"schoolhouse" poems
An architects influence, extends only as far
As his lifetime
Although sculpted buildings may last well beyond
A single life
They are but toys for the times
Repurposed and retooled until
It carries nothing but shadows of it's origin
What should have been a schoolhouse
Could soon become a prison
What should have been a church
Would soon become a business
And in a backwards and cruel way
There is an odd sort of beauty in this
Because life is just a series of
Would have been, should have been, and could have been
That didn't.
Jul 12, 2013
Jul 12, 2013 at 12:14 AM UTC
GRANDMA'S THANKSGIVING
"Over the river and thru' the woods to Grandmother's house we go."
No, we don't go to Grandma's house anymore.
As we did away back in days of yore.
But we still remember the good times we had.
The caring and love, tho' times were bad.
Grandpa saying Grace in his old German ways.
Grandma in her apron; those were the days.
It all started about nineteen-fifteen,
With it's tall White house and big red barn.
Come Thanksgiving, with no relatives near,
They gathered with neighbors to bring Holiday Cheer.
To the four-mile schoolhouse they came all together,
With families and food -- no matter the weather.
For each pioneer mother did her very best
To cook her special treats and out do the rest.
And give thanks for gardens and neighbors so near,
They brought and shared gladly their food and good cheer.
The children had practiced for weeks., come what may.
For each had a piece to be given that day.
A song to be sung, maybe a poem read from a card, ,
While the Wheezie old ***** was pumped very hard.
When all the program was over and done,
On to Grandma's and Grandpa's for more food and fun.
A few years later instead of the farm we'd go,
To the old Rock House -- home of Tena and Joe.
Eventually the group grew too large and so
To Potwin Community House we did go.
So today we give thanks for a legend in our time,
For Grandpa and Grandma and the memories they left behind.
And for friends and aunts, uncles and cousins,
We come altogether each year by the dozen.
to remember the past and visit a while here.
Then to say Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
- Doris G -- 1983
Nov 23, 2017
Nov 23, 2017 at 6:51 AM UTC
My daddy—he once told me
don’t ever play with nuns
they’ll hit you with their rulers
it won’t be any fun
I snuck out of that prison
and now I’m on the run
Once freed from that schoolhouse
I sunbathed in the sun
I stayed out late, I went on dates
looking out for number-one
When I think of what I went through
of all the tired repressive lies
I keep running wise, in slick disguise
my purpose is renewed
Don’t ever let ‘em tell you
you can’t have any fun
If they preach that hackneyed drivel
grab some things and run
.
.
Songs for this:
Cold Heart (PNAU Remix) by Elton John & Dua Lipa
I'm Still Standing by Elton John
Jan 16, 2025
Jan 16, 2025 at 11:48 AM UTC
i dreamt that this ocean of words
that need to be spoken
had me committing folly's
and had me believing that in this all futures lay
like a simple song would suffice
a thousand years it seems
iv walked this road
to stand here looking down on this rain puddle
to look down and see the wheels that each raindrop spins
a thousands years since i drank a sip of its cool waters
since i took your hand looked into the deep waters of your heart
and knew your loves
we lay up in an old schoolhouse
while the summer storm passed
the broken benches and cracked glass
like the lessons taught there
flawed by the reality they had been learned with
so before night could strand us there
we walked on in the rain
lest like thouse old schoolbooks we could be
closed by flawed versions of our history's
by midnight we had reached fiveashes bridge
and you asked if we could stop to dance while the old man
spun us a tune on his old guitar
so i lead you in a waltz by starlight
like a raindrop i created a wheel for us to turn
and for a memory's moment we spun there
on the worlds edge
like lovers should
like two rain drops dancing on a summer puddle
all these words
like worlds that i could explore
but i tell you simple and true
that i would give them all up to have you here
have your hand in mine
so we could dance to that simple song
once more
like two raindrops in a puddle
seeking to be one
under a summer sun
Apr 8, 2014
Apr 8, 2014 at 3:59 PM UTC
My Old Flame
My old flame, my wife!
Remember our lists of birds?
