A little flower

A little flower

Everyone
needs a little flower their own.
Everyone
needs some blessing unknown.

My flower
grows a leaf, a petal, a rose;
with its
blooms and its buds, it will live through my woes.

My blessing will
make the rain cease, make the sun shine
In my eyes
make the clouds part for a beautiful sign.

Though everyday
more weeds and bugs show,
Everyday
my flower will grow.

And when it
has blossomed into something great,
I’ll let it
fall off, sit back and wait.

I'll wait for
more flowers to blossom and grow,
Because everyone
needs a little flower their own.

The Professor and me

I went to the Professor’s house to stay one day
He was very knowledgeable, had two wisps of hair
Much like Einstein, if you pardon the flair
But…

When I asked for some water
For I was so thirsty
He thought I said otter
Told me there was none to eat

When I asked him for the bathroom
For I needed to pee
He showed me his mushrooms
Said “That should be enough for thee.”

When I asked for a snack
For I was indeed hungry
He brought me to his shack
Which was indeed very smelly

When I finally said Goodbye
As it was time to leave
He told me “Hello!
It’s a good day to meet”

I’ve grown up now and become a chef
But sometimes I do wonder
if Einstein was deaf

a blade of grass

this isn't written by me, but it's so awfully beautiful i wish it was.
recommended by eewei(:

A blade of grass
by Brian Patten

You ask for a poem.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good enough.
You ask for a poem.

I say this blade of grass will do.
It has dressed itself in frost,
It is more immediate
Than any image of my making.

You say it is not a poem,
It is a blade of grass and grass
Is not quite good enough.
I offer you a blade of grass.

You are indignant.
You say it is too easy to offer grass.
It is absurd.
Anyone can offer a blade of grass.

You ask for a poem.
And so I write you a tragedy about
How a blade of grass
Becomes more and more difficult to offer,

And about how as you grow older
A blade of grass
Becomes more difficult to accept.

quartenary consultancy

We have been born into a world, and a sad one at that, for it has, is and forever will be dominated by a fearsome species. It is this very order that has gained more influence than Bill Gates, Nicole Kidman, Thomas Edison and all of every one of the respected gentlemen carved on Mount Rushmore put together. It has power barely equaled by the Presidents of the United States, Kingdoms and whatever United else. It has a scariness unmatched since the time of the dinosaurs and before. Indeed, the existence of it is very alarming, if not disturbing.

They constitute an unfortunately large majority of our popuation, falling under the category "quartenary consultancy", more commonly known as "teacher".

Teachers are a sad bunch. They often remind us of unpleasant things such as homework, and unhealthy things such as fruits. You have the hard apple-teachers, or the sour kiwi-teachers, sometimes even the sly banana-teachers. Have you ever seen a good potato-chip-teacher? I thought so. (You see, this is the very reason why teachers are always associated with bright red apples.)

But, you may ask, what on earth is wrong with these unpleasantly fruity teachers? For one thing, they are perfectly, faultlessly square. Their mind is filled with straight lines and right-angles, which simply, plainly and oh-so-obviously do not exist! Our existence is made up of left-angles, wrong-angles and all kinds of angles, but that is too much for the square mind of a teacher to even begin to comprehend. Made to be imperfect and enjoyably fault-full, life is sucked dry by teachers who insist that you must write with a dark blue pen and tie up your hair with a very black band, but not to write with a very black pen and tie up hair with a dark blue band.

I once knew a teacher. She had straight hair, straight glasses, straight books, straight cutlery, straight pens, even straight fries. One day I served her straight broccoli on a circular plate, having neglected to possess one of those sacred straight plates. She fainted dead away and not even the Bishop’s kiss could call her up. Eventually when she finally got off her bootie of the ground, we played a pack of (needless to say, straight) cards, while she sat at the edge of her chair, prim as the yellow feather on that strange apparition of an English hat, rattling off the vitamins in broccoli.

This leads me to my next point. Teachers are often so obsessed with this impractical idea of ‘life-long learning’ that I immediately run off in the opposite direction when one comes within a mile in either direction of me. Because of this they often do not have things of much interest to say, and when listening to a teacher speak, it is often customary to close one’s eyes and nod off. Twenty years of learning is quite enough for me, thank you. In fact, it’s enough to make me feel awfully old. Certainly beats me why a person would want to feel twenty years dead.

But I suppose we can forgive them their faults – as is the nature of things. They are teachers, after all, and no one can really comprehend the inner workings of this sad, sad species.

to all teachers out there: i just hope you can take a joke - no offense intended.

child's play

a simple pattern, a simple smile
it makes a child laugh, it goes a long while
and what we may do on a sweet summer's day
has nothing to do with their sweet children's play
for who can tell, in summer or winter
(or spring or autumn, i don't think it matters)
that the carrot's a nose, or that the stick's a gun
the dog a carthorse, for their ten bricks and one
the tree a great tower for little indians and soldiers
who shake dowh the pink flowers (on enemies) like boulders
the teddy bear a spy, in daddy's boot to fly
the milk carton a sanctuary for lizards and such
the brick be to hit the window of that neighbour you dont half like as much
the table a great podium to talk to the troops
before going to war with tomatoes and 'shrooms
the list goes on but i'm rather confused.
but who can say what goes in their Minds?
frankly speaking, i'm quite left behind.

Janissa's excursion

It was our first excursion. No one really knew what the word meant though. We just called it the really-long-word. Sara said it was a type of exercise, and she had it at home. Kiden didn’t like that, because he’s fat and he doesn’t like to exercise, so he said it was an invention Einstein came up with. Justin thought it was Mexican curry. Even Alison didn’t know what it was.

