"bookcase" poems
he would sit in his room
and draw space ships
that could only be described
as something from star wars
or star trek
and he'd do geometry on the floor
his school books scattered
and punk music
would be playing on his
boom box
game informers stacked high
in tens and twenties
all over his bookcase
cozy against star wars
and hardy boys
the wood frame bed
simple and pure
until tainted by a name
of his first love
scratched in with passion
and heartbreak
he lied quite often
and was a sore loser
his mood usually consisted of
being short fused
and even more short fused
and then he moved
left for good
not visiting for another three years
and then three more after that
each time
he gets older
and less of the thirteen year old
i had known
when he lived
at home
Oct 30, 2012
Oct 30, 2012 at 6:53 PM UTC
Bedroom’s painted fisherman’s blue
There’s a cut out of Hayden Panettiere naked in a pink bikini with a hula-hoop on the back of the door
Copies of British Vogue desperately hidden underneath the bed accompanying an empty bottle of Glen’s
Manchester United duvet cover and matching pillows to boot
The bin’s filled with pre-packed home-made lunches from the last six months
Wardrobes a collection of ill fitting blue jeans bought for me by grandmother and football jerseys for teams that I’ve never even heard of, yet let alone see play a single game
Uniform ironed and sitting out ready for school on Monday at 8am sharp
***** clothes cover mostly all the floor smelling of Lynx’s finest even though there’s an empty laundry basket just waiting in the corner to be used
Inside one of the woolen blazer’s (that is way too big for me) pockets a single unopened ****** and an AES 256-bit encrypted USB stick
An old PlayStation 2, with a single controller; games including FIFA years through 2004 to now, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, and GTA.
Blood red shoplifted lipstick that’s now melted hidden in the little secret compartment at the back, meant for network expansion.
Artemis Fowl, Alex Rider, and Harry Potter all adorn the bookcase
Physics, Maths, and IT textbooks remain firmly closed on the desk in addition to a smashed phone from me and Daddy’s last “physical altercation”
Lady Gaga’s “I Like it Rough” is playing in the background on repeat…
Aug 23, 2020
Aug 23, 2020 at 2:43 PM UTC
I was raised in a house that seemed big on the inside
With a garden that was larger than the rest of the earth.
My bedroom was shared. But there was more than enough room.
So proportionally, I always felt small.
The curtains were vines in a furniture jungle
The bookcase a tower of riddles.
I used to spend my days inside the wardrobe
Because I heard there were whole worlds inside of them.
The sofa was a cloud, I liked to sink into it.
The bathtub an ocean, that I was constantly floating adrift in.
The TV screen might as well have been
A stage compared to me when I was younger.
Even the cupboard was a cavernous place, my sparrowbone limbs
Would fold up only slightly, but still there would always be too much space.
Space blank as a bullet hole
Like the gaps between stars.
An absence you're constantly falling through. When you're so tiny,
And surrounded by nothingness, its easy to forget that you're not nothing too.
I was compressed in the classroom behind a scrawl splattered desk
The lines of graffiti looked mammoth.
The teachers were giants
And I was just jack
They ground up my brains to make alphabet stew
And gave me only a handful of A, B's and C's back.
The playground was Olympus, I was acting atlas
I felt as though the whole world was on my shoulders.
See I was a really loud kid, always shouting out
Because I thought that was the only way to get anyone to hear me.
Lungs like an opera singer by the age of just nine
And in the habit of using embellishment.
I've been where you've been kid,
I've seen it all.
I know exactly how the sight of a bullies hand-down button-up
Can be enough to make you choke...
Sometimes it still is enough.
And I know I don't look so tiny now
I expanded as I grew more constricted.
Trying to compensate for the empty place,
I had made a habit of occupying.
See I understand, I know
But I promise you, one day you'll stop standing under things
Find your feet and grow.
The leaves of your family tree do not define
Who you'll be
You do not have to hold up those branches all alone.
And I know I look so small right now
But in here, in here
I'm mammoth.
And I promise the world is not so nothing filled
When everyone is giant.
Oct 7, 2013
Oct 7, 2013 at 3:18 PM UTC
wilted petals on,
your bookcase,
perfume fills the-
room like the echo,
melodies play as you enter,
almost out of breath,
loved to death.
Aug 7, 2015
Aug 7, 2015 at 6:12 PM UTC
Once more the cauldron of the sun
Smears the bookcase with winy red,
And here my page is, and there my bed,
And the apple-tree shadows travel along.
Soon their intangible track will be run,
And dusk grow strong
And they have fled.