One morning last summer, I drove
by our house in Maine. It was still
on top of its hill -
Now a red ear of Indian maize
was splashed on the door.
Old Glory with thirteen stripes
hung on a pole. The clapboard
was old-red schoolhouse red.
Inside, a new landlord,
a new wife, a new broom!
Atlantic seaboard antique shop
pewter and plunder
shone in each room.
A new frontier!
No running next door
now to phone the sheriff
for his taxi to Bath
and the State Liquor Store!
No one saw your ghostly
imaginary lover
stare through the window
and tighten
the scarf at his throat.
Health to the new people,
health to their flag, to their old
restored house on the hill!
Everything had been swept bare,
furnished, garnished and aired.
Everything's changed for the best -
how quivering and fierce we were,
there snowbound together,
simmering like wasps
in our tent of books!
Poor ghost, old love, speak
with your old voice
of flaming insight
that kept us awake all night.
In one bed and apart,
we heard the plow
groaning up hill -
a red light, then a blue,
as it tossed off the snow
to the side of the road.
Lowell Robert (1964). “My Old Flame” (p. 5). For the Union Dead. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, NY.
Jan 3, 2017
Jan 3, 2017 at 9:49 AM UTC
There is no longer any excuse.
In fact, there hasn’t been for a
very long time.
We have seen bloodshed
on soil around the world.
Over one million lives,
in the name of
freedom,
democracy,
capitalism,
& I can’t quite recall the others
at the moment.
We have connected
through time and space.
We heard and we watched
Bell & Lindbergh
Ford & Armstrong
Gates & Jobs
transform the very fabric of our realities,
uncovering expanding realms
of possibility.
We have healed and protected
our fragile bodies.
Decades ago,
Mr. Salk became part of evening
prayers.
We began having less babies,
and we marveled for 112 days
at the beating of the first
artificial heart.
Wondering or not
whether new bionic inclinations
had affected our humanity.
We have evolved
collective creeds
through unexpected revolutionaries
and in spite of dragging feet.
While AFL & CIO
became household names,
Ms. Anthony and Dr. King
made us cry
and shake
and question
our very foundations.
And yet,
after 165 years of change,
I say, with a heavy heart,
and millions of people,
and billions of dollars,
and a dream,
that the 1850’s schoolhouse
has been only
feebly & perfunctorily
remodeled.
From their graves,
Mr. Mann & Mr. Dewey ask,
“What will it take?”
Nov 1, 2016
Nov 1, 2016 at 3:01 PM UTC
Simple beauty
Just sittin' in the sandbox
Rain starts comin' down
rush under the rim
of the old schoolhouse
sunlight over powers
rain turns into mist
at last the simple beauty arrives....
my rainbow.
Jul 29, 2010
Jul 29, 2010 at 11:52 AM UTC
the crossing was quiet
it was just before dawn
and the cold grey sky
was full of broken cloud
it looked so peaceful
just a few rays of sunlight bursting slow
upon the new days world
felt so much like home
that i remember so clear
through the kitchen window
my mother baking on the crisp
sunday morning
through the schoolhouse window
friends that have since lost their way
once smiling upon me with such delights
lead my horse slow past the encampment
and marveled at the faces i saw there
in the new days world
where are my merciful friends
the ones who bind my wounds
and ease my fevered brow
then she came up out of the crowd
this stranger laid her hand to mine
and gave me sustenance and strength
as she explained that her man
had marched off so proud and fair
to seal the fate of the nation and protect hearth and home
but he never came home
and that though we be strangers
she could see him in my eye
knew him in my stance
and it was then i knew
i had ridden into no encampment of strangers
i had come home
the crossing was quiet
from this earthly domain to
the vaulted spires of the great beyond
the crossing was quiet
it was just before dawn
and the cold grey sky
was full of broken cloud
it looked so peaceful
just a few rays of sunlight bursting slow
upon the new days world
felt so much like home
and i am so grateful to finally be called home
Oct 5, 2013
Oct 5, 2013 at 10:49 PM UTC
You arrangers of thoughts and visions.
