
from her room

not one gingercrumb was left.
                  not one
even hinted
cancer

7/10/2020

*Dedicated to a friendly teacher and a little boy

Saying You Cant Is a Precursor To Saying You Wont

Saying You Can’t
Is a Precursor to Saying You Won’t
Written: by Tom Wright 
2/7/2018

To most problems I adopt a pragmatic approach,
Experience is the schoolroom where I was taught.
Knowledge quickly became my first head coach,
And common sense didn’t promote using cannot.

If you’re one to hang your hat on being right,
Saying “I can’t” ensures that you’ll always be.
While correctness may extend to you brief delight,
Transient emotions never make life carefree.

The Dust Devil

Loneliness the circles
In which the daydream never ends
I wish you'd go away those times
So I could find you once again

Perhaps a hole-in -middle whirlpool
The nothing that ever stays
A fist of clenching handful
A farmer begging God for rain

A plague of desperation
No welcome needs around
The sideway glance of people
As if you were a paedophile

An intrusion of their selfish plans
A car with a one way steering wheel
Thats always headed home
A dust devil with nowhere else to go

A ship that wayward stranded
Marooned on a broken beach
A schoolroom devoid of students
And theres nothing else to teach

Sitting so low in the restaurant
Furtive glances all eyes on me
I walk through them, they look through me
I'm a drive-thru KFC

Her virtue were her beauty spot
But she drove the rain to tears
Eating chicken in the parking lot
She didnt fit with all my fears

Conundrum

Another dead from injuries
In this latest mad attack.
Gun-downed by a supposed friend,
She had no time to fight back.
The fifteen year old gunman
Has died by his own hand.
Because of him, two others dead.
No one can understand.
Four children injured badly
Upon the schoolroom floor.
But for the heroic teacher,
There would have been some more.

We find this in the paper
And with a shrug of rage,
Keep reading other items
Then turn to the comic page.
But this one came too close to home,
Just another town away.
She could have easily been ours,
That lost grandchild today.

He didn't fit the pattern,
A well adjusted child.
No one can say what happened
To make him go so wild.
Experts as well as amateurs
Will have pet theories why
A cared for, beloved child would want
Someone's loved child to die.

By: Joyce Johnson

(This happened this Friday at a town near my own. )

I Remember When

I remember when…
   I tied myself to the chair in first grade.
   Taking seriously Teacher’s red light -
   “Young lady, if you don’t stay in your seat…”
   I took my scarf and bound myself up tight.

I remember when…
   the lunch bell sounded and Missus Storm said,
   “Quietly, children, line up at the door.”
   But I couldn’t get my hard knots undone 
   so me and the chair plop-plopped cross the floor.


I remember when…
   I climbed out the school window in third grade.
   Asleep at my desk, I’d run out of juice
   then  Mz. Willliams took the class to recess
   I heard the door slam, it wouldn't come loose.

I remember when…
   that schoolroom seemed more like Alcatraz
   in solitary confinement, I pried
   one window open.  Taking a quick look,
   I climbed up and out with tomboy-ish stride.

Jesus In a Box

Some folks put Jesus in a box 
and take Him out on Sunday,
when church is over bring Him home 
and He’s boxed again by Monday.

There are other folks who do not let Him
hang around at all
except perhaps at Christmas time 
beneath the tree or in the hall.

Like the other decorations
He is just there for the fun.
He’ll be put away for the whole year
when Christmastime is done.

Then there are the extremists 
who never want to see His face.
They insist He must be banished
from every public place.

They can bar Him from the schoolroom,
The avenue and mart,
But they can never take Him 
from a faithful Christian’s heart.

Mother

A schoolroom
of my childhood
my mother's heart

 My shy adolescence
her tender warmth
purified

My present success
her new pride
glorified

For Francine’s, ‘Senryu for mom’ contest

Meteor

Bright white streak like chalk
across a schoolroom blackboard 
makes us gasp in awe.

This Union Means Jack

Twitching limply atop an Ulster lamppost
Like a hung man, legs kicking in spasm at the last seconds of life
Its bigoted purpose now spent and now abandoned to the elements
No longer recognisable as the flag of union, a rag, a disgrace

Its fate summarises the fall of a culture that once honoured it
A proud nation of proud men, of starched collars and stiff upper lip
Colonially pink maps on schoolroom walls bore testament to empire
An empire won and lost when the map turned from pink to red
 
Up and at ’em lads! For King and country! Hold the banner high!  
Ypres and the Somme, regiments of the brave under one colour
The twitching curtains of multi-culture now fearful of the emblem
The emblem of abhorrence uncased by those not qualified to fly it

Patriotism, a narrow path parting pride from prejudice
Defined by a flag, one duplicitous fluttering cloth, a split personality
Now the badge of hooligan, xenophobe and pop diva
Courage now gone, bleached by sun, washed by rain…atop an Ulster lamp post

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