Jackie Chou

Last Days of Eighth Grade

He rocked the ground by my feet
like an earthquake

footsteps

an Asiatic version of Leo DiCaprio
at fourteen

approaching

I dared not sniff

the scent of drugstore hairspray
surrounding him

or look up

at the source of the loud bang
on my desk

With trembling hands

I opened his yearbook
to sign my name

my clothes reeking the sour smell
of mildew

Don Kingfisher Campbell

The very tall black man 

In a blue windbreaker stopped
By our sidewalk stand asked
What are you selling Poetry
He said I’m a poet too I belong
To a poetry group let me hear
A couple poems and maybe
I’ll buy your book Coco read
Half of my poem Sold I read
All of her poem William said
I’m looking for an affordable
Place to rent He’s lived in
Pasadena for 42 years seven
Times homeless said he’s been
A computer engineer for PCC
CSULA and Cal Tech declared
He’s never paid less than $200
For an HP calculator always
Hired consultant part time
Those fair wages anyone

Unlearning

Time for everybody

To go to school again

In their calloused hearts

And relearn what we knew

When we were born

When we felt the arms of

Love lovingly cradling us,

Someone made sure we had

Enough to eat, stylish

Clothes to wear, a roof

Over our bed. How

Did we forget this?

Has it been so long

Since we were cooed

With happy sounds

Until the diapers came,

Our parents eager for us

To grow up, flush

And hear from other

Adults and children

The lessons that would

Destroy our humanity.

I still remember my father

Telling me, Don’t bring that

Mexican boy here again,

But we both loved Hot Wheels

And basketball, so I just didn't

Invite him there anymore.

Or that co-worker telling me

I was “Mexican by injection”

When I married my first girlfriend

And learned to love boleros.

Now I’m engaged again

to a woman from northern

China, who is forbidden

From re-entering the USA

Until the airlines say

It’s safe to go to America.

I check the news every day

And find my fellow

Americans are having

A hard time obeying

The safety rules. OK,

Here they are again:

Make sure everyone has

A roof over their bed,

Stylish clothes to wear,

And plenty of good food,

That’ll help us remember

We are all humans until

We die, until then,

Behave for everyone!

Crystal Lane Swift

Zoom Class on Wednesday

The only reason I remember that it’s Wednesday is because I set an alarm on my phone.  “1 PM—Public Presenting.”

It’s listed as Public Speaking in the college catalogue, but that label isn’t quite right.  You don’t need to use a literal voice to present.  You need verbal communication, sure.  But not necessarily vocal.  We’re an audio-centric culture, really.  We conflate words with oral expression.  We read aloud, sound it out, avoid foreign films because we don’t want to do the work of reading the subtitles, judge people’s talent and intelligence by their voice.  At least I know that was/sometimes still is me.

I decide I’ll wear a professional top and black yoga pants.  I’ve had so much sourdough lately, I think I’ve expanded past the limit of the waistbands in every other pair of pants I own.  I minimally comb my hair and but on my anti blue light glasses. 

The pedagogy groups I am in on Facebook say requiring simultaneous zoom meetings isn’t equitable.  I took that to heart and spent the few days provided by a modified calendar setting up asynchronous assignments. 

I’m not sure if I showered or shaved those few days, but I did manage to bathe my daughter.  She gets a fresh, clean outfit every morning.  I could sell or donate practically everything in my closet at this point. 

After I had set up an asynchronous class, my students requested a simultaneous meeting.  One mentioned that no one in her house communicates in her language.  Most of the class agreed.  Another revealed his mom and dad had both been hospitalized with the virus, and he needed someone to chat with.  Yet another offered that as an essential worker, they cannot keep up with coursework between shifts without the accountability of class meetings.  The class voted unanimously to continue to meet simultaneously on zoom.

So, today I open our (optional) bi-weekly zoom class.  Faces pop into view.  I assign a captioner.  I watch the students as they communicated back and forth with each other.  I do my best to communicate directly with them, but whenever my ASL isn’t quite good enough, the students watch the interpreter.  This semester will end.  This pandemic will end.  Hopefully, our connections never will.

