Truancy Poems

Shattered

SHATTERED 
First published as Addiction 2021

Did the scarecrow ever leave Oz,
put his new brain in a bucket by the door
like an unwanted umbrella,
then go jogging back down the yellow brick road
to his post in the cornfield?

Did the crows again mock him,
marking his truancy like a flock of high priests,
their caw of unforgiveness invoking an evil wind
to carry it over the Emerald City,
shattering dreams into a million green shards?
          
                  My dreams lie shattered
                  on the floor of addiction,
                  no softness given
                  in the love of a substance
                  designed for degradation.

Drop Out You Shall

At school played silly truancy, 
Back came with hateful pregnancy! 
She’d just intended The Irksome.
For being by custom troublesome’….

But it was all too venturesome, 
Beauty giving a son handsome 
Plus one more prize – The Sad Gift:
From school Owner did her lift; 
From the rest permanent shift, 
Official reason: ‘Spend thrift’…

Never again be present, 
As he would her sight resent.

If I Open a School

If I open a school,
You’ll worship every rule;
To begin to touch a Tool
A Proven Settled Fool:
A Pond to Swimming Pool
Now A Horse, once A mule:
One who would a crowd pull;
In number my classes full!

Yes, A school all-day cool
But where you won’t ever drool…

For your ascertained truancy 
No administrative Leniency;
For your beastly claw
That could blood draw…

When to cases you respond
And your facts don’t correspond;
You a lot cherish tradition 
But would not make an addition…

You have been a facility 
And we glimpse imbecility;
You often drive Dad’s vehicle
But can’t write an article…

All the Kids Aged Twelve Gone

When I got there, I saw none:
All the kids aged Twelve gone;
The Dreamers to be University Don;
Plus the one I knew would be A CON
His case files already weighing a ton
And should make The Faint-Hearted run!
An Unacceptable Habit has been born
And True Discipline badly torn;
You ask me its name - Brazen Truancy:
A school child’s infuriating Flippancy 
And Vast Topic in Delinquency …
Announcing and condemning Teacher’s Inefficiency 
But alluding some father’s Inadequacy
And Character Training’s unchallenged intricacy 

A truancy of a chosen morn
Was to hit the next day’s dawn
With the deviants refusing to mourn
Because it has to do with corn
They weren’t told its color could be fawn!

Addiction

Did the scarecrow ever leave Oz,
put his new brain in a bucket by the door
like an unwanted umbrella,
then go jogging back down the yellow brick road
to his post in the cornfield?

Did the crows again mock him,
marking his truancy like a flock of high priests,
their caw of unforgivenness invoking an evil wind
to carry it over the Emerald City,
shattering dreams into a million green shards?

Ignorance

Who can bear
a trouble of another?
but the ignorant
impose that by leading people to accept their whim and trouble
because that is only what they
can muster to the world
if it is a lie
why, why, why,
why is abortion, stealing and corruption
why, why, why,
why is clash, conflict and war
why, why, why,
why is family problem, cheating and unknown killing
why, why, why,
why is truancy, dropout and illiteracy
why, why, why,
why is selfishness, ego and atheism
if it is a lie
why, why, why,
why is cultism, bribery and tribalism
if it is a lie
why, why, why,
why there is a house
built for prostitution
why, why, why,
why there is a house
built for drinking and gambling
if it is a lie
why, why, why,
why there is a house
built for magic, witchcraft and unknown immolation
if it is a lie
why, why, why,
why there is slavery and colonisation
if it is a lie
why, why, why
why the same trouble marker
will suspect and hang his trouble
to an innocent
I knew something dark
yet it is what is to be
morked through.

The Future Claimed

Moments of clarity stop the clock,
but time rolls on and on

Unrecorded, to stay embedded 
in each wish unfulfilled

Tranquilizing the fleeting doubt 
that truancy sets free

Returning with the future claimed 
—to liberate the past

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2020)

Grace and Solitude

Emerging from sleep dream temerity,
his remote aurora  spectral prisms
from which his wakefulness gives legerity,
from which surfaces new burgeoning aphorisms.

Truth’s contours arrayed in fluid fluency,
his morning ataraxia in the still water lake
from where his senses lose their truancy,
from where ideation sheds the opaque. 

He finds repose in a moment's seclusion,
his lucid cortex in reflective possibility,
but he learns his real confirmation in inclusion,
and learns our fellowship best protects our fragility.

So quickly we imbrute each other with walls,
he knows how militarization is summoned by anxiety,
he weeps at the endless requiem protocols,
he grieves at history’s long cruel impropriety.

But he detects his promise in human need,
our struggle against forces of dehumanization,
our commission in communitarian creed,
our hope in human family realization.


