There are books and children
But I’m stuck here day-long
I compare it to prison
So isn’t that wrong?

Each and every time,
I hear that rhyme,
That song,

I become strung along,
Back to the little basement,
Where I spent my teenage years,
The look on my face when it was just you and I.

Though our adolescent love has faded,
we've become friends, even if distant,
and gone our separate ways,
My love for that moment will never be swept away,

You were my drug back when,
My mind was narrow then.

For I was your hero, and you were my Heroine.



~Robert van Lingen

today, i looked outside the window
HA
did you think i’d go outside
and destroy that beautiful scene
my feet would have left a mess,
my breathe would’ve moved the seeds
no
everything needs to stay in place
like that painting um,
something with lillies?

i walk down these hallways
smiles facing me everywhere
i look.

i try to escape the prison
but never succeed.

some people say that popularity
is a blessing but i say it's a curse.

all my secrets on a spreadsheet
for everyone to see.

every flaw on show like a band
at a concert.

i try to cover them up but never can.

some days i wish i could go back to my old school.

the one where nothing was public.

everything was hidden and known only by my
friends and i.

the place where being unknown was the good thing.

but now you have to be popular.

you can't possibly be unknown unless you're homeschooled.

every day i fantasize about what life would be like if we were all just

unknown

I can't help it

Never have I tried to stop
Every time my world just flops
Enter the world of my crazy
Don't stay or you'll be crazy

Can't talk now
On my way somewhere fast
Forget me not
Feel my waves as I run away
Entertainment at its finest
Early risers need it highest

This is a story from the Army Apprentices School, Arborfield, which was not far from Wokingham in Berkshire. I started my soldiering there on 15 January, 1959. It was a memorable first day because on the way there, through a window of the London to Wokingham train I saw a real, live cow and that evening, in the cookhouse, I had a pint *** smashed over my head. Anyway, this poem relates to the passage of information and the dangers of misinformation, and in a way is relative to my first day.

(While waiting for a train)

A bombardier and corporal were arguing the toss
About a job they had to do, about who should be boss.
The corporal said 'it should be me. You know the way we train.
My being in the Infantry means that I have the brain
To make sure job gets properly done, and doing it is really fun.
That being said - this job, you know, we really ought to flick it.
Would you believe they have us down to run a fire-piquet?

Replied his mate, the bombardier, 'even if it's cavalier,
I'm the one that fires off gun so I should get to have the fun.
And working the Apprentice School appears to me to be quite cool.
These AT's., they know their stuff, and work they'd never think to cuff.
Why, one even told my daughter, ‘on fire you never use hot water.'
Perplexed, his mate then asked 'why not, use h2o when it is hot?'
'Stands to reason' said his mate (they stood at Railway Station),
'Hot water on a burning fire just ups the conflagration'.

The two both spent that weekend off at home and in the yard.
Concluding individually the task was just too hard.
And so, selectively, they chose (so soon as they got back)
To do the work at Arborfield a smartly dressed lance-jack.
A Fusileer with bright cockade, four GEC's and bright
(though he said he'd had to give up two for getting in a fight).
He drilled the boys of Arborfield exactly as he orter
Whilst urging them to 'never, ever, ever use hot water'.