#textbook
A fool was
thinking to
add agriculture
to physiology
in text book.
He may be
the gene of late
king Mohammad Bin Toglak
of India.
A brainy
was thinking
to take
ice-hills
of North Pole
to place into
a coastal desert
near a growing city.
He may be
the gene of late
king Mohammad Bin
Toglak of India.
Jan 17, 2019
Jan 17, 2019 at 11:02 AM UTC
open textbooks like broken promises,
pages creased and corners frayed,
sticky notes smudged;
my eyes blur over the words
the words in black and white and blue;
my fingers in blue spots and red tint
fumble with the edges of the paper,
cold and clumsy -
it's hard to stay awake.
Nov 6, 2018
Nov 6, 2018 at 10:10 PM UTC
Bones for Breakfast
July 2014
Bones are like peanut brittle.
Gnawed on til toothless,
by us old mangy mutts.
Tastes sweet tender as a drop 'o dew,
Feels soft in a bride's whisper, "I do."
But speaks crunchy crackles of Tic-Tac language,
instead of ******* out bad breath breathe shards in.
Although bones may break,
become buried under archaeologists' noses,
slip through crevices cracked and crumbled.
They were once anything but brittle,
covered only by skin yet to be bruised,
backs yet to be battered,
blood yet to be spilled,
faces yet to witness the history yet to be written.
I do not believe we are supposed to eat bones,
but we break them down into shreds of paper-back tidbits,
consumable by children during the snack time called 'history class.'
Our teachers are creating cannibals,
consuming culture on textbook platters,
but pay no mind while wearing bone bibs,
they leave out the thickest cuts of meat and just eat the ribs.
History is a living thing, dressed to deceive those who blindly believe.
I remember reading George Washington's claim to fame,
"I did not chop down that cherry tree."
But Mr. President, what about your enemies?
Because every revolution needs people to die for the revolutionaries.
Ain't that a sweet piece of cherry lie pie?
I learned Genghis Khan sure got it on with many women,
but didn't read about Alexander the Great's great ***
much of it involving a same-gendered mate.
Wait, was that a mixture of patriarchy and hetero-normativity?
Words that weren't worth the pennies to print?
Who hired these fact checkers for the publishing industries?
I'll give you a hint,
Learn who has the most to gain from condemning intellectual content and corrupting it with a corrosive lack of social conscience.
As textbook reps tell professors, "Buy our books with cute new features." But since when was that what made good teachers?
And so, these chapters get served to us on poo poo platters,
passed off to be refreshing as fresh mint pours in for corporations like Pearson Education.
I surveyed the lay of the land in Egypt,
purveying the literature of pharaohs.
Pyramids meant to portray a portrait of powerful people,
not a foolish riddle.
"Who built them," we ask.
But not of curiosity for whose backs broke building.
Its whose bones mummified beneath are made into mythological creatures along with Sphinx features.
I was taught the Holocaust was a unique horror story,
along with the catch phrase "never again."
Yet those 600 pages neglected to educate about the "re-education campaign" against the Cambodians.
Where was I to learn of the Rwanda civilization's tensions and exterminations?
Perhaps those pages were buried in the mass graves and dirt ditches, deserted and desecrated like the indigenous individuals we now call Native Americans.
Tell me more about art again.
It conveys a message about the historical humans experience,
but I think that message got lost sometime in the Renaissance Period.
When men had beards and wore colorful clothing,
but now that is either unprofessional or deemed gay as a bad thing.
When women were depicted full-bodied as that meant social status,
but now they are painted in photo shop with air brushes and slimmed slick.
We've created a glorious new empire of gastrointestinal bypass Groupons, and have either **** out or surgically removed all the bones we swallowed to get here... So, who's ready for lunch?
Jul 2, 2018
Jul 2, 2018 at 12:48 PM UTC
On a wooden shelf textbook waits
Harboring facts, knowledge, dates
Each year summer brings needed rest
After each final, each test.
But summer is gone and school has begun
So away with freedom, the warmth of the sun
To a teenage girl, textbook goes
What horrors await? Textbook doesn't know.
Hurled in a locker, metal slams
Smothered by a shirt that says "Go Rams!"
Shoved in a backpack, do not suffocate?
Can't miss the school bus, hurry, don't be late!
Scribbled and doodled on, "It tickles!" It screams
But teenage girl doesn't realize silence is not what it seems
Spilled soda burns; acid sweet
Bubbling suffering unimaginable heat
Left on a desk, a window so close
Pages now stick, it is so gross
With its strength the textbook flies
It has just commited suicide.
May 12, 2018
May 12, 2018 at 5:32 PM UTC
The textbook poets try to bind you down
with all of those rules they call renown.
In a strict meter and rhyme they do write
and like to see others match their plight.
They criticise strongly those who compose
such poetry that doesn't follow their nose.
They put forward the case which they raise
and dispute your work to get some praise.
Some even offer their version of your poem
and with some commentary they do groan;
saying your words could be written better
giving you an example to display the letter.
At times they're justified by what they say
and so you are obliged to heed their way;
as from a certain academic point of view
especially if it seems better written to you.
But regardless of what they all have to say
the fact is that with your creation they play.
Little do they know of free flowing verse
that comes from within which isn't terse.
It resembles an off beat meter and rhyme
which doesn't keep fast to any strict time.