Yes: now the boiling ball is gone,
And I have wasted another day….
But wasted—wasted, do I say?
Is it a waste to have imagined one
Beyond the hills there, who, anon,
My great deeds done,
Will be mine alway?
2.1k
My back hunches
Like a stuffed bookcase in a corner
Too full
My back laden with possibility
I find myself lost in a maze
Of what should be tranquility
Except you lurk there
Your eyes filled with miserable possibility
I've watched your pale fingers
Turn into twiggy claws
And your green eyes
The ones that look like the sea
Turn cracked and dark
Under the light of the grey sun
She clutches your shoulder
Cackling at how I search
For an exit
And exit from this maze
A maze of possibility
Her stature slouched and heavy
Her hands cold and grey
Stroke your thick hair
And I see the disgust in your eyes
And taste it on the air
I struggle through
Getting closer to you
Trapped in a maze of
Possiblity
Jan 13, 2013
Jan 13, 2013 at 9:51 PM UTC
The little black book I keep next to my journals sits on a bookshelf I made from recycled wood. A fresh coat of paint may hide a splintered past unknown to me, but that is of zero importance when refurbished trees that died for a purpose hold books containing paper collected from a different tree that is now dignified in service.
One that expands as more hot air is blown, and shrinks when cold shouldered. The little black book holds numbers without faces, but the pocket in the back holds a face that could never be confused as paint by number.
It maps out the girl I've been searching for that never deserved a page in this book of lust, only the pocket in the back that will one day accept my trust.
And the reason this little black book is kept on the recycled bookcase is because the paper is also recycled, the same as the trash that litters the pages.
Sep 3, 2015
Sep 3, 2015 at 12:43 AM UTC
I staggered through the desert, dressed
in brown rags,
ripped. I was surrounded by flies.
They picked at my sweaty forehead,
spoiled my food.
I had in an old wicker basket two crisp apples,
which are brown
now, thanks to those flies.
My feet are dry, cracked and ******
not from flies—
from hot scorpions.
They hide under sand
and pick at my feet.
One day I left my house n’went for a walk; kicked open my front door
walked over the old stone bridge over water bright and blue, for
miles and miles,
on footpaths by little rivers, through mossy forests,
knee-deep in marshes,
hiking over rocky, cold mountains,
stammering across the plains.
I saw the desert:
punched me in the gut.
Beautiful,
I thought—
immortal.
A great tornado of sand
came whisking from the dunes. I checked
my watch: The glass was shattered. The hands were bent crooked.
I unstrapped
my watch and threw it
on the edge of the desert and
I sprinted toward the endless tan horizon, kicked off my rotten shoes
to feel the hot sand between my toes and ran. I fell and fell asleep.
I was bored in my old, old house.
The floor was always swept to shine,
my bookcase:
big, glossy, oak monstrosity.
And no, I did not have a wife,
or children.
I lived in a sunny village,
paved with stone.
By the fountain, birds sang, merchants sold felt and mallets.
I’m too tired for explanations.
And besides,
there is no trick, I left to leave,
to run and jump and roll and howl.
I knew it would end,
like this or something similar.
I decided to
just lie down,
and the vultures came like a great black cloud to circle,
and the heat,
the headache,
my body buzzed cooled a dizzy, breaking feeling came and body was freed
like ice smashing to shards . . . on desert floor, old rags drenched
in sweat-body.
I open my eyes wide.
I keep them open.
Tears come to my eyes.
I let the sun blind me.
I turn over on my side and close my eyes, see red.
My eyelids are hot.
The vultures caw
and shriek like
squealing pigs.
I’m dizzy and my head feels thick.
The vultures will eat me,
rip my skin with beaks,
and the flies will buzz around me
until I’m bones, but
I came here just to come here,
and I lied here just to lie, and
I lived just to live,
so then I’ll die now just to die.
Nov 19, 2013
Nov 19, 2013 at 2:03 AM UTC
afternoon hanging heavy,
caressed by a tomato soup fog,
tired carpet, fleshy velvet couch
both aching for validation.
ten photos of the same dog
speak Latin all at once
a desk in utter disarray,
fishbowl walls slimy
and coated in shame
a bookcase crammed with
stepfather books,
trying too hard, too much, too soon
giant cilia lined lungs swing from the ceiling,
******* in and out and in and out and in and
all of the oxygen and
it has already been an hour,
$150,
a check is fine,
see you next week.