Coco

And they called it puppy love

We met in junior high
I guess they call that middle school now

At eleven years old I betrothed myself to you
Love at first sight I proclaimed it to be

Your soft autumn eyes —
I stare across the quad, I am a moth to a flame

Sharing the same homeroom
I got to hear your name and draw it in my notebook

He is PERFECT I thought as I doodled hearts
sharing the same last name, I could keep my identity

I bonded my heart to yours
there could ever be no other

My mother taught me
never to chase a boy

So, I would wait patiently
explore other boys to best prepare

Knowing that you would be my sacred oath
I to you, and you to I, a ring to represent our affinity

But time turns a warm love cold
Leaves that wither and crackle beneath missteps

Over mistruths , and betrayals burn coals to ash
My unwavering love chopped down like a methuselah tree

Something that I thought never could be
My roots have turned to rot

Your stare across the room burns icy cold instead of hot
Desire, trust, passion, and loyalty broken branches that will never heal

Our affinity now a punishment, a branded and carved treason
Your lustful and wandering eyes I am sawdust at your feet

We may share a bed, a roof, a warm or cold meal
But there is nothing left of me,  left to feel

I am a stump you chop at to make your firewood

A Poem for my High School English Teacher Mr. DiConti 

“such sad poems!” words no bigger than pixie footprints
written at a 45-degree angle, a line slashed between our text
the month and date stamped this entry 12/9
your words like a whisper on the page

it was a Friday in 1994 according to my much bolder writing
my previous poetic entries were titled: “Death” and “Raped”
i really didn’t care that you were reading my truths
to be honest i was surprised you read them at all

in a bungalow of 35 students we sat in tight corn rows 
no windows, or central air, just a Kelly-green metal door
did you truly read every page of juvenile scribbled confessions
my first two entries not poetic at all – a normal girl’s diary

it felt too false, writing snippets of forced flimflamming
so i entrusted my gospel to a blank page forged by screams
words flowed with cold sweat down my brow in that scant room
“your poems make ME want to slit my wrist” I smile to myself

Misplaced

Unwanted, unloved, misplaced, 

and uncared for is how I am feeling now.

Not a soul in the world understands –

nor care to.

I am shun from the world. 

A freak to all who know me. 

Misplaced am I. 

I wander around in search –

of a place I may go to. 

A place that will accept me,

and let me leave all my troubles behind.

I thought that place was here,

but I was told that I was wrong.

A freak still am I. 

Still looking, stand wandering,

wondering if there will ever be a place 

for me. 

Joshua Corwin

Lost Tao (thoughts on the nation and my soul C+ passed) 

I would like to begin this essay 

with some song lyrics from a band

originated in my propositions

In Search Of The Lost Chord,

serves as elucidations – dead birds’ motionless…

Rolled off their ship

throw away   the following Tao: 

anyone who understands me – dead mute…

shows there was a statement nonsensical:

            “No!” to our understanding or misunderstanding the

must transcend these propositions’ crystal meth springs,

                          palms laugh our lives away— also nonsense.

What’s the difference—steps to climb up the ladder

                          of truth and fall into nonsense

                          from one shore to another?

The goal will see him free once more,

                          Limitations shrouded in misery, tears, flames

We're callin' everyone to ride beyond them

                          Pharmacy meandering these halls

So roll off the ship and search, laugh our lives

            Phone it in at a karmic level.

no one heard them callin', / no dead habits of perfection elected

silence

the substratum of existence, a monad.

true is what is grounded, rolled nonsense into the shore

dreamless dream living Socrates textbook ideals

using the language to understand wonder

introducing a liar statement

anonymously jotting DOW

Jones’ sail away from one shore to another, 

anonymous paradox conscious consensus reality

                                        busy watchin' those old raindrops fall

how should we understand or misunderstand in the future?

I return to the textbook; forget Wittgenstein’s On Certainty

                          behind the methodology that they used before

Mary Langer Thompson

Painting by June Langer

Alumni Directory  

Insert CD

Click search button

Sort by Last Name as Student

or by Date Graduated.

Last I saw her, she borrowed money.

An asterisk—

she was a big star, now she has a little one.

I scroll to the footnote

for more information.

One word. Deceased?

Is this a glyph or a gaffe?

Sort by Prefix

She became Reverend?  My God!

Bold asterisk again.

He went to Vietnam and—

that symbol, like six arms emanating

from a teardrop center.

School was life,

and life is school—

until the asterisk.

