At 10:00 am, less than 100 students walked out to the flagpole
for our school's second walkout.
While there was less than one fourth of the population from the first walkout,
it was so much more powerful.
So many voices were heard.
We screamed, cried, laughed, read poems,
and all silently wished for a riot; wished for change.
We all wished that we didn't have to do this.
Wished that we didn't have to fear being shot at school,
the place where we are supposed to be safest.
But in that moment,
we were one.
We hugged, rested our heads on each other's shoulders,
and were one giant support system.
We are going to make change.

if words are food for the mind,
then here is a glimpse of mine
if words are drugs for the brain,
then here is why i'm so pained.

abandoned, abhorrent
abnormal, absent
abstract, abuse
addicted, anxious

betray, bitterly
blank, blasphemy
bloodless, breakdown
breathless, brutal

captive, casually
catastrophe, cautiously
change, cigarettes
crucial, clueless

damaged, dangerous
deadly, disastrous
disheartened, disconcerting
dramatic, dreading

eager, eccentric
ecstasy, eerie
effete, effortless
embittered, excess

faded, failure
faintly, fallacy
faltering, fatally
fearfully, finally

garbage, gawky
gibberish, gloomy
gone, goodbye
graphic, gratify

hallucinate, harshly
hazy, heartless
hectic, helpless
hesitant, hit-and-miss

idiotic, idly
ignorant, intimacy
illogical, imaginative
infatuated, intoxicated

jealousy, jittery
journey, journal
joylessly, judicial
junk, juvenile

keen, killing
knavish, knocking
knockout, knotty
knowingly, knowledge

laborious, lacking
lame, languishing
lifeless, literature
lovelorn, lugubrious

madness, maintenance
make-believe, malaise
mean, melancholic
mellow, melodramatic

naff, naivety
nameless, naturally
nauseous, nebulous
neglected, nervous

oasis, objectionable
obliged, obliterate
oblivion, obscurity
obsolete, one-and-only

pacifist, pained
pale, panicky
paradise, paralyze
passionately, passively

raging, ranting
rationalize, raving
realistic, reasonable
rebellious, reckless

saboteur, sadness
sake, sameness
sanity, satisfactory
scar, steady

taint, tangled
tasteless, tearful
telling, temperamental
terror, theoretical

unaffected, uncanny
uncommon, unconsciously
undesirable, uneasy
unfortunate, untidy

vaguely, vanish
vanity, vanquish
versatile, vicious
violence, voracious

waiting, waking
walkout, wanting
wasteful, weary
withering, wrecking

if words are food for the mind,
then you've seen a glimpse of mine
if words are drugs for the brain,
then no wonder i'm so pained.

*-djs

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                        A Student Walkout with Hissy-Chants

But

I heard of one student who refused to go
Who bravely thought for herself, and so said no
And she’s the one student I want to know

They're practicing democracy .. Bravissimo !

ప్రకాశం  లో  sri prakash మల్లే  
ప్రశాంతమైన   వాతావరణం లోనే  
ప్రదీపాల్లా  వెలిగామే.
నాలుగు  వర్షాలు  వనవాసాలే  
నలు  వైపులా  పుర్తయ్యాయే  
నవ  లోకానికే  ఇది  శ్రీకారమే .
మాటలు  వేరైనా. . .ప్రాంతాలు  వేరైనా. . .అలవాట్లు  వేరైనా. . .  
విహంగాలుగా   విహరించామే   ఇన్నాళ్ళు  ఈ  చోటా . .
తర  తరాలా  కదల  మళ్లీ  ముందుకే  వచ్చింది  రా  
వీడ్కోలు   అంటూ  walkout చేయాలే . .
అనుభవాలనే  పంచేస్తూ  జ్ఞానాన్నే  అందించిన  పండితులనుంచి  sendoff­ తీసుకోవాలా. .
పూర్తైన  పాఠం  లా  చివరాకరికే  వచ్చేసాము  
labs అంటూ  తిరిగమే  project అంటూ  వెలుతున్నామే  . .
కలిసుండే  కలం  అంతా  కరిగిపోయింది  
కష్టం  ఉన్నా  సరే  ఇష్టం  గా  స్వికరించాలే .
I am missing my college
SRI PRAKASH COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

They love you more than they love themselves
They only want what's best for you
They treat you with respect
But toughen you when it's required to
They stress you not because they're punishing you
But because they're worried about you
They sometimes spoil you
Because they love to see you smile
They feed you a meal x3 a day
And buy you your favorite chocolate milk
Which makes you happy to hangout with them
Instead of being with your friends playing video games

