It Was Alyssa

Her hand went up and reached

toward my smile,

the criss-crossedd steel fencing

halted her progress and divided us

in two seperate world.

Student and Teacher.

The teacher's heart soared to see the wide smile and earnest eyes

that she did not know she missed.

Happy to see her.

This is why she teaches, 

and for one day, Alyssa

made the teacher smile.

To feel needed is the thing

the human thing

and so

who was it that made this teacher

want to

scale the fence and

destroy the barrier between them:

Students and Teacher?

It was Alyssa

CLR May 2013

6th Period

The Vietnam war, it is said

was much maligned, as

is the last class of the day,

where shouts meet

shoulders, shrugged and

with lids heavy, time stops

for thirty-five sixteen year olds

and one forty nine year old,

both liberated from the hallways,

like unused textbooks, all,

with laughter or tears our only choice.

Clr 2012

4th Period

We were definitely reading Hamlet when I wrote this one to my favorite class:

One charming smile,

one loving heart, one sound was ours

right from the start.

A bit of you

and you  and you

all come together in this wild stew

of placid lives with

torpid tales

of an afterlife with gentle veils.

A steady beat of

the helix is here.

It binds us fast,

it holds us dear.

Clr 2012

Ms. Scearcy

Kenzie leaves behind a

little bit of glitter, every

time she travels through a day.

The little girl grows into a powerhouse,

Brown hair pulls her head back 

and turns her focus from toys and boys

to leading the way to

the future.

CLR 3/13

Alex

Alex lives inside a place

and there he'll always stay.

It is the place that knows,

'by god' that everything's ok.

His smile is reluctant, yes,

but it gives his bent away,

Alex has a heart of gold,

and army songs of yesterday.

A bugle plays from faraway

just calling out his name.

He will follow and obey

for everybody's gain.

Thank you Alex.

CLR 2013

Chelsea

A smile I can count on

Chelsea has,

and I appreciate more than

she can possibly know.

There is silent understanding

cloaked in her bouyant smile

and ever-present calming

persuasion.

Thankfully, 

she is both

junior and senior

and will be a student of life 

always.

clr 2013

Iron Man

Beneath the iron man

there lies

a solid iron will, beneath the steely mask he sits,

mostly very still.

Is it humble, self-respect, or is that arrogance?

Does he disdain weak, one and all,

or do we call that tense?

Oedipus outran his fate, and so our Matt can, too.

Wait a sec, that is a LIE, what lies in wait for you?

Brightest bulb in darkening room, 

Matt's intellect is wrapped

in silent steel, in clenching jaw,

how will his 'smart' be tapped?

Jeremy

Pablo Neruda

would be proud to share

his name with Jeremy.

When art has become his

way of life then he will 

be complete

and only

then.

clr 2012

Diana

Although silence

wraps around her

like a banana peel around

a banana, I can hear her

cry through a hundred fruit skins.

Those about her

have lived as many years, but not as many lives as she,

and she tries to 

disappear but I can hear her

crying out a hundred years from now. 

Must she be her saviour?

Clr 2012

Allison

Changes her mind regularly

about change,

although she knows

that it is good, it feels bad.

she knows that it is sad, but 

she is glad

that it happens

and when she writes more

she'll dig into her store

to find her personal

philosophical 

core.

clr 2012

Aimee Knows

There lies within her

the wisdom of a million years of

mistakes, learned from.

Let her glaring beauty

distract you,

and you 

will

miss perhaps the  greatest

mind and heart

that ever

was, or ever will be,

except for maybe

a puppy's heart, which is the greatest of all.

Life is not to be trifled with or taken for granted,

and this

Aimee knows so well.

clr 2012

Kaylin

When wal-Mart had a sale

on 

immune systems

she should have said

"No thank you, I'll get mine at Nordstrom's."

A peculiar thing, immune systems

and cash. They are 

inextricably entwined,

and it seems that only the wealthy

shall have

their contagions

healed.

Clr 2012

John Black

Is battling some terrible monster

that sometimes controls his mind and body

with a piece of paper because he won't.

If he knew that self-control is

the mark of a sophisticated human,

the opposite of the brute who grabs and grunts 

according to his impulses,

would that persuade him to follow

the precepts set forth by the law of the land?

Or would it simply encourage him to avoid, at all costs,

the outward trappings of a society that questions his

being

as he is?

Society:

Does he hate it, does he love it, or does he want nothing of it?

clr2012

Cautious

Shanacie

smiles quietly from the

last row of faces,

thinking, learning, growing

Knowing.

C.R.

3/13

Dalton Niles

Dalton Niles smiles,

making his way through the day

checking and double checking

to make sure things are as he believes.

He left his 11th grade self-doubt behind

as his swarthy swagger and his 

wagging finger

whisped him through the door on 

his very first day

as a Senior 

in my class.

CLR 3/13

Kory

Seneca said "Speech is the mirror of the mind"

and 

if that is so, you are creating your mind at all times,

by the words that

pour out of you. You are what you notice,

and I suppose it is strange that I have heard,

through his word that

Kory keeps a bit of electricity with him at all times,

right there in his pocket.

I wonder if it is near the NO KLEENEX into which

I notice he blows out his ire

LOUDLY and with a sweet, swaggering smile,directed

into my mirror, or his?

Clr 2013

2nd period

Awaken!

Some sleepy sentinels lie in wait,

whose time is now

to think.

To think, perchance to dream.

To dream, perchance to live in a nightmare,

in your rocking cradle.

Such lives I interrupt with my

couplets and pentameter.

Your life becomes my life when you enter that door,

just as my life is yours

for as long as you will have it.

clr 2012

Loren

Loren has learned to write in script,

in the ancient style of her ancestors and mine.

where it takes her, only she knows

but it is there that she boldly goes.

Sincerity lends strength to her staunchly correct

character.

As she dutifully walks the highwire

called life.

Balancing herself with her curved letters

and holding on to goodness as all there

can possibly be.

C.Ray 2013

Peyton

Peyton is not sure,

and neither am I,

what time it is when school starts.

Is it when we arrive,

or when we leave that we learn?

Is soccer a bane, or a blessing to blame?

Is there a mother's hand inside

a puppet, or does the

puppet have a puppet of her own?

The world will swirl 'round as Peyton hits the ground, and

her final round of soccer bends its head and with shame, shuffles out the door,

as Peyton's shouting follows it all the way.

Tardy, says the teacher.

Tardy again.

CLR 2013

Davin

Davin wonders

if life is

a noun or a verb.

A gift or a run,

a curse or a wrestling match.

Earnestly he seeks

the answer to this question,

not knowing 

that it is the same question

that Hamlet asks, and  Oedipus,

and all of the tragic heroes

who have made it to fame.

Davin searches

for his answer

and will find it

when he writes

his life.

To have or to live

either wayy, the answer may lie in

The Macarena

If a fellow can do the Macarena in public, in his pajamas,

then he CLEARLY already knows

the answer to this and all questions.

CLR 2013