No More Pencils..No More Books...

No more pencils, no more books....

©-MFB III

 

 

A light coating

of chalk dust,
still insulates my

steel gray innards.

My mahogoney face

is lined with cruel marks

which are quite simply
all the etchings

of juvenile hands
scratching various initials
in rememberance

of their long and tedious

hours chained to me.

With an inkwell for an eye,
I saw braids bent

in concentration,
and crewcuts

nod off to sleep,
The echoed drone

of boring teachers
still resounds within

the hollows of my

storage space below.

So often my

mouth opened
to discharge bright

books of knowledge
regurgitated text from

so many years ago.

Several rulers

graced my platform
taking measure

of their young lives
while large pencils

often stenciled
fresh ideas on goldenrod,
yellowed paper

holding classwork,
then hand fed to

my wide gullet.

Legs of wrought iron

most fancy or plain
helped support the

learning masses,
feet wrapped tightly

round the curlicues,
till my paint was worn away.

Alas most of my

peers languish
in the landfills t

hat are dotted
all across the land

kids learned of,
across the surfaces

they offered.

And so many

of the students,
who daydreamed

within my confines,
are now sealed

in lid like boxes,
that resemble mine above,
buried also in the landfill,
where they store

discarded people.

But the youth

we shared I cherish
from this basement

where I moulder
in a school closed

by progression,
till like them

I rot away.