THE RUNS OF THE LUGE
(Pronounced: Loozh)

Run One

The luge-style desks had inkwells
And grooves for pen and pencil too.
With annual sanding the tops wore thin
As deep graffiti stains bled through.

KINDERGARTEN

Such a wonderful place with social grace...
That Kindergarten.
Learning caring, all about sharing
And begging one's pardon.
Scenes of drama and trauma
Always at play that very first day.
Both trying, though' crying
At the doorway with mom going away.
Everyone so small but never so tall
While saluting the flag.
A hum-dinger! Zigzag painting by finger
In dad's old rag.
Dragging along, hand in palm,
One cool mom showing the teacher.
Soaring on wings of playground swings,
Higher than the bleacher.
Hearing a firm but (oh so stern)
"Hey! One does not hit."
Funny thing! There's a place for everything
While doing one's bit.
There's a budget crunch with a brown bag lunch
And chocolate milk.
The teacher's golden hair and her shapely pair
In shinning silk.
Sudden flare, that love affair
And plan to marry the teacher.
Fearful, tearful moments,
Over that first grade bully creature!
Hearing ringing bells, and ticking clocks,
Taking naps and playing blocks!
Head-down walks to the principal's office
For loving gentle talks.
Skipping and sidewalk sand skating home
Into those waiting arms.
Watching mom look at the coloring-book
And smiling her charms.
So compelling! That moment of telling
Daddy, "How big so far!"
Hearing his views of the evening news
And that yucky cigar!
Rehearsal day, the Christmas play
And parents brightly gleaming.
Performance day when fear gives way
To a face hiding its beaming.
"School's out! School's out!
Teacher lets the mules out!"
Yes! With character later to harden.
Such a wonderful place with social grace...
That Kindergarten.

Run Two

The metered rote of exercise
In concert lit a flame inside of me.
The sticky star was the prize.
So now my heart echoes a litany
Of memory, wherein the luge resides

NEVER TALK TO STRANGERS

Bad Wolf Gray saw Kiddy Lamb one day,
She was eating the tall green grass of May.
Bad Wolf was wagging his tail the friendly way,
As if to say:
"You don't have to fear STRANGERS today!"
He winked at her to fake his dismay.
He asked,
"Why do kids eat the tall green grass of May?"
Come with me! Said he, "I have some sweet hay.
HE LIED!
And said... "Your Mom said it's okay."
When he said that,
KIDDY LAMB SAW DANGER!
Mom would say:
"DON'T TALK! BAD WOLF'S A STRANGER!"
So she ignored all that Bad Wolf had said,
And she RAN REAL FAST to the kiddy lamb shed.
The Chief of Police Dogs said,
"HEY KID! YOU DID RIGHT.
SMART KIDS... NEVER TALK TO STRANGERS
DAY OR NIGHT!"

Run Three

The old schoolmarm is dead
And finally at rest after years
Of passing generations wore her out.
There must be a heaven for the likes of her.

LASERS LASED

Came machinations profound!
Most, elusively found.
I stared, so aware of raster's empty screen.
I pondered and wondered, if the next vision seen
Might squelch Marconian demodulated sound.
Distractions, renditions... thought were bound!
Came noun and verb to screen, for syntax to preen.
Sandwiched trim, suddenly the frame began to lean!
I raised my fist metering a poet's pound.

Oh, came a worth to it! So adeptly timed.
For, as if noble-inert-shafts cross-entwined,
Behold! Without desire for slightest recompense,
A stimulated light brought forth a sixth sense.
On the keyboard, a sudden thought was phrased.
The incoherent phased coherent! And lasers lased.

Run Four

A freeway overpasses the sacred ground
Where distant echo of children would play.
The street-sweep din replaces the tardy-bell
And smog, the aroma of the cafeteria.
Indelible memories linger.

THE TEACHERS OF YESTERYEAR

Is old education still alive,
Or did it die in all the clamor?
Will we see another beehive,
Or has teaching lost its glamour;
While leaving our children to stammer.
I, in wonderment and great fear,
Watch the sickle and the hammer.
Where are the teachers of yesteryear?