And our mummys and daddys couldn’t tell us much, because they said we didn’t make sense: “Mummy, what is a really-long-word? We’re going on a really-long-word, daddy.” But they still couldn’t understand what we were talking about. Grown-ups are strange.

more to com(:

janissa's show-and-tell

We had show-and-tell today. I brought Alicia, the old ragdoll mum had given to me when I was little, the one I can’t sleep without. She’s got lots of stitches everywhere and she’s really old and dirty, but I took a lot of trouble to get her cleaned up today, so she looked real pretty.

"Would anyone like to go first?" Our teacher asked in her sweetest voice. She's real pretty too, our teacher. Kiden, who is teacher’s pet and a nasty sneak, volunteered as usual. Our teacher gave him a big smile. He’d brought his thickest encyclopedia.

"It contains,” He pushed his spectacles up his nose, “It contains all the information in the world.” And his chest swelled to the size of my ape-man neighbour next door.

"I bet a buck that it doesn’t say that you wear Pooh-Bear underwear," Archie commented. Little Lou giggled, but 0ur teacher was very shocked.

"Archimedes, what a thing to suggest!" And she made him stay back during break. Archie’s real name is Archimedes, and Mike’s real name is Michelangelo, but they don’t like their fancy names so we have to call them Archie and Mike or they’ll thrash us.

Then she made Archie go next. Archie’d brought his pet mice. He showed us how he fed them and made them exercise. We all thought it was pretty cool, so Mike told Archie to let them out. The teacher suddenly jumped up and shouted, "No, no, please dear, don’t do that!"

I expect she was trying to sound nice, like she is most of the time, but then Archie had already let them out. Little Lou, who’s a real scaredy-cat, stood on her chair and screamed, and everyone took the cue and dived under the chairs and tables to catch the mice.

The teacher stood up and she looked really annoyed, and we would have gotten the message, but everyone was in a glorious mess now so nobody could really be bothered, except Kiden, who is teacher’s pet and a nasty sneak. It was great fun, but a couple of mice don’t really stand much of a chance against a class of first-graders so we had to go back to our seats after a while.

Our teacher smiled sweetly around the class, except it looked more like those smiles you have to put on when Mum asks if the vegetable tastes good. “Sara dear, why don’t you go next?” Sara is really rich so her dad can buy her lots of toys and stuff, and she likes nothing better than to show them off, but she can be a great fibber too. Today she brought her newest toy robot and got it to do all sorts of really cool tricks.

Mike asked if he could play with it for a while and Sara said no, he would definitely break it with those clumsy hands of his, and then Mike reached out and touched it. Sara yelled at him not to touch it and kicked him, and then Mike punched her in the nose. Sara said he shouldn’t hit a girl, it just wasn’t done, and then Mike said he’d do it again, but then our teacher came up and separated them, which was a real pity. She told them that she was really disappointed in them and she was sorry to say that they would have to stay back at break too.

Mike went next. He’d brought his boxing gloves, which he said he’d use on Sara later. Then he tried to show us some moves he’s seen on TV, but Archie said they were all wrong and he would show him the correct way, but he didn’t get to, because the teacher told Mike thank you and what a wonderful presentation he’d given and asked him to sit down. Maybe the class was too hot and she wanted to let us off early, because I noticed she was starting to go a little red and sweaty.

She looked around the class again and picked Janissa dear, that’s me, and said it was my turn. I showed the class Alicia. I told them about every stitch on it and how Aunt Fannie’s dog had nearly torn her to pieces, but then Aunt Fannie managed to stitch her back together again, and it was my most precious toy.

Our teacher said that it was very sweet of me and smiled, but then Justin whispered, "Baby, baby, baby!" I glared at Justin and told him I would get back at him at break. But I don’t hit him very hard because he’s my best friend. Our teacher was very shocked, "What an unlady-like thing to say, Janissa!" And then she told me and Justin to stay back during break.

Justin had brought his father’s chef hat, because his father’s a chef at the most famous restaurant in town and he wants to grow up to be a chef too. He likes cooking and he’s quite good at it too. Alison laughed and said it would go well with her show-and-tell. Our teacher told her to go next.

Alison’s a real sport – she never cries and plays all sorts of tricks to get us out of quizzes, and she can get top in class without even trying. It makes Kiden really mad. She had this pair of teeth, “See?” She explained. “And if you put it on,” She opened her mouth really big and it fit in perfectly, “id looksh boshidively shcary. Berfect for Halloweensh.” Then she got out a bright green wig, thick-rimmed glasses like daddy’s and a big red nose like Uncle George’s, and put those on too. After that Justin dunked his chef hat on her. She looked awfully funny. Then she walked around the class, snapping her teeth in people’s faces, and we all laughed till our tummies ached, but then Little Lou started crying, because she thought it was really scary and she was going to have nightmares about it, but it made us laugh even more. Our teacher put on that funny smile again, and said that Alison was to stay back during break because she had disrupted the class.

Then she turned to Little Lou, who was bawling her head off, “Really, Louise, what on earth are you crying for? Please go up and do your show-and-tell.”

“I-I d-didn’t b-br-bring m-my –” and then Little Lou started crying again. Our teacher made her stay back during break too.

The teacher was quite red already, so she must have felt really hot, because she dismissed us for break right then. But when no one moved, her face got even redder, and she asked us why we weren’t going. “But miss,” Alison raised her hand, “you told us to stay back during break.”

The teacher suddenly looked like Mum when you don’t finish your vegetables. Then she started shouting at us, but we didn’t understand a word of it. She told us all to get out of the classroom, even Kiden, who usually stays in class to do revision.

We were all very confused, because we had been really obedient, and we really didn’t do anything wrong and she should have been very happy with us but she’d gone ahead and scolded us anyway.