But now things changed

You're all grown up
Fussing and screaming all day
Because you don't want to do your homework
You want to play outside with your mates
The moment you walkout from the front door of your home
You're invisible and uncontrollable
With no curfew. You're always late

But things have changed

All of a sudden you're an old man
With a wife, 3 kids and a dog
It's all heavy on your shoulders
Lifting all the weight
Struggling with your work
And then coming back home
To your wife and 3 kids
But it isn't all that great
Cause they constantly cause problems
And dont appreciate your sweat
And that's when you remember
All the days you spent
Being arrogant, selfish and stubborn to your parents
How you raised their heart rate
And raised your voice on them to the highest level
As if you were special
And now you ask yourself "how didn't I notice?"
You were too blind to see
Too cold to feel and
Too deaf to hear
All the struggle your parents went through

But things are now stable

*Wasn't it all worth the wait.

A union man
makes his plan
with an idle hand

one million belong
one million strong
one million wrong

we have your back, just pay your dues
we will give the answers to all the clues

we will tell you when to work or strike
we will write your good book and be god-like

you will become a scab if you dont conform
just sign this and be safe from the storm

walkout turns to lockout and un-employment
out of work as you watch the scab deployment

A union man
makes his plan
with an idle hand

one million belong
one million strong
one million wrong

Sitting on her dorm room bed
Three feet from the floor
Not quite happy
But not quite sad
She wants to feel the ache in her bones
The hatred she has for herself
She wants that to come back
she doesn’t want to feel ok
Cause she’s not
Trying to make that decision
To walkout in the middle of the night
While her room mate sleeps
And to never come back
She’s ok right now
But she wants that sadness
The depression to fill her bones
She wishes she could pull the metaphorical trigger
And not live
Oh how she aches
To just want to not be ok anymore
Because when you’re not ok
You feel alive
Or at least she does
It’s terrible beast
She hates when she’s ok but hates when she’s sad
She just wishes she could not exist
That would be her ultimate goal
She types this in the dark as her roommate drifts off to sleep
I know cause that girl is me

Seventeen minutes of silence;
Seventeen balloons released;
Seventeen roses in loving
Remembrance of those now deceased.

Tens of thousands of students in schools
Across the country expressed their grief
And solidarity together
In what has become a recurring motif.

Americans by the millions
Increasingly are finding their voices--
Speaking out, demanding change,
Reminding us that we have choices.

Do we choose to do nothing
And cower before the NRA,
Or do we say enough is enough
And get this change underway?

Speak up: no more mass shootings
Or ****** bodies covered with sheets.
Demand real solutions and keep
Assault-style weapons off our streets.

In the age of never-ending wars,
Political chaos, corporate greed,
And out-of-control gun violence,
Our youth are planting a hopeful seed.

May that seed grow and flourish!
Meanwhile, read the names below--
The names of those who lost their lives
At a school in Florida one month ago:

Alyssa Alhadeff, 14
Scott Beigel, 35
Martin Duque, 14
Nicholas Dworet, 17
Aaron Feis, 37
Jaime Guttenberg, 14
Chris Hixon, 49
Luke Hoyer, 15
Cara Loughran, 14
Gina Montalto, 14
Joaquin Oliver, 17
Alaina Petty, 14
Meadow Pollack, 18
Helena Ramsay, 17
Alex Schachter, 14
Carmen Schentrup, 16
Peter ****, 15

-by Bob B (3-14-18)

we watch it unfold.
their love. if it was ever permanently there to begin with.
i think they watch their time closely.
i like to hope.
so maybe when he hated her the first time, it didn't hurt as much.
i close my eyes.
sometimes i cry.
but usually i sit cross legged and wait for her to walkout of the bathroom.
she banished her soul to his reserved moments of breathless pause.
and that is how i learned what love is.

day
the soul trapped
in body
In night
Soul just walkout
from us
to live unconditional life
an adventure
we call it dream
But
the adventure was real
that's why
you feel live in dreams....

The atmosphere is charged
With putridity of awful mess
Dustcart on crummy streets
Dustbins on strike
Cleaners dead at dawn
Harmony on walkout
Putting a damper on health
As willowy actresses
And wailing actors are
Pushing for cleanness
In this arcade of flaming dirt
Asking change for a change
All bawling, No matter the price
We must win the prize.