Lady liberty wins if we strive
And if we cease to damn her.
Though' she is faint she can revive
If we're like the student crammer
Or all the more like a programmer.
There is one thing so very clear...
We must be as the old windjammer:
Set course for teachers of yesteryear.

Let's forget the Sputnik drive,
Getting back to basics with grammar.
Save for later that space-age jive,
Just let them read Katzenjammer;
Who had some kids that we held dear.
Just buy them a TV jammer!
Then find the teachers of yesteryear.

So talk it up, raise a new clamor,
Or be prepared in a future near,
To work for The Sickle and Hammer...
Who killed their teachers of yesteryear!

Run Five

The concrete slab is under pavement now,
Where once we brought our toothpaste tubes
And discharged a patriotic duty
To those scrap-drives of the forties.
Wartime memories linger.

HE WAS ONLY SIX

One dreadful day at Emerson,
There came some soldiers with a bus,
To end our recess and it's fun,
With army guns that frightened us.
In World War II with all its fuss
Fearing parent loyalty mix,
They put him firmly on that bus
When Yukio was only six.
He had to trade his rice for bun,
Behind barbed fence so ominous,
That lonely young American
Who waved a sad goodbye to us.
We did not know yet how to cuss,
Nor did that kid who ate with sticks
All gathered there around that bus,
When Yukio was only six.

We brought our scrap to Emerson,
To buy a tank or army bus.
Until we knew the war was won,
We kept those Japs away from us.
We called them Japs! And learned to cuss
Showing-off our loyalty mix,
For that's how war affected us,
When Yukio was only six.

Then came one day, his freedom bus!
When tears made dust a muddy mix
Like those he left behind with us,
When Yukio was only six.

Run Six

Valentine favorites would get the cards,
While those less popular got the sorrow.
But alas, comfort came on the morrow...
Bound in the anthologies of the bards.

ODE TO A PURPLE HEART

I met a Vet who had no hand
To shake the one I'd given.
He left them both on Iwo's sand
But still he made a livin'.

I heard a well-dressed woman say:
"It should be made a crime!
To sell his pencils day by day,
Two pencils for a dime."

Perchance one day, I passed her way
As someone grabbed her purse.
"Stop that thief!" I heard her say,
In words so loud and terse.

The Vet who did not have a hand,
By instinct, and bad luck,
Brought down the thief into the sand,
Where in his gut a knife was stuck.

He died on American sand,
Where one commits no crime,
To freely sell throughout the land,
Two pencils for a dime.

Run Seven

How traumatic was the sound
Of the strap making contact with a posterior.
Better he than me, was the inevitable thought
Passing through the young and safer mind.
Sad memories also linger.

THE PICKET-FENCE

With a beat as good as any could play!
I'd sing my way to school day and soon,
A chum would join to almost always say...
"Can't you sing a little more lively tune?
`Jack and Jill' or `The Cow Jumped Over The Moon'!"
Into high gear I'd shift, showing no pretense,
Picking up the beat belting-out Va-voom!
While clicking that rickety picket fence!

A lady eating from a breakfast tray
Snapped at me as milk dripped from her spoon.
She said, "I'm going to make you pay some day
For marking my fence, you scratching baboon."
Then loudly said, "You're a loony buffoon!"
In spite of all, she never took offense.
She was amused to see me dance and croon
While clicking her rickety picket fence!

But then alas! Another school delay!
I had to run and move like clickety zoom!
Or face the music my bottom would pay
To the tune of the strap of Mister Mc Dune,
Who had a long protuberance wrinkled like a prune.
So my chum would have some fun at my expense.
With school let out, I'd skip on home and swoon
While clicking that rickety picket fence!

I was moved by a wartime movie with cartoons.
Ya see! On the way home, the war got very intense.
It was I! Who wiped out all those platoons,
While clicking that rickety picket fence!

Run Eight

The silence that settled around us
Was profound, when the unfortunate
Would return from that walk of death,
After bending over that huge desk!

YOUNGER OLD DAYS PAST

Grandchildren ask of the younger days,
When thick-fenders could resist a dent.
Just a mile to town from country ways,
Farmers sold their produce fresh then went.
Sweet candy so real for just one cent.
The Nation for peace would pray and fast.
Yes, raking some leaves helped pay the rent.
How sweet were those younger old days past.

