Short Cafeteria Poems

Cafeteria

Ketchup soaked wheat bun
Glass shards reflect the sun….
Barefoot streaking run...

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Cafeteria
Loud, boisterous
Sweet-smelling, bread-making, cake-baking,
Happy, well-fed, starving, hopeless
Maddening, Saddening, Un-gladdening
Quiet, Angry
Homeless...

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I wonder what are the criteria,
I'd meet him in a cafeteria,
Ask how he waned the entries,
Good poems from different countries,
He would say some lines act like bacteria.



April 3, 2022....

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Patiently waiting in a line
eyeballed an wary
harsh barking of subterranean cultures
standing weary and inured
to the rotten
fug
the rotten
oxygen

inside the high walls and wire, the weighted stone of
the convicted

existing like convicts...

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I walk uphill
to the curb 
of The Bank of America's parking lot.
I find on the curb the twenty-dollar bill 
fold on the bank's curb.
I reach out my hand 
to touch and get the twenty-dollar bill 
on the curb.
Of the afternoon,
I walk to The Sunday's Cafeteria
to buy the $10.75 lunch....

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My big mouth
earned me a black eye
When I got into a foolish fight,
in the school cafeteria,
over a disputed last piece of pie
Came home and tried to hide
behind dark sunglasses
To my parents, I uncharacteristically lied
Such is the fate I suffer now,
puffed up with swollen pride...

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He is a dancing king
A prancing thing

He jiggles and wiggles
To others delight and giggles 

He is a marvelous spinner
And a future award winner

But for today
I have to say

In this cafeteria
He is causing hysteria

As this is not the way we behave in here
And I am the lunch supervisor, I fear....

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(My very first poem) 

I used to hide
In my pine tree
I could feel safe and big
Sitting in my monkey fort.

Now I can't
They say I'm too old
Instead I sit in the cafeteria
Eating my bananas. 

(C) 1971, 1998 RosaSheila Barrera


This poem was published in "LA FONT" a high school literary collection.......

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Company Cafeteria


People right-handed 
carry their cups
in the right hand.
Left-handed people 
carry their cups
in the hand that befits
left-handed people.
Whichever the hand
all carry their cups
elbows right-angled.
Whichever the hand, 
all cups are at sea, adrift 
on an ocean of saucers.


Donal Mahoney...

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The Neurons request a cease-fire
as the Tears pack their gunpowder.
In this dull roar of cafeteria girls
I can’t find a cheer.

Humor crashed back aways.
Then crisis response got in an accident.
Badum-Kshh.
So we haven’t talked in a while.

I would laugh at that If I could,
because it’s like water and ducks having a falling apart....

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I watched you walk into the company cafeteria, staring at the ready made food under plastic

Selecting something green and healthy, the choice of a fluffy long eared herbivore

And cradling a glass of grey brown juice squeezed from a plant unpronounceable, shredded elastic

And then choosing a solo table, kicking off your shoes, pressing bare feet onto polished concrete floor....

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back to normal holds a hopeful ring —
    presently, the ding spurs us into a boxing spar

our refuge - our home
    becomes a multipurpose cage

school, workplace, nursing station, cafeteria
     ailments scold, yes

we're principals, doctors too.
        presently, the ding spurs us into a boxing spar

back to normal    holds a hopeful ring

3/31/2020...

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He was my tiger Sunday,
A champion at sports.

Reading futures with promises,
Mathematically distant.

Divine on a Sunday,
A language I couldn't decipher.

Songs sung in praise,
God guides to comprehension.

A buffet of understanding,
Sharing a cafeteria of delights.

Standing amidst the Godly realm,
Always welcome within a distant social sphere.

Author: Gwen Meyer-Erlach Schutz...

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I glanced away
Embarrassed 
weird since I did not do anything
But I felt his intensity
and it frightened me

I had never felt this feeling before
Something new I had never experienced
in fifteen years of living an innocent life
He winked 
And I dropped my entire tray

I could not look at him as he
Rose to help me gather it back up
The cafeteria ladies laughed
Understanding 
Much better than I did...

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It is time once again
To go back to school.
Its time to buy new clothes and 
Pull out all our pencils.

With bravery we shall march
To that awful bus stop,
Were we shall wait
To go back to school!

Little ones hide from bullies,
Best friends reunite.
Cafeteria food is served,
While children run with fright!

Back to school is fun,
but it can also be so gruesome
so come prepared
or you will be left behind!!!...

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When you eat chicken,you get chicken-pox.
When you play polo, you catch polio.
When you color,you catch cholera.
When you descend on people you catch dysentry.
When you like harvesting potato tubers you catch tuberculosis.
When you steal answer you catch cancer.
When you don't like people you catch Aids.
When you eat from a dish in a cafeteria you catch diphteria.
If you continue to tie your headtie you'll get typhoid....

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Leong (one of my roommates) squirms up to me at breakfast, in the cafeteria.

“May I ask..,” she said, looking around like a secret agent getting ready to make a dead-drop, “what contraceptives do you use?”

I thought this an odd question from someone who just broke up with her long-time boyfriend but, hey, I’m an open book.

“Isolation and despair,” I replied, which got me an eye roll.

“You’re never serious!” She admonishes me....

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She brought her alien sidekick to the cafeteria.
The rest of the sophomores gave them room.
Scooting out of the way, wondering what talents the sidekick had.
Just keep your mouth shut, she told the sidekick.
As long as they think you are an alien, the teachers will let you stay.
She had actually sprung her little sister from kindergarten.
Teachers did not dare say anything about an alien visiting.
It would not have been politically correct....

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I dreamed I was hanging out with Darroll near the train station. We entered a prison cafeteria and ate lunch. Then we looked in a junk store and I found two really cool vintage iron tools which I gave Darroll for his rusty iron tool collection (which, in my dream, he had). At some point a big book shelf fell over. We did some other stuff and then it was time for him to go so he revved up his shoes, leaned forward, and sped away to the sound of a  pair of tiny lawnmowers....

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