Unschooled Poems

Woke so very proud

Woke, and proud 

Now the KKK , ok that's uncool
killing nature? that's so unschooled
Charlie Brown my Hero
he stood for humanity, not D Cheney
have you ever met a cat loving the KKK
between me and you
Bugs bunny would say no way
more woke than any coyote

coyotes
loving genocide, starvation and 
a plenitude of banned books
not woke just  a narrow minded joke

be woke
not a racist fifty year old bloke

wise old elf is self taught

That old elf is unschooled, but he taught himself
Has more knowledge than books on a librarian’s shelf
We call him the amazing wizened elf, for he is you see.
Much brighter than my siblings, actually, my whole family.

He can do better surgery than most doctors can do
A self-taught veterinarian, he saved a sheep’s life too
Old elf is in no way slow-witted, illiterate or dim.
For sage advice, the rest of the fey always turn to him.

Dumb and Dumber and Gullible

Dumb and Dumber and Gullible

Easy to spot
old men in Red hats
MAGA meanies
cranky and angry
that the world has matured
and they sit in their rot
lie and lie and smear the truth
very sore losers and so uncouth
feed them falsehoods
they drink it like beer
show them an immigrant
see them shiver in fear

Now Canada and Australia
not perfect for sure
just more common sense
than unschooled hatred
simply very immature
they voted for a better choice
the haters will deny 
the majority should have the bigger voice

The Trumpet of Parrots

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor – Desmond Tutu

The Trumpet of Parrots

Patriots rally to the trumpet sound,
its blare echoes the lies that bigots breed.
Perched in power, pipers, in pretence gowned,
their hatred spreads, disguised as noble creed.

They stoke the tribal fire in ancient scars,
while hissing hypes to mask the stench of greed.
Their chorus of lies taints Venus and Mars,
who like pawns follow blindly the king’s lead.

Their victims vilified and ridiculed.
Protesters branded as dregs of the state,
by troops of diehards loathsome and unschooled,
As crony capitalists preach their hate.

So, mark the flock that flaps where conscience sleeps:
A nation full of parrots gently weeps.

Obverse

Wisdom grows alone
darkness eyes attend 
wakes the light slumberer

Deep in wet dreams
respect waves the buried
grounds for divorce

Wind weather attitudes
cries mount
lies draw out

Greens wild the untamed
beast burdens the walled
shaft and base flowers

the unschooled gather names
foothold finds rest
virgin aroused the sleeper

Taste for the end
tomorrow another day
what was paradise?

The Hourglass

Nothing matters
once you’re gone
It matters
when you’re here

Tomorrow cloaked
in lost regret
Today
the moment dear

Transcendence born
of time undone
Free 
of all the rules

The sand to run
till all is lost
If prescience
— left unschooled

(The New Room: September, 2024)

Unschooled

  unschooled
  in pride
  sweeping 
  debris
  under tables
  into corners
  as if
  it didn’t matter

We choke

It’s not as though we lost our cool
without any reason at all;
the unschooled should follow this rule:
no smoking’s allowed in the hall.

Others may call it a defect
but it’s the butterfly effect,
against which fragile lungs protest
and smokers, we speak not in jest.

Slow Boat To China

I was born in a landlocked getaway town
Where all the colors were black, gray, or brown.
Jobs at the steel mill were ratcheting down.
It was not in my future to stay.

So, I took a long walk off a very short pier,
An unschooled, untraveled recruit buccaneer
On a quest to cross Neptune’s vast salty frontier.
Hopped a slow boat to China one day.

Underway on the Crescent City, it seemed
The ocean was wider than I’d ever dreamed.
A ship load of sinners, our souls unredeemed
Steaming west toward whatever there was.

Keelung told Hong Kong to call Singapore.
Subic Bay badgered Mombasa for more.
Sea legs, as always unsteady ashore,
Even more so with liquor and drugs.

Bilge water sloshed in the depths of the hold.
The mizzen mast learned what the typhoon foretold.
I was sea duty tempered and Shell Back enrolled;
Wasn’t nothing but maritime norm.

I was born in a hard luck blue collar town.
Half the way broken and half the way down.
But time gifts its renaissance scepter and crown
To a jack tar who’s weathered the storm.