Movies, radio and Broadway plays.
Immigrants spoke in native accent.
Parents would gasp at the latest craze.
Rote was learning and time well spent.
Penny postcards for a message sent.
Coal burning stoves to stave a cold-blast,
Tent-Preachers shouted, "Come and repent."
How sweet were those younger old days past.

Oh yes, holiday window displays,
Where gal would walk and dream with her gent.
Then "Movietone News" showed flood and blaze,
Reverse camera tricks, wreckage unbent...
No matter how bad the accident.
Polio fell to the dimes we cast.
Europe was saved by the blood we lent.
How sweet were those younger old days past.

Our children one day no less reverent,
Will give reply to old questions asked:
With thinning gray hair, their time near spent:
"How sweet were those younger old days past."

Run Nine

Gone are the erasers that wiped
Years of stormy assignments off the slate.
Gone are the lines of snow at its base
Which yielded to the oily sawdust in
Mr. Hopper's dustpan.

THE SILVER SCREEN

The magic of the silver screen
Was black and white and in-between!
It made one laugh and even cry
Or maybe made one wonder why...

Those funny men would slap their heads
And never sleep in separate beds.
Slow-motion scenes amazed us all,
As we would watch a building fall.

Those close-up scenes were quiet a trick!
They'd show hot-lips and hair so slick.
But nothing moved me any more
Than soldiers going off to war!
Unless, it just happened to be...
Tarzan! Swinging from a tree.
Just when I thought I'd seen it all,
There came another curtain call.

A Star once born in black and white,
Turned to color! Oh so bright.
The magic of the silver screen,
From then to now is seldom seen!

Run Ten

Gone are the friends who mingled
For a term and vanished in a family storm.
Gone are the nerds whose brain we coveted
But not the sweet memories we shared,
Those memories linger.

THE NERDS

Every school is endowed with a nerd hall monitor.
They are as common as a school nurse's thermometer.
Just where they come from isn't that hard to guess.
Their armband and whistle gives them that puffiness.

It's a job that they are given and one you'll never get.
The job is only given (you know) to a teacher's pet.
They stand about officiously surveying every hall.
And giving them a hard time is always such a ball.

One spots a skipped step for which you're written up.
Your plea is heard by another nerd,
A real water-less cup.
You cook up a story with allegory
Backed by a witness you call.
Both your lies and scathing eyes derives detention hall.

You do your detention making noises.
Ah! At last, I'm finally heard.
Detention hall monitor shushes!
It's just another nerd.

Run Eleven

Who said, "Youth is wasted on the young"
Must never have sat in a line on a luge
With inkwells filled and initials carved.
Heaven on earth is the memory of the luge.

THE BALLADE OF HEAVEN FOUND

I remember that special treat.
I could smell it be it cold or hot,
A mile away or across the street.
Over the smell of a roast in the pot
Cutting across any vacant lot,
On wings, aroma flew in the sky.
No treat was as good as when I got
Home to Mother and her apple pie!

One smell and a hot path I'd beat,
With after-school-battles never fought.
Though I might pass through a navy fleet,
There was but one victory ever sought.
As my boney legs, me to window brought.
There with great smile, I would spy
And pray to God, He would keep me not
From my Mother and her apple pie!

With golden weave on top so neat,
Intertwined like a mystery plot,
I'd sit and study on kitchen seat,
Euclidean angles I'd been taught.
And there to study, never distraught!
Geometric precision would pry,
Pieces and pieces that hit the spot,
There with Mother and her apple pie!

On every bake-day I would trot,
Close to heaven, all else to deny.
Ecstasy! In weather cold or hot,
Were my Mother and her apple pie!

Run Twelve

Awareness of opposite sex came on the luge.
Wafting aroma of the dime-store perfume
Fitly framed the lovely beret-held hair.
How delightful memories linger.

HORMONES

When in those Halls of Ivy,
There came a subtle awareness
Of the female gender's fairness
My hormones grew more lively.