Social Studies

"What was America's 

reaction to British rule?"

the teacher asks.

George shouts,

"Screw the rules!"

George's mother copiously copies

definitions from The

Cambridge Dictionary of

of American English:

Screw:  to cheat or deceive;

to waste time

Screw up:  to spoil or destroy or 

    to damage someone;

    to strengthen or

    to make more powerful;

    to twist or crush paper;

    to make a mistake or

                 to spoil something.

She adds,

“I am sorry that screwing up my son is

your primary concern.”

Beverly Higginson

Majorette

My sister marched with Washington High's
famed Drum and Bugle Corps--the first black member
"Every girl wants to be on the drill team" she said

She practiced in the living room
square patterns, intricate steps
legs kicking up in back
one hand held a brass bugle
pressed firmly against her side
hips swayed--slammed--
right   left   right   left!

her tan freckled face set like stone
determined--eyes front, riveted
"Every girl wants to be on the drill team"
she said, "but not every girl makes it"

Her head snapped with each turn of her body
razor-sharp corner turns that flattened mom's carpet
she squared it up, oblivious to me
I watched her every step,
copied the moves in secret,
marched to internal rhythms,
my own beat

She performed with the team
I never saw those times
only carpet marching in the living room
a college freshman now,
I wonder if she remembers those days

I am a blurry-eyed tenth grader in a fog
first year of high school
unsure of my surroundings
a scrub again
no immediate goals, no lofty dreams to pursue
the same eight to three job with new bosses

until one day after school
an afternoon laced with autumn breezes
front grounds buzzing with student babble,
laughter    hand holding    secrets
two boys with arms draped over the shoulders of girls
girls smiling up at them as if they are in love

I'm by myself
one thought crosses my mind
no boy has an arm over my shoulder

Then a shrill siren from a whistle
mine and others' eyes drift toward the sound
it rises high into the air where a mellow sun
casts a half shadow over the spectacle
auditorium doors open like an embrace
magically, the shadow moves away

Drum and Bugle Corps stands in formation
100 girls in red and blue with starched white skirts
shiny bugles pitched on hips
drums strapped over tall erect shoulders
the team shines like fireworks exploding
their eyes trained on the head piston--

A blue-eyed brunette no taller than me
no stronger, braver, or better than me
a silvery steel baton under her arm like a sword
a whistle around her neck
each whistle blow signals a move
each move precise     on point     awesome
the ground shakes under the booming drumbeat
echoes throughout the corridor walls

Captivated, a shiver straightens my back
indifference in a blink turns to desire so hot
my eyes burn
the team disappears, the essence remains
lingering moments fill with possibilities
I know what I want

the sophomore haze is less dense
the road home, clearer
I breathe again

Never saw my sister march
a year later, she would watch me lead
Me, the Majorette

Beth Baird

Mold

In college I majored in Mold

Courses I took
The Origin of Mold
Contemporary Mold
New Mold
Old Mold
Tomorrow’s Mold
How to Produce Mold
What Makes Good Mold
The Effects of Mold on Man
The War Against Mold

And my thesis…
How to Break the Mold

The Herd

Standing on the field 

Hundreds of young school kids

Told to sit on the grass

Our jackets, sweaters left behind

In our hasty departure

Watching police enter each classroom

With dogs, guns, and commotion

Not knowing why we were kept on the field

My 7-year-old consciousness only grasps

Hunger, cold, and boredom

Trusting adults in charge 

We continued to wait 

Herded to safety

Instructed to remain quiet

After hours of detainment 

We were allowed to leave school. . . . go home

We were later told the evacuation

Was due to a phoned-in bomb threat

What would have happened if an explosion occurred

Would the distance have saved us

Or were we herded to slaughter?