You don’t stay in a pen

But you search for a pasture that’s green

You make sure that the water is clean

And the place is safe to lean

You always know what happen

And ready to mend the broken



The flocks won’t go ahead

If your voice is not heard

Your voice alone they take heed

They’re not easily deceived

For they already perceived

The voice to them you translated



Yes, you are the shepherd

It’s you who prepared

What the flocks needed

It’s you who provided

You always go ahead

Your flocks aren’t misguided



I wonder how you’re able to sustain

You didn’t say a word to complain

Though sometimes your flocks didn’t listen

You still carry them with your arms widely open

To you who did ordain

That forever you remain



How could they pay you back

When wolves came to attack

For the flocks you became a rock

The ravening teeth you did hack

Their evil plans you did pluck

Before you they became a laughing stock



This is what shepherding is all about

There’s no place to walkout

There’s no room to hideout

There’s no time to burnout

The Shepherd of all shepherds is searching you out

JESUS is coming to pull you out

How do I do this.....
How do I leave....
How do I say goodbye.....
How do I leave not knowing if you’ll be here when I come back....
How do I say goodbye knowing this might be my last time....
How do I walk out the door knowing this might be the last time I see your smile....
How do I do this.....
How do I not shed a tear....
How do I not break.....
How do I leave without my heart breaking
How do I leave without crying a river....
How do I do this knowing you might forget me....
Even though this is all for you how do I do this....
Even if you might not remember me...
Even if I cry..
Even if I break like glass...
Even if I walkout....
Even if I sacrifice everything this is for your future....

Lately everything that's been going on feels so surreal
so these days I build walls of steel
so I don't have to reveal how I feel

I don't know how long it's going to take
before I break
but when I do it's going to be for my sake

so I can let it out
so I don't just walkout
and so I finally have my chance to scream and shout

there are infinite days
now I miss the sky
now I miss the wind

upstairs
I let my shadow walk ahead of me

I miss the night sky
days I wished for clear skies wide eyes

a room without a window
feels like I'm wearing chains

is it raining
what's this feeling
I turn off all sounds
quiet down
I can slowly hear it now

if I walkout
I can hear the stars say
where did you go
we are here for you

upon the 'free man' meeting the 'gift of god':
mind you, not gift off,
but gift of... of pertaining to: in relation to:
in the orbit of god...
not off god: implication of away from...

when Charles met Matthew
and did a little psy-op collaboration...

ᚲᚨᚱᛁᛚᚨᛉ
Κάρολος
                KAROLOS

Ματθαίος

in ******: CH - german Z for C
but also H          cha cha laughter
in Lviv
            JA JA          in Madrid
while XA XA in Mexico City....

   C'H....           cecha - should the vowels be
summoned: cecha: characteristic...

the Runes of Norway, Saxony,
Sweden Denmark became Latin...
Latin became Italian
became Spanish...
    remains of the Greek...

ᛗᚨᛏᛏᛖᚢᛋ

ᛗᚨᛏᛖᛟ

        i can venture further, into old church
Slavonic and Turkic -
since we're all similar in the Caucasian sense
of: not the origins of Africa...
the Polynesians originated from
the little island of Taiwan
circa 3000 B.C.

       and did the opposite of Alexander
the Great and Genghis Khan
crossing the great Pacific by oar and in similarity
to the Norsemen...
settled on fertile plots of land born
from volcanic disgruntlement of:
not enough land... too much sea...

salt and water... NaCl-H₂O

later cauliflower salt ships in the sky
reimagining swans and castles in clouds...
clouds by extension are the "dry" residue
of the waters of the seas...
like daughters of the Moon who governs
the tides...
the clouds are ******* up and
mitigating: purifying the waters for plants
to grow...

         such is the claim of the Hebrews:
that they are proud, too proud...
having overcome the preservation of their tongue
having quenched cuneiform
of the Babylonians,
having overcome Latin...

kind reminder: the letters are still intact...
why am i using Latin letters
but not speaking Latin?
the grammar of the Latin men
is still intact in me...
should i switch to speaking ******...
i will do as the Latin men did:
disuse or glide over the use of pronouns:
since pronouns will become incorporated
into nouns and verbs
i will glide over the shrapnel that's English...
i will sexualise words
and avoid the gender neutrality of nouns

i will call the moon a HE
and will call the sun a SHE
thus paying a compliment to the Hebrew deity...
HA-SHEM...

Ματθαῖος... (yos - mat-fa-yos... explanation
   of the ~ diacritical mark above the iota,
morphing it into a y)

         i find that people are embarrassed
about their names...
some people don't live up to them...
they would rather be called "it" or "that" or "them"
or "they" or            "chair"?

SIT... said the chair?
        while the knife said cut, make an incision
while the spoon imitated the cusped hand
and implored "you" to slurp a mouthful of soup?
i don't believe anyone ever drank water
using a spoon... seems rather suspicious
to think a spoon would be invented to make
drinking water somehow... "civilised"?