Craftspeople, Creativity, Family - Happy Bday Mom

I
You have a vivid mind, heart, vocabulary
A lover of God, I make excuses (true, right)
Yes, South Africa fails us in electricity
Still, Shakespeare worked by candlelight

II
I admire my sisters who do romance
Sometimes sultry, often beauty in loyalty
You mix French idioms, native Americanism
I am awed, humbled, in the land of Steinbeck, Poe, Emily Dickinson 

Note: 
1. Dear PS writers and visitors, keep working on your craft. The Earth needs it.
2. RiP Mom, passed in 2005, aged 64, but today is my unschooled mom's birthday. I respect all women, my wife, daughters ... Because of my mom's unschooled wisdom, love for family, & creativity

Love Celebration and Education

I
Unless you have been loved --
Not just reading about all types, 
Unless you have been a Beloved,
My life says: until then, it's all hype

II
My mom - unschooled -  loved me well
My dad, not so well, he was unwell
So I sought God, as Mother, Shakthi
I found Abba Father because of Wendy

III
Wendolene's love is not all, but so much
More than I deserve -- as with Jesus!
I met her when I was sixty
I have energy as if I'm thirty

IV
I celebrate human Love, and marriage --
Be faithful, see a miracle, all thy days!!

The Fule Lord

The follies of fools 
The lord of fools 
The fools that are lords
a leader of the damned 
Insane the minority of minions 
Deplorable and disdained 
Blind in the sight of kings and lords
Jester’s of old orange baboons
In golden flossy glossy wigs
Fleeting hair a top fule lords fake façade
In a flock of tweets and Nitwits
Someone said the one eye 
man is lord of the blind in the land 
of the blind this fool is king
Dressed in nothing but a red tie 
& golden fly away sad toupee
The follies of fools a leader 
of the damned doomed
And unschooled the folly of fools 
the fule lord of one supreme leader to some 
Blind in the sight of kings and lords
Burning Republics building empires, 
finding legions of cults 
a Cult of personality bleeding, pleading
Scheming at the doors of a CLOSED kingdom
tearing apart the fabric of a nation
For the keys to dominion 
Someone once said the one eye man 
is lord of the blind in the land 
of the blind has a fool for a king
Dressed in nothing but Ignorance. 
In golden flossy glossy wigs
Fleeting hair top fule lords FRACTURED façade…

















Dic: fule (dialectal, chiefly Scotland) fool

The Examination

Listless images swirl up from tangled seaweed.
Instead of going home to study
a youth stayed on at a topless bar.

This reoccurring nightmare is a parody,
a Dahliesque floor show of every
melting, pants down moment.

Unschooled for future-shock, ill-equipped
for long forgotten questions;
scruffy owls hoot in an empty lecture hall
as a mind reacts with a jittery dread.

A lost post-graduate thesis rides on a city bus,
passengers sit on it as they come and go;
the manuscript is deeply buckled
with butt cheeks.

No time to revise the unprepared.
Dimples of anxiety indent a head trip.
Despondency envelopes.

At any moment,
eyes will open above a pool of sweat,
then blink stupidly
as they have done - often and repeatedly
for the last 45 years.

The Examination

Listless images swirl up from tangled seaweed.
Instead of going home to study
a youth stayed on at a topless bar.

This reoccurring nightmare is a parody,
a Dahliesque floor show of every
melting, pants down moment.

Unschooled for future-shock, ill-equipped
for long forgotten questions;
scruffy owls hoot in an empty lecture hall
as a mind reacts with a jittery dread.

A lost post-graduate thesis rides on a city bus,
passengers sit on it as they come and go;
the manuscript is deeply buckled
with butt cheeks.

No time to revise the unprepared.
Dimples of anxiety indent a head trip.
Despondency envelopes.

At any moment,
eyes will open above a pool of sweat,
then blink stupidly
as they have done - often and repeatedly
for the last 45 years.

Balloon Heads

Balloon heads float amongst the breeze 
Filled with nothing, lack of education- they bawl 
Inequality from different ethnicities across the seas 

Seventy-two million children unschooled- please 
Poverty stricken- we must try to help them all 
Balloon heads float amongst the breeze 

Over seven-hundred and fifty million adults are illiterate- geez 
Girls least likely to receive education- damn that wall 
Inequality from different ethnicities across the seas 

undeveloped brains- be'eth the sizes of peas  
Deprived from knowledge their brains will remain small 
Balloon heads float amongst the breeze 

The rights to educate we must not seize 
If we doth not rise- they will fall 
Inequality from different ethnicities across the seas 

I pray for them- down on my knees 
Let the world hear my beckon call 
Balloon heads float amongst the breeze 
Inequality from different ethnicities across the seas  


A Major World Problem Poetry Contest 
Sponsor: L Milton Hankins 
4/27/2021

• Short Unschooled Poems
• Famous Unschooled Poems
• Best Unschooled Poems
• Read Unschooled Poems
• Long Unschooled Poems
• Unschooled Quotes