Richard Dutton

Learning In Time

Acting through college
Helped dance training at YWCA
King of ballroom with bused in
girl college students
Brief contact with beauties

I was in no hurry
Planned to make money first
I had high standards for a wife
Must have a college degree
and of course be pretty

After becoming an army veteran
and seven years of mostly
“over paid” field engineering
I was noticeably balding
No dolls were running after me
Even after I had made money
in the stock market
(Xerox on the margin)
I wasn’t attracting my dream

I did run into one cute girl
several times at church meetings
at dances and libraries
But thought I was too old for her
After one contact was over,
I drove along side her at a stop light
and asked if she wanted to stop for coffee
We dated on and off for two years
On one trip to a restaurant
without pre-thinking it, I said
Will you marry me?
I don’t know how it happened but
she said yes



Learning Life

Born in depression family filled with matriarchs
Mom, two grandma's and aunt
Dad the king was seldom seen

Highchair time special shoes for ankles
Then tapdancing lessons

Big brother made me inhale smoke hold mercury in hand
shock me with toy train transformer
Annoying chores were walk and clean dog,
wash dishes and clothes
bank the fire and add coal to the furnace
mow the lawn and help the Victory gardens
OK walking younger sister to school and lunch

We three enlisted in US Army
Bro OCS Korea
Me specialist in air defense
Sis top secret satellite view interpreter
In service I completed my bachelors
the first degree on Dad's side of family
Got engineering job North American Aviation
Three time zones away from home                 
I am inventive other-directed introvert,
slow initiating changes to new departments or products
Also married late but to a decade younger wife
She retired with salary level Library District Director
Dad said not to marry an actress
but she had been in movies and on TV
Now I am content doing dishes, laundry and little lawn
Plus poetry, dancing plus skyping our daughter
a Harvard grad in Scotland family 8 time zones away
My bro and his top sibling wife schemed so
I got no inheritance re: 3 story houses, views, >20 acres
but I forgive my dad who worked hard
He was loyal to his boss –------but not to mom                               
My parents and sibs are all gone now –Someplace       
Maybe waiting for me-----But I haven't grown up yet   

Joseph Nicks

A Place In The Sun*

Like a long lonely stream
I keep runnin’ towards a dream
Movin’ on, movin’ on...

Ahh, the ninth grade chorus of John Marshall
Junior High, Westland Michigan, spring of 1971. 
Handsome bunch of kids they were, all decked out
in their crisp white shirts or blouses, red ties, and
black skirts or trousers.  And the way their voices
rose to give wing to Little Stevie’s noble, yearning
words was enough to form a large lump in your
throat – that’s for sure:

Like a branch on a tree
I keep reachin’ to be free
Movin’ on, movin’ on...

There was brash but lovable Jim Faraday right
up front, shining away.   (Same kid that pulled a
jock strap over my head in the locker room last
week.)  And Billie Sue Kilgore – the girl lots of
guys were thinking about for a couple frenzied
minutes right before they fell asleep each night
(and who seemed to delight in mocking the way I
buttoned my shirt all the way up to the collar and
how my pant legs were always a couple of inches
higher than they should’ve been), gently swaying
with the rhythm of the song.  Here comes the chorus:

Cause there’s a place in the sun
Where there’s hope for everyone
Where my poor restless heart’s gotta run...

Hope for everyone – that’s what the principal (Mr.
Graves) and Ms. Bettenchamp (the music director)
want to hear!  Hope for the athletic varsity stars, the
precocious business majors, the quick-witted debate
team, the slide-ruled pocket-protectored engineering
students.  Hope for the guys who knew how to kick
some ass and the girls who scrunched up their faces
and wordlessly exclaimed, “eeeeuuuuhhhh!” when
they were paired up with dorky guys like me during
those pain-in-the-ass mandatory square dances we
had to endure each autumn.  Look out, now:

There’s a place in the sun
and before my life is done
Gotta find me a place in the sun...

Yeah, but looking around the auditorium that warm
and fuzzy afternoon at all the other kids surrounding
me and enthusiastically clapping along, I knew only
too well that for me (and a couple handfuls of others
who just didn’t get it) there simply wasn’t gonna be
such a place:

You know when times are bad
And you’re feeling sad
I want you to always remember...

I sang along under my breath:

That there’s a place in the sun – 
but not for everyone,
better go hide your face from the sun...



*Thanks anyway, Stevie.
   It’s not your fault.
   I still like this song – a lot!

GT Foster

The War

What did you do during the war, Mister?

Ten years of junior high and middle school

It never changed

It’s too hard, Mister.

What did you do during the war?

Fresh boys, fresh girls

Already wanting it softer,

A detour, a side-track.

Shut the truck up, roll up the windows,

And park it! You should like it hard!

Did you kill anybody, Mister?

Do we need pencils?

Can you borrow me a pencil, Mister?

Teacher, teacher, it’s too hard!