Sep 8, 2014
Sep 8, 2014 at 10:59 PM UTC
I read to forget
I read to feel
I read to escape
I read to heal
I read to remember
I read to distract
I read to connect
I read to backtrack
I’m okay when I read
but it hurts when I don’t
Characters are my friends
when my real friends won’t
The words are my freedom
from this desolate kingdom
Isolated by feedback and uncontrollable flashbacks
I need release from the pain
To breakout of these chains
They torture my brain
looking to blame
I keep running away
from the grief in my mind
I’m tortured by thoughts
I’m not ready to find
I’m trying to outpace my agony and resentment
But my only liberation is to accept contentment
My bookcase is filling with more empty reads
Who am I kidding, what more could I need
Jul 11, 2018
Jul 11, 2018 at 12:48 PM UTC
Find an outlet.
It should be
Behind a
Desk
Or
A
Bookcase.
I need
Warmth
I need
Energy
I need
Life
Plug me into the
Wall.
Charge me.
Let me sit there
Long after
My eyes glow
Full
And
Powerful
Let me
Sit there
When I
Might
Explode.
Plug me into
The
Wall
Save me
I don't want to die.
Dec 3, 2012
Dec 3, 2012 at 11:29 PM UTC
I wonder where I was all those years ago
Not a twinkle in a soldier’s eye
Nor the girl who took the guides
To them I became a surprise.
I lay down on grasses green
With Pooh and Eeyore
In Hundred Acre Wood
Hope Eeyore has his balloon.
In my mother’s bookcase
Is where I would be born
In the names of wildflowers
And the songs of the birds.
My father’s walks in London Town
Hyde Park Corner, The Serpentine,
Visits to family in Chester Road.
This is where I would learn to know.
All those years ago I never knew
Who I might be coming to
But never was there a single regret
The couple that loved me were the best.
Love Mary ***
Jul 5, 2018
Jul 5, 2018 at 3:01 PM UTC
My expression in verse and word.
It is my rock.
My salvation though I. Walked away when limbs were healed. Over the
Years. It sat in dusty corner like the forgotten bookcase.
Runway living. Reaching for the next thing distraction.
Social interaction has become a relic. As we wiggle and prance but
Speak less about truth. Face to face. Eye to eye.
Raise your hands out there if you hear me.
Look up from. The screen if you know. Ditto.
Pain is the great equalizer. Fatigue makes cowards of us all.the mighty has a date as well as the meek .
Nod your head if too weak to speak.
I swear. This coil.
This man-ifestation of struggle and toil.
Fear not. The bottom approaches with a rush. A sudden stop.
It is the anticpation that tingles and teases.
Breathlessly we glide.
My words are my blessing and damnation. Barbed and tipped with buffalo ****
Sweet as the sweetest nectar. Volatile and ******
Willful and recklessly they exit to strike and injure.caress. Convince.
My fathers legacy. Process of elimination.
Truth. Has gone wanting today
Never to return I fear. A vagabond.outcast.
A *****
The wellspring rustles and bubbles patiently not stagnant.
Time is of essence an essence. In essence. A dab or two behind each ear.and sodium pentothal. politicians fess up.
Money caves see sunlight in all corners the thief has absconded. The judge
Slinks down from his perch blood red hands clasped behind his back
There stands the summit. Still I must climb. Unknown the other side.
Will truth abide? there .Another expanse of lies and distortion.Trickeration says I.
a misty bog. Listen. Bagpipes ?. The leafless branch vibrates a siren song to the sod.
The shimmering pool in the parched desert of god.
I stagger foward now unaware. No I am past caring. The will still is there
A ghost. Soon soon.
No ?. No. A mirage
Jan 20, 2013
Jan 20, 2013 at 4:22 PM UTC
I would argue that what is happening here isn’t the crushing of creativity but the addition of knowledge. As people get more knowledgeable they are better able to evaluate their ideas and sift out the ones that won’t work. Looking at the quantity of ideas for the use of a paperclip tells you nothing about creativity but the quality of the ideas might.
If we want pupils to be good at problem solving we need to give them a lot of knowledge with which to solve problems. There is no generic problem solving short cut we can use. The problem solving skills of “I need to put up a bookcase but have lost the instructions” is very different from the problem solving skills of “We need to resolve the conflict in the Middle East.” I we spent less time trying to find these short cuts we might have a lot fewer wonky bookcases and a little more chance of peace.
I can’t speak for all subjects and contexts but in secondary school geography we are constantly problem solving. It is what Geographers do but each problem needs a wide body of very specific knowledge. We look at how they would solve the problem of the UK’s energy mix, how they would improve housing in informal settlements and yes, even how to solve the problems in the Middle East (if someone without a knowledge of catchment hydrology tries to pontificate on the issue I wouldn’t give them the time of day).