Awarded second place in Poetrysoup "Grace and Solitude" rhyming poetry contest sponsored by John Hamilton.

Wind Blows Cold

Revelation comes and goes
like the tides by moon’s bent
sometimes rising to the cause
when not pulling away from shore

inconsistent if truth be told
even though the will is strong
wishing something to be said
 as the shyness rules the day

to share the self outside of walls
constructed for safety’s sake
darting through the open doors
returning when the wind blows cold

forgive these failings in hindsight
exposure turned to truancy
please don’t judge what may come
look to future fates more kind.

Blues, Cues and Shoe Stews

Refuse to hang the innocent
While your gang acquits the guilty
In a tooth for a tooth pronouncement
You state in collusion with the mighty.

Accuse with the ruse in your news dissidents
Whipped into submission
To the coercion of incidents
Incorporated into a dictatorial diction.

Cruise out of control
With your weapons of avid annihilation
Primed to wiped out any pesky patrol
That surveys the sadness and sickness in your jubilation.

Freeze the breeze trees in infancy
Stunted when you hunt down their xylem
In a show of tethered truancy
Boosted by a nihilist anthem.

Use distorted dialogues
Conducted at cross purposes
In muted prologues and monologues
With enfeebled and emaciated faces bereft of choices.

Save knaves and staves
Slaves struggle to free from the tyranny 
Perpetrated in war veteran graves
To whom you dished out a cashless cacophony.

Wave flaccid flags flown at half mast
As conflict casualties mount
When baskets of mourning cast
A dark pall on leadership lists of skills to discount.

Despair not. Repair the flare
No longer impotent, no longer content
As venom fangs bare
Death diadems an bother bandanas for the discontent.

Roaming

Roaming
that thick soup 
of a green countryside,
the black eyed Susans
were our only witness,
silent as corpses,
unaware that truancy was our creed as we 
drove to buy beer in souped up
shiny chevy convertibles
as we listened to Motown and sang 
to those tunes when we crossed the state line,
lunching in Manhattan,
home by dark,
knowing we'de be caught red handed by the principle,
our suspension notices written up in eloquent script,
yet still.....
it was worth it,
to roam as free as that April New Jersey wind,
new and bratty.

Selfies, Thoughts and Skintight Jeans

Posts on my Facebook Page
Done when I feel undone
In the middle of a nuptial night rage
In no way invite predators into my zone.

Selfies sent in moments of excitement
Admired in my mirror
Invite no corny comment
From minds assailed by error.

Thoughts caught on Instagram
In no way suggest hopelessness
In pound, ounce or kilogram
Though I’m entitled to tithes of listlessness.

Skintight jeans I wear
When it tickles my fancy
Don’t mean my subscription to indignities I swear
Nor do they signify my tenderness for truancy.

How Time Flies

How far tomorrow seems in our eyes, 
How fast  it lands in our  hands. 
How hard we take the issues of life, 
How easy they seem thereafter. 
We get to sleep over our dream, 
Not waking up for work when it ought. 
We play truancy on hardwork, 
Thinking we have all the time in the world. 
So tell me,  HOW OFTEN DOES NEXT TIME COMES? 

We ignore important things, 
Lacking the sense to delay gratification, 
Wanting material satisfaction, 
Starving vision, gallivanting, living a life without mission. 

So someday,  we can no longer make plans, 
With white hairs sneaking out of our caps, 
Then we regret not planning  at the right time, 
Because we knew, but ignored HOW TIME FLIES.

A Continuous Today

For the past, the future was never apparent
its dormant projection lay in unformed
no thought ever counted it of concern

Time tripped and dawdled, discovering playful as children do
a continuous today absent of tomorrow
the truancy of sleep the night merely borrowed

Only questions to remember
more important than the befuddled them to answer
a nursery-rhyme of colour designed to wonder

Why,why, why didn’t care to reason
but considered the importance of knowing nothing
and still, and still be in covenant with everything

There was no path to tread, no spirit to seek
no doorway held fast by rusted hinge
no separation between exploring mind

All was held in a delicate of light
those angel hands of every child
so unembellished in their witness never defined

So it is as in the continuous today
until the futures chain to changeable edge
rattles the bars and locks us all away

Such a scarecrow death insinuates
and by contemptible depiction reiterates
damnations end of miracles

In Trepidation

It was in reach for, 
a chilling sensation. 
           A flame of the moon.

The world shrinks.
You become ready 
           for the direst consequences.

You deserve to be hurt 
in the arms of truancy, 
           without a trace of remorse.

The wounded breast.
It wanted to disappear?
            and come back in dark.

Frozen, the repeat hymn.
It lives in my heart.
How can I forget you,
             O, my tormentor !


Satish Verma

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