#schoolboys
Playmates
by Michael R. Burch
WHEN you were my playmate and I was yours,
we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and the sorrows and cares of our indentured days
were uncomprehended . . . far, far away . . .
for the temptations and trials we had yet to face
were lost in the shadows of an unventured maze.
Then simple pleasures were easy to find
and if they cost us a little, we didn't mind;
for even a penny in a pocket back then
was one penny too many, a penny to spend.
Then feelings were feelings and love was just love,
not a strange, complex mystery to be understood;
while "sin" and "damnation" meant little to us,
since forbidden cookies were our only lusts!
Then we never worried about what we had,
and we were both sure—what was good, what was bad.
And we sometimes quarreled, but we didn't hate;
we seldom gave thought to the uncertainties of fate.
Hell, we seldom thought about the next day,
when tomorrow seemed hidden—adventures away.
Though sometimes we dreamed of adventures past,
and wondered, at times, why things couldn't last.
Still, we never worried about getting by,
and we didn't know that we were to die . . .
when we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and I was your playmate, and we were boys.
This is probably the poem that "made" me, because my high school English teacher called it "beautiful" and I took that to mean I was surely the Second Coming of Percy Bysshe Shelley! "Playmates" is the second poem I remember writing; I believe I was around 13 or 14 at the time. It was originally published by The Lyric. Keywords/Tags: playmates, boys, children, schoolmates, schoolboys, friendship, toys, playthings, fate, destiny, adventures, death, mortality
Mar 25, 2020
Mar 25, 2020 at 4:31 AM UTC
I should watch her
Jupp said
watch who?
I said
the girl who you
were talking to
this morning
by the school fence
he said
she's a tease
is she?
I said
knowing whom he meant
but not saying
yes she offers it
but then shuts you
out like a clam
he said
staring at me
she just came up to me
I said
and started talking
what's she talk about then?
he said
about birds and butterflies
and how she'd like
to work on a farm
I said
he studied me carefully
are you having me on?
if she did then
she's changed her tune
normally she's on
about *** and doing things
he said
do you know her then?
I said
he looked away
and stared at the girl's
playground to see
if she was looking our way
but she wasn't
because I had already
looked to see
if she was around
I've heard rumours
he said
from others who
she tried things on with
but she's only 13
I said
surely she wouldn't
do such things?
he shrugged his shoulders
just saying what I heard
he said
I won't go near her then
I said smiling
best not to
he said smiling too
and we walked on
by the fence
he talking about
being a cowman
when he left school
I thought of Lizbeth
and that morning
and how she cornered me
by the fence
and asked me
if I thought of her
and she not knowing then
how many of the other
boys did
and that time
she took me to her room
while her mother was out
and tried to get me
to do things which I didn't
which I didn't think right
but then thought of her
most of the next night.
Feb 14, 2016
Feb 14, 2016 at 1:14 AM UTC