The same applies to “creativity”. The ability to create is an important and wonderful thing. Music, art and drama should play a full and important part in the curriculum but they aren’t about teaching something as generic as “creativity”. They are about teaching the skills to allow you to be creative in that particular domain. Learning to express your creativity in art is unlikely to help you pick up the trombone and learning how to write is unlikely to make your interpretive dance any less awkward.
If you think that these things can be taught as stand alone generic skills (I assume you there is a 54% chance you are) then please do send me a lesson plan because I would love to see how it is done.
Conclusion
I think the term “21st century skills” is a nonsense. The generic skills that people will need in this century will be the same as they have needed in all of them because they are the things that make us human. I don’t think they can be taught in isolation. I don’t think we get better at “problem solving” by solving problems in different domains or better at “creativity” in one domain by practicing another.
Schools play a role in preparing children for the future and that role is to ensure they leave us as knowledgeable and well informed adults.
Aug 26, 2019
Aug 26, 2019 at 1:05 PM UTC
i have spent the last three days humbled
on hands and knees, relinquishing all of myself
into the welcoming mouth of the toilet seat.
i don't know what is wrong with me.
i havent seen you for a while but i am certain that you hate me.
i can't help but think that this is my fault,
wonder if i should be giving more of myself-
something other than mucus and bile.
i look back on the day that i cut my hair,
embarrassed that all i had to give you was
a lock of it, a small insignificant piece of me, knowing that
you wouldn't have accepted all of me if i had offered.
i don't know how to show you that i've tied myself to you,
that you now possess a piece of the last nineteen years of my life.
i bet you threw me in a drawer or underneath the bed,
let me drop unnoticed behind the bookcase:
out of sight, out of mind.
i now know what lovesick looks like
although it is not the kind of love (or sickness)
that you would accuse me of being capable of. it is more like a mother
ripped away from her suckling child
by the guilt instilled in her through a man's laughing eyes.
i wish i could leave this body,
fly away to worlds untouched and forget you, but
i am still learning that we are rooted to this earth by hatred and hips,
destined to be left behind,
no lumps of flesh to save us,
flapping behind our backs or between our legs.
and when hagar looked down upon his beautiful face and froze,
i'm sure she contemplated driving that knife
in the centered nook right below her own ribcage,
confused as to which she should aim for:
the heart or the womb,
both equal conspirators in her shame.
May 19, 2010
May 19, 2010 at 10:27 PM UTC
Whining about slushie stains, broken shoe strings, a cloudy tan date, a blender of crushed molding fruit and a couple of misplaced coupons dusty under the bookcase
I listen, I stay. I know I know-so awful, so unfair
Tuesday the tongue red Toms squished into the slip n' slide of a slow-paced coat on the run, splashing in the surprise and disgust but mostly drowning in the wrong point
I listen, I stay. I know I know-so foul, so raw
The pipes ooze liquid, weeping for a fix but the handyman's calloused fingertips were fired for not fitting the bill, mending the rip or driving the speed limit
I listen, I stay. I know I know-so frustrating, so disappointing
Saturday's overlap into Sunday was cramming lyrics and auto corrected notes into the bloated edge of a clicking lens snapping away, capturing a frenzy of wild memories and ibuprofen pills
I listen, I stay. I know I know- so entertaining, so amusing
Begging for top shelf truth, knee stretching for flexibility, pen scratching for a road deeper inland, holding, yearning for a meaningful entry to meaningfully look back on
I listen, I stay. I know I know- so vanished, so fragmented
Each night, the muffled light bulb all tucked into bed shamelessly stares crooked at the nightmares of an exhausted headboard wishing only to shed comfort instead of light
I listen, I stay. I know I know- so sorry, so sorry, so sorry I can't be more for you
May 27, 2012
May 27, 2012 at 7:32 PM UTC
layers of scars
over your heart
sedimentary footnotes
pages of insults
stacked one atop another
novellas of reminders
select a spot on the bookcase
pray to forget
Sep 18, 2013
Sep 18, 2013 at 7:26 PM UTC
I can hear you. You whisper to me.
Like a midnight vesper with your voice
cloaked in darkness, aching to be seen.
You are intangible. I reach and yearn
but you are lost.
I imagine you sometimes in the eyes
of the Lladro figure on my bookcase
the last thing you left to me
because no one else ever loved it the way you did.