Sharing that most personal light that filters into your lens.
Opinions on sunsets, and of Autumns,
and attempting resurrections of days gone by.
A childhood Holiday, a skipped Summer stone.
A first heartache,
or a loved one’s soul ascending.
Perfectly honest glimpses into your most precious moments.
How do you do it?
How do you make me feel like a peeping Tom as if I had stumbled upon your most private files,
your family photo albums, your **** stash?
Like intercepting a note passed under a schoolhouse desk to Dorothy, ....what's her name.
Or that little red book in you Sister's night stand.
Her diary under lock and key?
No.
No, not diaries.
The visions you throw up are more than diaries.
They are ancient words that have longed to be spoken.
The thoughts of a thousand souls, you so bravely have loosed.
But you have to do this don't you?
You are so beautifully addicted.
From time to time you have to purge.
You have to stick your fingers into the throat of your mundane day jobs,
or lifeless relationships,
or awkward adolescence,
and for a moment,
for me,
throw up.
How is it that it stirs me to do the same?
I must crave that same drug as you.
To tap that vein and bleed...
But until then I will read you.
I will wander down your lonely paths,
I will let you in so that I may, for awhile,
find the tear you wanted me to shed,
find that smile you knew was there, hidden among my layers.
And then, to take a breath and cherish the tattoos you have left behind.
To read you.
To see just what you see.
Is that what it is, this poetry?
Jan 21, 2013
Jan 21, 2013 at 1:05 AM UTC
They wear white shirts that lope into the village square
And hate the dust that settles there.
Their children leave the schoolhouse with schoolmaster's nod
To see the traveling works of odd.
With cries and drums and fire held in open hands,
Four insects bless the godless lands.
Yes, every song on every face is writ on steel,
Cemented by the thunder's peal.
Toward the night the fires burned away the spell,
Yet still the truth did four men tell.
Feb 7, 2010
Feb 7, 2010 at 6:28 PM UTC
My frustration told me
That madness would
Answer my prayer but
I tried going mad,
Screaming Holy! in
Acred forests
Grabbing at atmospheric
Redemption and sunlight forgiveness
I tried going mad
Waving lone **** heartache
In crowds of closed-box
Timid hurt,
"I'm sorry I'm sorry!"
I tried going mad
Dancing barstool homeless
Through heavenly hallways
Laughing insanity,
"Take my eyes!"
I tried going mad
Cursing schoolhouse process-plant
Ideology and worship
"Where is the FDA when
You need them?"
I tried going mad
In streets of gold
With hungry hungry
Empty sick blindness
Taunting me, "Get a job!"
I tried going mad
With Poe and Shelley and
Thomas and Wilde
All howling humanity
All singing Patriam
I tried going mad
In type,
Even seeing briefly
Line/break suicide
On liquid crystal display
Oh! I tried going mad
But my soul dragged me
To earthcore wisdom and
Vibrated my atomic scaffolding
Immaculate
Mar 2, 2014
Mar 2, 2014 at 8:54 PM UTC
The First Time I saw you, you were in the shower.
At a party in a former schoolhouse
and I didn't even ask your name.
The First Time we talked was on facebook.
You were planning a trip to Long Beach
and I Just Wanted To Get Away
The First Time we met was at a gas station.
I got in the back seat of your car
And was with you for the next 55 hours
The First Time we kissed was in the back of a Toyota.
After a day spent at the river
and a night of fireworks,and tickle fights.
The First Time I wanted to say I love you was on my birthday.
We climbed up a waterfall
but To Me It Was So Much More
The First time I Said I Love You Was At A Concert
Only A month after I First Met You
And I Wish I'd Said It Sooner.