Poetry that's written and read in this way
has its own natural beauty some will say.
It doesn't matter if one line isn't the same
to the following one or seems a bit lame.
As long as the words written all make sense
in what is conveyed by sparing no expense.
That's really the way poems were meant to be
regardless of what a book says for one to see.
There are many forms and styles of poetry
devised by man down throughout history;
some will stick to a certain established rule
a formula which is their own craft and tool.
If one doesn't follow any rigid form or style
it wouldn't mean they couldn't raise a smile.
--------------------
Nov 7, 2016
Nov 7, 2016 at 3:51 PM UTC
What should I do,
Today's sunny too,
Dear living clue,
Lend me a shoe,
Maybe undo,
The evil brew,
Riding to you,
On your canoe,
So give me two,
Ideas to,
Relate a new,
Concepting stew,
To change the hue,
Of color blue,
So time would *****
This bolt into,
A place once true,
To brains of poo.
Aug 3, 2016
Aug 3, 2016 at 12:41 AM UTC
Post,
Like the mail you would send with no return address so your parents wouldn’t know you were still seeing him.
Traumatic,
Like is the trauma actually there since you let it go on and he never Technically ***** you? Not that you’d be able to remember if he did seeing as there Are missing parts of that year.
Stress,
Like the thing you said led you to end it, as it was too much to have to handle your 38 year-old boyfriend when your friends wanted to talk about seventh period Chemistry.
Disorder,
Like your natural attraction to older men that he was able to save you from; Thank God he found you before someone really took advantage of you.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Cannot be real if you can’t let yourself remember it,
Hard as you try.
It’s not a flashback if
it’s only an image of him stuck in your head for 35 and a half hours
Or your song played on repeat
Or his words playing out like a broken keyboard
“Stay thin.
Stay young.
Be mine
Don’t go out.
Pick me.
Pick me.
Pick me.
Don’t go.
I can’t live without you.
You have to be my soul-mate.
I waited my whole life for you.
Thank God I found you before anyone could hurt you”.
They were just words.
Don’t make it bigger than it is.
He never ***** you
And he never hit you
So what are you flashing back to?
It’s not PTSD just because you are scared to sleep
Because he might be there.
It doesn’t make sense for you to be
plunged into
how sad you are about you and your
“High school sweetheart”
Because that’s what he was right?
I mean you were in high school.
And he looked young enough, right?
“Right baby, because my boss said today that I looked 22?”
And you thought it was romantic when
Forever Young
was your song
So it doesn’t make sense
that hearing it makes you cry and
not leave your bed.
After it all you were only
kissed
by a middle-aged man
And manipulated
by a living Ghost.
No ***********
No problem,
No PTSD.
Please be sure to kindly quit being
a drama queen
in the future.
Your mental illness
does not fit
the framework
laid down in textbooks,
Despite its ability to
bring you back in time,
To the battlefield
that you narrowly escaped from,
And we just can’t seem to hear your you
over the voice of the crowd’s whispers about
What you are supposed to be feeling.
Be sure to check back in if anything else should validate your illness,
Have a great day.
Apr 18, 2015
Apr 18, 2015 at 2:50 AM UTC
you called me the other day, to ask for your textbooks back.
it got me thinking, you know.
i remembered the first time you said hello to me in the Starbucks on 4th street.
the way your ring finger and pinky curled as you waved to me.
it was november 7th.
i didn't see you again until after thanksgiving break.
we had a creative writing class together.
professor calhoon.
he told us that if we were to work together, we would be two of the greatest writers to ever study at Reed.
our first date was december 15th.
we went ice skating and drank horchata.
it had began to snow as you walked me home, where i didn't let you kiss me.
it's been a year and a half and i still remember the way you laughed when i rejected your lips.
you seemed to have no flaws for the first three weeks.
you were perfect to me.
i think i liked they way you made my problems feel. as if they were just a speck on the road map of my life. and just because everything seemed to focus on the moment in time, they weren't as big as i perceived them to be.
you told me you liked the way i bit my lip when i was deep in thought.
when you came to pick up your books i bit my lip to see if you would ask what's wrong. but you didn't. please don't think i'm crazy but i know she doesn't understand you the way i did or the way i do.
i see the way you interact with her in public or when she tries to hold your hand on the train and you refuse. i see the way she gets upset when your deep in thought. do you tell her everything is going to be okay? like how you used to tell me that? when you say that, what do you actually mean? do you mean that when you walk out my door you won't catch the feelings i caught on november 7th?
or maybe you're talking to her about yourself. and saying that everything will be okay with you.
i don't know why i'm pouring my every thought about since i saw you last into your voice mail.
you don't even have to call back or maybe i just called to say i want my textbooks back.
Jun 28, 2014
Jun 28, 2014 at 8:02 PM UTC
Nowhere in the textbook does it say
How to get up in the morning
So that shivering of the ventricles
Wouldn't turn into flaming butterflies
As the rhythm whips
Last wails of the bell tower
In the blink of an eye
Rushes through your hair
And you are left alone
With a deflated pillow
That leaks the dream of
Candyfloss in the sun
Ultraviolet rays
Stretching
Through the desert of longing
Thirst satisfied by chemicals
Then you drag your feet to learn
From your mistakes
(without a permission to live)
As the cancer itself -
Backwards
Jun 19, 2014
Jun 19, 2014 at 9:31 AM UTC