"oxbridge" poems
We meet by the lockers
at break
I'm still amazed
that this school
has Cheerleaders
that basketball
not rounders & netball
is the sport played
that we study
the Cold War
' Of Mice & Men'
& the War in Vietnam
that we have 'Hitzenfrei' days
that our German teacher
always forgives our mistakes
that boys & girls
hang out together
that we put on musicals
I've never heard of
That we celebrate the fall of the Wall
that we take school trips
to Concentration Camps
that there's no uniform
that the teachers
rarely explain anything
that the word ' rubber'
doesn't mean ' eraser'
here but something else
that there are stereotypes
like 'nerd' & ' prom queen'
that we welcome grafitti
that we believe in Love
above any kind of Study
that we have the freedom
to pick & choose our failiures
without being sent
to the Principal's office
that we read Kerouac
Carl Sandburg & Ginsberg
that nearly everyone
has lived in at least
two or three
different countries
that we rarely fight
that my crush
plays trumpet
in a ska band
that we go
to the nearby Lakes
on weekends
& the English language cinema
on Tuesdays
that we celebrate Halloween
bit by bit I nearly forget
my All Girls school days
in soggy Britain
where I had no friends
where we sang hymns
every single morning
where we didn't practice
the Love we preached
where our future
was crumbling old Oxbridge
where we had a coat of arms
where we had houses
named after the merchant ships
of our Founder from the 1600ds
where we didn't dream
of becoming Presidents
or Astronauts but Academics
forever lost in musty books
the flower of our youth, wasted
*Hitzenfrei days were days in summer when we were let off school because it was too hot.
Wall - Berlin Wall
Jul 3, 2015
Jul 3, 2015 at 1:03 PM UTC
I've seen...
Many an egg dropped by the proverbial hen
then egg becomes number through paper and pen
then greed facilitates the perpetrators of this
with ample incentive to young girls a kiss.
Then kiss unexpectedly leads to ***********
and the greedy ******* end with a non-legit son
many of the girlies will attempt abortion
but a few will not do as the ******* tell them.
So the son soon and swiftly becomes an anomaly
while it's elder brother says to daddy "are you proud of me"
the oxbridge acceptance letter filled him up with glee
but the dad knows secretly it's all to do with money.
So the half witted son takes up the mantle of the father
as senility and guilt have finally gripped the latter
the son through drugs and experimentation is madder
his social status dictates,
he'll always climb the ladder.
A few years pass, we're in different situation
the son of senility has got grip o' the nation
shaking wretched and archaic crumbling foundations,
he's shaking the **** all over his poorer realtion.
But the overgrown man-child doesn't know,
that since he took power his brother sits in the cold,
that with all the food he eats, he chews it real slow,
so he can have food for longer, fill that hole.
But does it make it all right at once,
cuz he claims ignorance
or should the people at the top
be people from the bottom,
the ones who looked up,
but got nothing but trod on.
It's impossible to relate,
when you all dissipate,
when your middle class darling,
has a working class date.
So the ******* child doesn't vote,
through bedroom tax lost his home,
Senile son? Victory of note
fake promises in the matriarchal dome.
Apathy strikes again,
this shit's impossible to defend,
how can we justify not getting off our *****
not doing something about all this in the masses?
oh yeah, that's right
although barely know the people at the top,
We've all seen their soles as they've trod on our lots
Dec 31, 2014
Dec 31, 2014 at 9:29 AM UTC
At least they roll the credits slowly--
I mean, at the end of DOWNTON ABBEY,
the hundreds who worked their butts off
so you and I could see the stars on screen.
We human beings have been delusional
for millennia. Pharaohs, emperors, kings,
presidents, not to mention tycoons, millionaires--
now billionaires--and "prominent" people
from all walks of life, those who attended
Eton and Andover, the Ivies and Oxbridge
thinking as though they are inherently
better--superior, as it were--to all others
when, in truth, all human beings--indeed,
all creations--share the same divinity.
What a grand illusion it has been, Civilization,
from Sumer to the present! Willl we ever see
truth? Will we ever know that we are all one?
Or will we all perish from catastrophic
climate change or nuclear holocaust before
we achieve enlightenment?
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jan 2, 2022
Jan 2, 2022 at 1:59 AM UTC
when i applied for edinburgh
i was thinking:
i have to get away from these people!
i could have applied
for Oxbridge without thinking,
i applied for Bristol - fair enough,
if some dean asked me to recite
Wordsworth i'd have recited
a recipe saying 'rustic ambiance, you
see, better a recipe off the top
of my head than a date in a chinese restaurant
citing woo 'rds' worth',
like today with leftover Moussaka -
is aubergine the national veg of greece?
anyway, the salad:
spring assortment of cow dung in reverse,
cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, basil,
spring onions, a drizzle of ****** olive oil
infused with chillies,
balsamic vinegar, and half a teaspoon of honey,
salt and paper to taste... wordsworth can ****
his magpie and lark's worth of recitation,
i rather recite a recipe, in line with his
rustic residence -
like me tonight, in no man's land between
shy-urban (suburbia) and the wild parts of
the land, three beers perched on a fence
looking into the dark void of a scaled down
forest - you don't get any crows in urban areas...
indeed Edinburgh was the prime gothic
resurrection, Frankenstein's monster could
have been my neighbour -
whereas some in the grizzly north
attack the sky with colours like the houses
in St. Petersburg (pink, azure,
chickpea), other's embrace the grey
with very mundane coloured architecture,
thus when a chance sunshine comes through
people tend to look up and watch with glee -
Edinburgh brown - stonemasons' slip
of the tongue.
a murky yellow moon, a sclerosis of the moon,
the shining part in reverse
where the night the x-rayed sclera
and the moon the pupil fully illuminated with
gossiping sun in want of a listen;
a murky sclerosis yellow moon - fine agreement
with the thinning clouds that
could never be used for Mickiewicz's castles
in perfect blue and perfect cotton cauliflower contrast
of the zenith by the perpetuated day in mirror-standstill.
Apr 24, 2016
Apr 24, 2016 at 6:49 PM UTC
Dear straight people,
whilst you are happy holding hands with your partner,
there are people hiding their feelings for the person they love
because of the steel gaze of passers-by,
and because of words ripping through their skin like bullets as people jeer and jest.
you are the reason we are trapped in the closet.
On the daily teens are faced with protests, murders and fiery screams of condemnation for holding hands with their partner,
then see stories of a man who married himself and a woman who married the Eiffel tower. They had no shrieks of hell, no sour protests.
Leaving us wondering---
“Is it just me?”,
“Am I a freak?”,
“Is it really just a phase?
We retreat to our cast iron chamber that is the closet,
waiting for “This phase” you keep talking about to pass.
whilst you are busy planning proms, going out on dates and hanging out with friends,
there are teenagers sat crying,
because they are too afraid to leave their room,
they are made to feel unwelcome in their own home.
whilst you are busy reporting on Donald trump’s rise,
Kim Kardashians latest dress
and even Burnley’s championship win.
There are stories that will never be told.
Stories like the fact that 40% of LGBT have attempted suicide with 34,000 having had succeeded this year alone,
that’s almost enough to fill Stanford bridge. But of course, we only care if they attend “Oxbridge”
Dear straight people,
we care,
we matter,
we live,
we love.
Oct 26, 2017
Oct 26, 2017 at 1:46 PM UTC