Aug 9, 2013
Aug 9, 2013 at 3:41 PM UTC
i'm afraid there's nothing left in the tank but fumes and false hope.
aluminum is not a friend, it's a recyclable material that contains happiness when the world turns a blind eye to its ubiquitous pain and i am only a scarecrow in a field full of bodybuilders and terrifying childhood memories.
it's all too much. the emptiness is only invisible when the music bruises my ear-drums or when i think of how your lips and teeth felt on my bones. the band-aids will fall off but your words are branded like factory farms.
the worst part? i'm a sketch left on the easel in an abandoned schoolhouse. i'm a half-assed mannequin. i've translated the seasons into colorless cycles in cyclical misrepresentation. astute observation leads me to believe i'm the product of a meaningless procreation.
shutting off my eyes doesn't feed all of the starving souls who actually want all of this oxygen, and we have false hope that some of these fumes might turn into rice and beans and
the love we've always wanted
but never swallowed.
Aug 3, 2016
Aug 3, 2016 at 11:53 PM UTC
Bells clang with dissonant fury,
they rattle the cracked foundation
upon which the church sits.
Thirteen lamp oil birds take lift
and scatter. The cacophony acting
as hands, throwing feathers and
feces out of the old tower.
The judges house leans a little more
to the left now, as it always
seems to at noontime.
The owner of the pub knocks
his sign back into place with his
knobbled cane.
The rocking chair tilts a bit further
back as the old lady finishes
her last stitch.
The children exit the schoolhouse.
None of them notice the blood,
or how the preacher slumps against
his chair, face pressed to the pages
of revelation.
Nov 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 at 4:30 PM UTC
Oh modern schoolhouse, such fine lesson taught
To rambunctious children like you and I.
Ah, your vapid air having my brain rot,
Sitting still for you tip the day I die -
I give much thanks for the literacy
And my will, once fire, now dust and smote -
I was taught to ignore the birds and bees,
And slapped on the wrists when my fingers wrote.
I was taught not color but black and white,
That each heart clangs like an old metronome,
Sound ignored in the flaming starless night,
Taught it's better to breath and love alone.
I slept with my window open one time,
Before I was taught dreams a heinous crime.
Nov 4, 2013
Nov 4, 2013 at 9:44 PM UTC
A building was built in nineteen-ten
A place for the children to learn
Once filled with laughter, now the everafter
This schoolhouse would suddenly burn
Twenty-one souls, were lost that day
When the schoolhouse burned to the ground
A nightmarish cost, everyone was lost
A bible, the only thing found
A school once more, raised from the ashes
But later, turned into a home
With visions and dreams, of bloodcurdling screams
And oasis, for spirits to roam
Ghostly apparitions, now wander these rooms
Trying to escape from the flames
Trapped in this hell, their spirits now dwell
While calling their mother's names
Each night they play their childish games
Destined, to relive that day
Ever changing shape, while trying to escape
This place, where the children play
Jan 1, 2011
Jan 1, 2011 at 4:43 PM UTC
A building was built in nineteen-ten
A place for the children to learn
Once filled with laughter, now the everafter
This schoolhouse would suddenly burn
Twenty-one souls, were lost that day
When the schoolhouse burned to the ground
A nightmarish cost, everyone was lost
A bible, the only thing found
A school once more, raised from the ashes
But later, turned into a home
With visions and dreams, of bloodcurdling screams
And oasis, for spirits to roam
Ghostly apparitions, now wander these rooms
Trying to escape from the flames
Trapped in this hell, their spirits now dwell
While calling their mothers names
Each night they play their childish games
Destined, to relive that day
Ever changing shape, while trying to escape
This place, where the children play
May 3, 2010
May 3, 2010 at 1:49 PM UTC
It was my understanding that is not failed
took to my knowing from early age schoolhouse did
And the books piled and the room
insisted more
The teacher beckons
With order saying and call of schoolbell and look
And the smell of school books on the hard wood desk
Myself to get took
That second
to the still teaching room and set down.
My first day began with the room-
kids and the older kids of the advanced years calling my name
Around the pole and the waving flag
And I rose
In doing homage
And talked toward it a crowd of all my peers.
Mar 6, 2018
Mar 6, 2018 at 5:02 PM UTC
I’m lighter than air
I’m darker than night
I’m the villain's best friend
And the school-kid’s delight
I know all
Though no one tells me
And I multiply
So I’m never lonely
The lies are my children
The rumors, my spouse
I spread like disease
Through every schoolhouse
So tell no one
My identity
But I am the secret
Yes, that’s me.