Ten years filled with rites of passage

Fifteen more at the high schools with junior high

Pie-in-the-sky Dare graduates turned

Wise-guy-and-gal sophomores writing to tell the tale

Juniors writing for the final score still asking

What did you do during the war, Mister?

Seniors best ask which war, foreign or domestic?

What did you do during the war, Mister?

Resolving Teenage Conflict

Larry White, the convertible Pontiac G T O driving rich boy 

From Apple Valley called-out the poor kids’ Everyman

Bill Quimby, the bus riding high school quarterback 

From Oro Grande

The two senior class boys fought like men, going toe-to-toe 

For the hand of Fran, the school head cheerleader

Larry White’s ex, now dating the football star

Far too bitter a pill for a sensitive boy 

On depression medication to swallow

Which he didn’t

Afterschool 

There ensued between the two a wild zoo brawl 

Through the halls the loud juvenile crowd shouted Fight! 

Fight! Drawing friends and foes of the combat site

To witness Bill and Larry fight so hard a bout

All concluded Fran was putting out

 Why else would Larry beaten down to the ground, jump up 

To be beat down, then spring up only to be beaten down again?

Seemed clear to all he couldn’t win

Which he didn’t

The law was call-in and arrived as sheriff duties

They cuffed Larry and put him in the car backseat 

To haul away in disgraced defeat

But first Larry broke out the rear squad car windows 

Using his head and feet and so authorities need feed him his meds

Which they did

Ode to the First UCLA Mexican-American    

              Football Team Captain             

Me a wanna-be John Wooden junior high school coach, 

you a soft handed 300 pound eighth-grader, I longed for 

you to be my basketball center--An aircraft carrier to anchor 

the team in the low post. A two-fisted hamburger boy you 

blew me off professing love for only baseball and football.

 My counter-offer of the necessary feet to play either sport 

was dismissed with an immature “Nah, Mister, it's all about 

first base and the blindside tackle.”

Yet, you backed your braggadocio as a two-sport all-city

High school athlete. Sophomore year you hit the game winner 

Off the wall at Dodger Stadium in the City Championship, and, 

Although in my opinion, baseball was always your best sport, 

You completed your resume with 3 league titles in football.  

But in a late effort to prepare for the next level, you played round ball.

Senior year you showed up in a suddenly chiseled frame.

Single-digit body fat. Gone the roly-poly Baby Huey.

From my bungalow room on the gym side of campus, I saw your

New routine of jogging-- It didn't account for the build.

No! It was all that black Mercedes Benz magic. To whom did it belong?  

A fan, a friend of the coach, former football playing alumnus Dr. So-in-So?

A big-shot booster of FHS football team wide mean, lean, chiseled, low body fat frames.

But somebody always pays for the get rich injection days.

Oscar, my Oscar, juiced you betrayed your University of Oregon

Letter-of-Intent commitment, backed out of their dual-sport

Scholarship for UCLA football: Fight, fight, fight

But buddy, what good is a fatless frame if on game day you're lame?

Oh Oscar, my Oscar

The red-shirt year, the bad back set back, the bad handicap parking hookup.

 But a senior co-captaincy, a cheerleader trophy wife, a pat on the rump and done.

After school social worker, semi-pro then Sunset? Too soon, two sons!

Say the words: Performance Enhancing Drugs, John Matuzak, Lyle Alzado

Steroids and cancer.

Oscar? Oh my, Oscar Cabrera.

Yet your voice still answers, Nah, mister. 

Don’t be a hater.

Lorelei Kay

The Short and Tall of It

“Mom!” I wailed, my third-grade voice
quivering with despair. “I’m too short!
Everyone in my class is taller than me!”

She smoothed my hair, patted
my puffy red eyes, and carefully
blotted away wet spots on my cheek.

“Don’t worry, dear.  All the boys
 like a girl that’s short. You just
wait and see.”

“Mom!” I wailed, some years later.
“I’m too tall! All the seventh-grade
girls are shorter than me!”

Without missing a beat, she smiled,
then soothed away all my fears
with her motherly wisdom—   

“Don’t worry, dear. Have you
ever seen a short girl wearing
a fur coat?”

Ellyn Maybe

In memory of TA, Mr. Gus, and all the wondrous mentors in the world.