I kept those secrets inside me
And there were times I could care less.
During gym when girls would wear less,
Total control was beside me.

As time went on I settled down.
Whether in shorts or evening gown,
I relished each and everyone.

Introspection had begun.
Now looking back upon that time,
I measure it as time divine.

Run Thirteen

Gone are the student crossing-guards
Bedecked with cross-straps and pinnacled flags.
Gone are the whistles, caps and armbands.
And yes! The officiousness of the traffic stop.

A REPENTANT TEAR

I was thinking of a youthful pellet gun.
Of all the gifts that gave me bliss, it was one.
A post was host as most pellets scarred it
Through a (DEAD OR ALIVE) poster target.
As twiggy sprigs of grapes became mundane,
More resounding was a neighbor's windowpane.
Into that sorry ring I tossed my hat.
A month without the gun was paid for that.

And when the gun paroled to me from jail,
I set upon the sorrow of this tale.
A search to find a bird upon a perch,
Found a dove above most steeples on a church.
In spite of contrite tears, I watched it die!
Though' now at peace to pen from now to then,
I cry.

Run Fourteen

How important, the feeling of being set apart
At the awards assembly with a button...
Another service-pin on the cross-strap.
Then, as always, the speechifying policeman.
Proud memories linger.

MIRROR OF CAMELOT

Each recurring season in logs glowing ember,
As fonder days of yore stir wonderment of thought,
My mind strokes minion thread seasoning hath wrought.
Searching mid-age back through youth, to it's December
For Camelot.

Twilight still flickers 'til June from September.
Though' struggle is given in thought I still cannot
Kindle the flames my feeble faculty forgot.
Stirring prime ember less to have than to remember
Camelot.

Bring fortuitously forth your fancies instead.
From obsequious fountainheads of pomp we fled.
Paint a vision surreal to stimulate my own.
Let nostalgic tears bathe clear such visages shown.
May sweet halls of ivy reflect in yon pool?
Where fancied we an age beyond that stage of school,
Our Camelot.

Run Fifteen

Gone is the run of the luge.
Gone is the rote of learning.
Gone are the old school chums,
But never the memories... never.

OUR VICTROLA

Our old victrola was the wind-up kind.
I'd smell heated grooves, as it would un-wind.
It was funny to play it at the wrong speed.
Would it cause kids to giggle? Yes indeed!
Spike Jones was goofy enough as he was,
But goofier still...through the needle fuzz.
I loved "Lazy Mary! Will you get up?"
Over donuts and cocoa in a coffee cup.

And when the spring no longer would wind,
And seventy-eights were hard to find...
'T was to a used store Vicky went.
She was bought by a lady and her gent.
They used her for years until she played,
The very last song of "Your Hit Parade."

Run Sixteen

Would that we could turn back the sands of time
Or embrace our reverie again for real
And return to the nostalgia of the forties...
Perchance we have, dear companions of the luge.
May divine memories forever linger.
Viva La Luge!

RECYCLED

When I was an infant tucked in my crib,
I nursed from a bottle and spittled my bib.
Then as a toddler, before I knew it,
My foot was so wide they hardly could shoe it.
Kindergarten was a wonderful place,
I learned with others to share the space.
Going to middle school in my teens
Prepared me for high school and chili-beans.

I went to the service to win a war,
As so many others had done before.
It was a wife and the kids following that
With plenty of grandkids to love and pat.
Alas! When I'm old and tucked in a crib,
I'll nurse from a bottle and spittle my bib.

Run Seventeen

THE BIG C+

Chemotherapy and radiation!
The body's cellular degradation!
Pain and suffering with morphine!
Very young! Very old! In-between!
Nausea! Diarrhea! Sores in the mouth!
Unable to reckon north from south!
Diagnosis! Prognosis! Doctor bills!
Primary medication! Side-effect pills!

Such a gloomy picture cancer brings
But hope and the heart have many strings.
It's the person afflicted with cancer,
Who plucks the strings and finds an answer.
Nurses, Doctors and family members care
But astride "The Luge," one forsakes despair.

©Copyright 1988-2005 by Lloyd E. Lawrence, Sr