ש ᚨ ᚱ        ᚠ

it would seem that shin grew a leg
and stood up like fehu...
O the days when letters had names
like the Greek alphas
   and omegas
rather than this Latin sing-song-along
and dental: when asked with mouth open
and someone inspecting the bones that grind
the letter A... not alpha but AH... sigh AH
regurgitate A for me with a sigh
like a youngling seagull being force-fed
regurgitated fish...

regardless: my translation skills are...
although it is true:
i am yet to ingest chatGPT any mention
of Greek or Hebrew...
perhaps i can be aided...

      such that the past few days culminated
in an evening of summoning
a body-mind duality in the framework
of IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) -
or rather... congested cognitive "bias"-*******
of a disruptive class
and me feeding evidence to the programme
provider... blah blah...
in a classroom where i'm the 2nd eldest...
with "men" in their 40s...
a peer... in his 36...
either *** mad or *** starved...
siding with girls... girls... scarlett o'hara
types... horrible girly women...
femme fatales...

the trouble started when the classroom was
rearranged... Oana
came in late and saw me sitting at a table
alone so she sat down next to me...
major ******* flirt...
"innocently" rubbed against me...
touched my hand... flicked her hair onto me...

yes: i did ask for her number:
FOR NETWORKING FOR NETWORKING...
she complained about Andy not buying
her something sweet...
so i went out of my way to go for lunch
and buy her a piece of Romanian cake...
unknown to me was her relationship status...
a day later i learned that she has a boyfriend...
but i'm not yet a zombie or a half-baked
resurrection: yes... i'm taken...
but play is play when you're in an educational
environment...
i can play a flirt...
                    i can flirt... if the game is a game
of reciprocation... done covertly...
on a transcendental / unconscious level...

and then the other girls on the course:
hot catches? not exactly...
it's hardly racist to say that i'm not attracted to
black girls... tell a homosexual to like women
is like telling certain white boys to like black
girls: and i don't even care what the white girls
want or like...

i'm into Raj girls, Latino girls,
Turkic girls... sorry... that's just my inbuilt
discriminatory: ***...
    i will not be forced into liking black girls...
i actually find black men attractive...
sorry... not the women...
on the rare occasion yes:
have i ****** a black girl before: yes...
but...                              the psychology is just not aligned...

Holly and her neck tattoo and a Medusa
tattoo on her hand...
a heart on her face...
oh yeah: painfully 20 / 21 with Kelsey
all ****** out single mums ready catches
with so little life experience
devolving the teaching environment into
a ****-life let's all call for a mass-walkout
go for unregulated cigarette breaks,
let's drag this SIA course for almost: forever
like i haven't already wasted 3 weeks of my life...

or at least that's how i'm reading the situation:
girls just wanna have fun
then a Matthew and a Charles come along
and the boys are taken
they talk candidly about *** with their partners
like boys ought to do
and about life and society
and Stoicism... oh yeah: we talked about Stoicism
and manhood and dietary requirements
and testosterone...

because a stoic is not a cynic is not a sceptic...
a stoic is not a cynic is not a sceptic...
just like my history is entwined with etymology
rather than... Darwinism...
i have an etymological reading of history...
anything that happened outside of the realm
of the use of communication via words
doesn't really bother me...
this grand architecture of form of ape
and beyond this grand genesis out of Africa:
i just look toward Polynesia and:
out of ******* Taiwan...                       mate...

talk about being in the same room
with a bunch of ***-mad 20 year old girls
being the 37 year old man that i am: taken...
it's like they completely forgot to realise
that i might have had some brothel education...
the higher end... with older women than me...
am i suddenly going to use my age as
an advantage on them to groom?!
oh i'm pretty sure those men exist...
but here's me going on a "hunch" with what
Socrates said:

by all means marry; if you get a good wife,
you'll become happy; if you get a bad one,
you'll become a philosopher;

well then: don't marry... but at least to gravitate
toward being with a woman...
i could never appreciate
the state empowering a woman
to the point of based biases...
    i can give a formal allegiance...
i can ask a woman for a ring to put on my finger
to keep me in check...
but a signed off arrangement...
with fealty to a state to interfere?!
no... if separating... on amicable terms...
on personal intuition...
on not giving a **** ****'s sake **** is an OATH
word...
mind you: i was thinking about solipsism last
night when falling asleep...

the ego... construct... doesn't the ego "think"
of itself as a... solipsist?
i suspect my ego like anyone else's ego
is a naturally inclined solipsist...
this whole 19th century psychiatric
impolision gravitating to the schematised man
with the secular trinity of Freud's
conjuring simply justified the ego's withdraw
into more solipsistic antics...
this lack of accountability in modern people,
their lack of judgement...
their obliviousness...
non-responsive empathy stressors...

                  it's becoming... slightly worrying.