She still feeds her swans, you know
that Lladro with her bright gaze
and tiny archaic smile.
She reminds me of you.
Sometimes I wonder if you’re there
and that’s why I hear your little voice
or smell your sweet perfume,
the twirl of her porcelain umbrella
wafting it through my bedroom’s stagnant air.
Apr 25, 2015
Apr 25, 2015 at 11:21 PM UTC
She sat glorified
Among rotting leaves
On a rooftop ledge
Reigning over streets
Where children don't believe in "someday"
Each day, she greets the sky
With a painted pink smile
Her perfectly sized body
A taunt to adolescent girls below
Gusts of violent winds
Descent from that palace
Into the lap of a dreaming bookworm
These days she wears a torn dress,
Broken limbs splayed on a glorified bookcase
Feb 14, 2013
Feb 14, 2013 at 9:27 PM UTC
i do not know
what to write,
so i fill the empty spaces of my sentence
with the teardrops from the previous paragraph.
i do not know
what to say,
so i repeat the verse
i started yesterday.
i do not know
what my direction is,
so i write the stanza
winding into nothingness like a bookcase.
i do not remember
how i write my poems,
so i draw from feelings
felt long ago.
i do not remember
how to read,
so i recall a passage from a chapter book
i have yet to finish.
i do not know
if this has a rhythm or an order,
but i know i will find it soon.
poetry will come back to me
on the next crescent moon.
Dec 1, 2018
Dec 1, 2018 at 4:27 PM UTC
If you should come upon a painting by Mark Rothko in a museum -
I'll assume you are not one of those billionaires who has one hanging on the dining room wall, or hidden away in a secret room behind the bookcase -
but either way, do not just look at the painting or you will see nothing.
Well, except color. You will see color. Rothko loved color.
But wait a while and you will begin to hear it whisper its secrets:
How lives are layered upon lives;
how painful sacrifices
get buried beneath petty ambitions and lies
and joys and succes as well-
oh, and perhaps another layer or two of color.
Each generation scrapes the parchment clean
and blithely scribes new marks on its surface -
confident that they will not forget the lessons
that seem so absurdly obvious.
Empires disappear beneath overgrown vines
and dieties who, drunk on the blood of virgins
would feast on the hearts of conquered warrors
but now shuffle past each other
with oblivious nods, grousing about the food,
wait for the day someone remembers their names.
Listen and perhaps you will learn
how every layer of life is a forgotten secret
discernable only by its subtle influence
on the layers that are built up above it.
If not. There is always the color. Rothko loved color.
Apr 18, 2018
Apr 18, 2018 at 3:36 PM UTC
You took away the things I love
My bookcase and record player
Are dusty but my bed is warm .
You blacken already genetically dark circles under my eyes
And made me too discouraged
To use concealer .
You lined things up nice and neat for me in a row to critically craniumly understand ,
Then berated me when I couldn't currently conduct myself in front of company .
But needed to cope .™
Nov 7, 2014
Nov 7, 2014 at 11:32 PM UTC
i simultaneously long for life and death
i want to **** myself, but don't want to die
i want to disappear into a nothingness
i want to float up into the sky
(but maybe that's just a teenager thing)
in crowds, i get panicked and weepy
alone, i suffocate on the floor
i belong to no person or thing or place
and i fall to pieces behind that bedroom door
(but maybe that's just a teenager thing)
sometimes, i'm just teeming with emotion
the pain and the love and the best and the worst
all of the feelings get twisted together
until i'm sure that i'm going to burst
(but maybe that's just a teenager thing)
on the contrary, sometimes i feel numb
i'm immune to the pain of this place
i can't feel the good or the bad or ugly
it's amazing what you can hide behind a happy face
(but maybe that's just a teenager thing)
i constantly feel like i'm empty
and that i've got nothing left to give
i feel like i'm broken and done for
and that there's no reason for me to live
(but maybe that's just a teenager thing)
i write suicide notes in my free time
and count the number of ways i could do it
and hide pills away in the drawers of my dresser
like my own little "how-to" death kit
(but maybe that's just a teenager thing)
i keep razors and knives in my bookcase
i have methodically placed lines on my wrist
i long for the pain and the blood that it brings
i flirt with the demon of death, and then give it a kiss
(but maybe that's just a teenager thing)
i live in a world of pain and anxiety
in constant fear of the people that i'm supposed to love
i think that i want to die, but what is want is to be free
depression's the cage, and i am the dove
but i guess that must be a teenager thing.
Dec 25, 2013
Dec 25, 2013 at 8:29 PM UTC