We Real Cool
The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Elizabeth
Elizabeth, it surely is most fit
[Logic and common usage so commanding]
In thy own book that first thy name be writ,
Zeno and other sages notwithstanding;
And I have other reasons for so doing
Besides my innate love of contradiction;
Each poet - if a poet - in pursuing
The muses thro' their bowers of Truth or Fiction,
Has studied very little of his part,
Read nothing, written less - in short's a fool
School Is Not So Cool
School, School, School,
A school is not so cool
We're here 5 days a week
8 hours a day.
School, School, School,
A school is not so cool.
People laugh when we fall
we just have to make a call.
School, School, School
A school is not so cool.
Snow Day
Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,
its white flag waving over everything,
the landscape vanished,
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,
and beyond these windows
the government buildings smothered,
schools and libraries buried, the post office lost
under the noiseless drift,
the paths of trains softly blocked,
Vocation
When the gong sounds ten in the morning and I walk to school by our
lane.
Every day I meet the hawker crying, 'Bangles, crystal
bangles! '
There is nothing to hurry him on, there is no road he must
take, no place he must go to, no time when he must come home.
I wish I were a hawker, spending my day in the road, crying,
'Bangles, crystal bangles! '
When at four in the afternoon I come back from the school,
I can see through the gate of that house the gardener digging
In School-Days
Still sits the school-house by the road,
A ragged beggar sleeping;
Around it still the sumachs grow,
And blackberry-vines are creeping.
Within, the master's desk is seen,
Deep-scarred by raps official;
The warping floor, the battered seats,
The jack-knife's carved initial;
Why Am I Not Good Enough?
1. Take a shower you don't want to smell.
2. Pick out an outfit that will blend in with the latest trends and won't make you a laughing stock of the school more than you already are
3. Put on some makeup so you can't even recognize yourself and your face tingles with an unbelievable issue. You can't satisfy otherwise you'll have ruined the hours of meticulous painting you apply to your face.
4. Don't forget to style your hair in elegant curls. You can't let everyone at school see how your hair frizzes up.
School Just School
School we need it
school, friends
school you have teachers
school is great
high school is even better
college, PARITES
school you mite find your true love
new experiences everyday
school, dances
Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day
Calmly we walk through this April's day,
Metropolitan poetry here and there,
In the park sit pauper and rentier,
The screaming children, the motor-car
Fugitive about us, running away,
Between the worker and the millionaire
Number provides all distances,
It is Nineteen Thirty-Seven now,
Many great dears are taken away,
What will become of you and me
Two Schools
I put my heart to school
In the world, where men grow wise,
'Go out,' I said, 'and learn the rule;
Come back when you win a prize.'
My heart came back again:
'Now where is the prize? ' I cried. - -
'The rule was false, and the prize was pain,
And the teacher's name was Pride.'
A Paumanok Picture
TWO boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still,
Ten fishermen waiting- they discover a thick school of mossbonkers-
they drop the join'd seine-ends in the water,
The boats separate and row off, each on its rounding course to the
beach, enclosing the mossbonkers,
The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore,
Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats, others stand ankle-deep
in the water, pois'd on strong legs,
The boats partly drawn up, the water slapping against them,
A Poet! He Hath Put His Heart To School
A poet! - He hath put his heart to school,
Nor dares to move unpropped upon the staff
Which art hath lodged within his hand- must laugh
By precept only, and shed tears by rule.
Thy Art be Nature; the live current quaff,
And let the groveller sip his stagnant pool,
In fear that else, when Critics grave and cool
Have killed him, Scorn should write his epitaph.
How does the Meadow-flower its bloom unfold?
Because the lovely little flower is free
One Inch Tall
If you were only one inch tall, you'd ride a worm to school.
The teardrop of a crying ant would be your swimming pool.
A crumb of cake would be a feast
And last you seven days at least,
A flea would be a frightening beast
If you were one inch tall.
If you were only one inch tall, you'd walk beneath the door,
And it would take about a month to get down to the store.
A bit of fluff would be your bed,
Gee, You're So Beautiful That It's Starting To Rain
Oh, Marcia,
I want your long blonde beauty
to be taught in high school,
so kids will learn that God
lives like music in the skin
and sounds like a sunshine harpsicord.
I want high school report cards
to look like this:
Playing with Gentle Glass Things
A
What Is School Like?
School is like a prison
We can't leave,
School is like an island
We are all trapped,
School is like a pie
It is good at first until you reach the crust,
School is like a toilet
Courage
Courage is what makes us
Courage is what divides us
Courage is what drives us
Courage is what stops us
Courage creates news
Courage demands more
Courage creates blame
Courage brings shame
The Criminal V
A young man of strong body, weakened by hunger, sat on the walker's portion of the street stretching his hand toward all who passed, begging and repeating his hand toward all who passed, begging and repeating the sad song of his defeat in life, while suffering from hunger and from humiliation.
When night came, his lips and tongue were parched, while his hand was still as empty as his stomach.
He gathered himself and went out from the city, where he sat under a tree and wept bitterly. Then he lifted his puzzled eyes to heaven while hunger was eating his inside, and he said, 'Oh Lord, I went to the rich man and asked for employment, but he turned me away because of my shabbiness; I knocked at the school door, but was forbidden solace because I was empty- handed; I sought any occupation that would give me bread, but all to no avail. In desperation I asked alms, but They worshippers saw me and said 'He is strong and lazy, and he should not beg.'
August 8th
Listen here. I've never played it safe
in spite of what the critics say.
Ask my imaginary brother, that waif,
that childhood best friend who comes to play
dress-up and stick-up and jacks and Pick-Up-Sticks,
bike downtown, stick out tongues at the Catholics.
Or form a Piss Club where we all go
in the bushes and peek at each other's sex.
Pop-gunning the street lights like crows.
A Death Song
Lay me down beneaf de willers in de grass,
Whah de branch 'll go a-singin' as it pass.
An' w'en I's a-layin' low,
I kin hyeah it as it go
Singin', 'Sleep, my honey, tek yo' res' at las'.'
Lay me nigh to whah hit meks a little pool,
An' de watah stan's so quiet lak an' cool,
Whah de little birds in spring,
Ust to come an' drink an' sing,
School
Why I am being pushed to school?
For refining self and not looking fool,
To stay away from home and look cool,
Or to learn the system how to pass stool,
May be all they are right,
So I don't stay home and fight,
Always disappear from their sight,
Break precious things as sign of might,