In the halls the football scores float by above.
The songs twirl through the room.
High school can be such a lonely calendar.
Each day the alarm clock shatters.

In the halls the teasing turns the air to winter.
The songs become a crescendo.
High school can be such a time of confusion.
Each day the alarm clock beckons.

In the halls the difference between morning and night is mentor
The songs become a breath to see you through.
High school can be the walk into the rest of your life.
Each day the alarm clock shines.

When dreams find a home a map is becoming Technicolor.
When dreams find their music you live in a symphony.
When dreams show up in the form of a person, your classroom is eternity.

Shih-Fang Wang

Remembering a Classmate

Espied that girl in navy blue
walked alone on campus
in our middle school
She evaded classmates
as a lone wolf
shied away from its pack

Her inscrutable eyes
belied secrets
tight lips leaked no words
Still chatter buzzed behind her back

Her peers were young and
innocent
with insatiable curiosity and
voracious appetite
for gossips
Hustling and bustling
they spread words

Rumors snowballing
turned her family secret 
into a taboo scandal
in that austere age
over a half century ago

A stigma was attached to her
With rage she fought back
It begat punition from our teacher
thrashing her palms with a stick
The whipping daunted teen onlookers
Yet she did not blink nor withdraw hands
Must be the flesh pain numbed her heartache



Those School Days

Long ago were
those school days
Strung up they form a pearl lace
sparkles in my memory
Each bead unfurls a story
bitter or sweet, so many

Pertained to that age
laughter was genuinely carefree
Friends shared secrets
swore not to tell
Forgot what they were
Still feel the burning on my face
where it was slapped by the teacher
for the sake of not betraying

Those youthful days I had
a truckload of dreams
big and wild
mostly idealistic or unrealistic
Dare to own them
for being naive
Goals were never too high
with belief future was unlimited
Not afraid of falling
It was easy to bounce back

Now mellowed
Most dreams evanesced
Many ambitions turned ashes
Friendship dissipated
Memory is fading
Before it’s too late
I shall eulogize those bygone days

Pauline Dutton

Dressing Duplex

After Jericho Brown by Pauli

I hated girls whose moms made cookies, curled their hair,

And bought them ruffled dresses.

No one bought me ruffled dresses.

The dresses Daddy brought hit my ankles.

Chubby girls wore ankle hitting dresses.

A girl in a book said she owned 100 dresses.

I drew 100 dresses at my desk in school.

The girls oohed and ahhed at those drawn dresses.

I oohed and aahhed at the dress a friend’s mom bought.

It was blue and green had a white pique collar and fit.

I wore that dress with the white pique collar

At kickball when Donnie asked me to the movies.

I wore a pink dress when the man I would marry invited me to the movies.

I bought an apple green dress when I thought it was time he asked.                                         

When I wore that apple green dress he asked.

I hated girls whose mom’s made cookies and curled their hair.

Mehtab Mowgli

My Teenage Sanctuary

It was my sacred refuge.
Far away from the suffocating grip
Of my young immigrant parents
Who feared American adolescence.

I changed in the girl's bathroom.
Before I went to class.
I adorned my moon face
strawberry lip gloss
Kohl eyeliner
Ebony mascara
Unbraided my baby shampoo aromatic hair.

In school I was free
To mingle
To flirt
Stand by the lockers
Wearing my black sheer stockings
Miniskirt
Reebok hightops

From the first period to the sixth period
I  moseyed through the classrooms and hallways
A smile draped across my face.
My eyelashes whimsically dancing.
Until it was time to get on the school bus and go home.

Once, my parents grounded me
For my belligerence.
Honestly, I deserved it.
I was such a surly
Outspoken
Feminist from the beginning.

I tied a bed sheet to my balcony
Slid down the sheet.
Like a Cat Woman on a getaway expedition.
Ran off into the horizon
To School.
My teenage sanctuary.