Feb 25, 2013
Feb 25, 2013 at 9:00 PM UTC
Schoolhouse Rap: Boyfriend Killaz Edition
Jody Arias!
Jody Arias!
Let’s not forget
what you’ve done to us
When you find the ****
That is the most to ya
Don’t try to play
It’s just today for ya
Cuz she may have
Another way
in store for ya
whether she comes through
the front door
Or that doggie’s little door for ya
You’re gonna have to make some
extra room for Ma
Said she’s not your shorty no more
T.
No more P.
said our Miss Jody
You ****** the wrong chick.
Jody!
I said
Jody Arias!
Her love life was so precarious
Her lover so nefarious
Treating her like a *****
little piece of ***
The result of which was not so hilarious
Salacious? She?
Predacious? He?
Predacious? She?
Salacious? He?
Who’s to say?
Really.
Said she’s not your shorty no more
T.
No more, T.
said our Miss Jody
You ****** the wrong chick.
He thought he’d get his perfect first wife
And start that brand new life.
Jody?
Can you hear me?
O Travis
my dear dear Travis
They did try to ****** warn your ***
Her hands more nimble than Thelonious
Your end more wretched than felonious
This hookup
for you
rather deleterious
Looks like she took your picture laying near the glass
Said she’s not your shorty no more
T.
No more P.
said our Miss Jody
YOU ****** THE WRONG CHICK
Apr 28, 2020
Apr 28, 2020 at 2:04 PM UTC
Too big-----to fail
Too fragile ------to heal
--
She
The American girl
In between
The schoolhouse and the factory !
Jun 18, 2013
Jun 18, 2013 at 7:14 PM UTC
The old schoolhouse.
On the hill next to the creek
Sat the old school house.
Not used today because of the old bell.
The school was built with a large old bell you can really tell.
But every day it rings so loud that it can be heard for miles around.
In the school, there are no books,tables or desk to set.
A big crack in the old floor where he fell to his death.
The old school house is just there to stay.
Jul 14, 2014
Jul 14, 2014 at 2:33 AM UTC
they died
or they helped the dying
become a puzzle, to not merge
they cried
and run to protect
their own life on the thinnest verge
then hid
up there, the wooden cabin
over the trees, schoolhouse of rust
scared
of scary, of their own hands
bathed in blood and strange lust
a deep fall
a Noah wronging no arc
and love that ends up in the dust
I’m lost
in so much red and darkness
kneeling with them, kneading past
at five
I’m leaving, it was hard
how to clean up a soul in mud?
Nov 1, 2020
Nov 1, 2020 at 10:16 AM UTC
A long road, flat, hard,
dirt-strewn, and I
am already out of water.
My canteen's filled with dusty
stones from the bend by
the red brick schoolhouse
I passed a few years back.
The night is brief and I am
as white as the water-thin
moonbeams, a crumpled
piece of copy paper never scribbled on,
that bounces off the toenails peeking
out of my shoes. The cool watery
light offers no relief here in
my sun-baked pilgrimage.
Behind me are the dozens of city
lights that kept me sane for miles--
ahead is only the deep yellow sun,
and the threat of smoke.
No travelers join me here.
No lonely cur falls in step with me.
The crows even reject my
bones--I am not done yet.
At my feet, my empty canteen falls.
Feb 9, 2017
Feb 9, 2017 at 3:41 PM UTC
In the South. Deep in the hills.
There is a forgotten town. Of a war past.
On a clear night you can see an old schoolhouse.
Next to a grave yard of soldiers from the past.
When the moon is full and all is still.
A light appears From a window in the old school.
At the stroke of midnight you hear a scream.
One that could curl your toes.
Then on a Whitehorse in the grave yard.
A soldier dressed so proud.
the school he did go. Riding fast as he could go.
In the window, you could see him as he rode the halls.
A scream once more and then a yell
The South will rise again and God blesses dixieland
Apr 23, 2017
Apr 23, 2017 at 11:22 PM UTC