Amy Szilas

Float

Stephanie Logan

San Gabriel High Daze 

Typing Class
Home Ec
Cat Calls
Teasing Debbie about her boobs
After school home alone parties
Drive-In movie dates
Cruisin’ Valley Friday night
Smokin’ in the Girl’s room
Peter Frampton
Tony Juliano
Oh Baby I love your way
Sex Ed 
Bellbottoms with Platform shoes
El Camino Real Matador pride
Late 1970s
When everything was Bitchin’

Lori Wall-Holloway

6th Grade Blues

Embarrassed going
to school in ’32 Ford
Praying no one sees

Buy fruit and cupcake
to add to my brown bag lunch
Yearn for hot dog day

My class heads for camp
while I stay back with homework
Cheeks swollen with mumps

Last Week of School, 2020

Pandemic continues 

as I play teacher 

for two of my grand-

daughters whose schools 

closed due to a quarantine

But on a rainy spring day

they stay home

I walk for exercise but feel

lost not able to help the girls

begin to complete  their last

week of instruction

My goals have become 

theirs and I feel unable

to get back on track 

with my projects that lie 

hidden in the closet

and on the computer

So I decide to shop online

and try to prepare 

for the summer before fall 

possibly turns my home

into a learning 

facility once more



Search for a Prize

(For Bobby Muzingo)

Sitting in a tiny room surrounded
by small cartons of cold white
milk, my brother serves
as Milk Monitor at our school
After he exchanges the beverage
for five cents from each student
in line, he carefully combs
through the coinage
to search for prized monies
he can bring home to Dad for
his coin collection

Bobby carries extra change
with him in case he finds
silver dimes and quarters
But the treasure he seeks
is a nickel or penny stamped
twice by the Nation’s
Mint known as a Double Die

He never finds such a prize
but the time he spends
with our father pouring
over collector’s books
and checking out the change
he brings home is invaluable
as they share the same hobby

Rick Leddy

Walter A. Uffelman

The World is 6000 years old
And not a day older
Said Walter A Uffelman
Principal at Good Shepherd Inglewood Lutheran School
Lutheran School – Not to be confused with Catholic School
where God punished children with stiff white blouses, pleated plaid skirts,
dark whiffing corduroys and ancient penguin teachers with long rulers
So we were told by Walter A Uffelman, tall and devout,
who walked like Frankenstein bred with an orangutan
due to a back brace kept on too long
to counteract scoliosis as a child
The World is 6000 years old
From creation to now
Stated Walter A Uffelman
We can tell from the begats all the way back
To Adam and Eve
Adam begetting Seth and then Seth begetting Enos
Then there were Kenan , Mahalaleel and Jared
And Jokshan and Letushim and Midian
And Dishan and Homam and Shephi and Jobab
Right on down the line to David and Solomon
Although no daughters were mentioned
And we wondered how all that begatting happened
Without them
But that seemed incidental
All of it clearly laid out in The Book of Chronicles
And so concurred Walter A Uffelman
And he was sticking to it
Despite carbon dating and dinosaurs and evolution
My mother laughed
Because she had been taught by Walter A Uffelman, also
That the World was 6,000 years old
And she wondered why the world wasn’t 6032 years old by now
But he was sticking to it
Despite universal background radiation and exploding stars
And fossils and proto-human skulls in the Savannahs of Africa
— and the passing of three decades
It was Eve’s fault
The Original Sin
Said Walter A Uffelman
So it said in Genesis
We were tossed from the Garden of Eden
6,000 years ago
And things would be perfect today
If she hadn’t been curious and listened to the slithering tempter
We would still be naked and happy
The lamb would be lying with the lion
And we wouldn’t have had to flee East of Eden
Where uncertainty and thorns and death and Roman Catholics awaited
But we didn’t listen, so here we are
God was all about bad cop back then
And we were bum-rushed 6000 years ago
Despite multiverses and string theory and geology
And I couldn’t understand why
God would punish us for wanting to know
the difference between Good and Evil
For craving the knowledge of self-awareness
And it was then
That I voluntarily left Eden
On my own two feet
Never to return
Although I still think of Walter A Uffelman
Now gone for three decades
The World still 6000 years old
And not a day older

Patricia Murphy

My Life At North Hollywood High School

I went to North Hollywood High School
where I studied voice, dance,
acting and French. 

I got A's in all my classes because
I loved them.   

I was also on the drill team and
we rehearsed every week. 

I wrote poetry and my poems
made it into our high school
yearbook. 

I studied voice on my own
with a female voice coach. 
I went to her house in Laurel
Canyon for my voice lessons
after school. 

I also went to the football games
and performed with the drill team. 

I studied French and dreamed of
going to Paris, France. 

During the summer I went to
Hollywood High School. 
I was in a play called "The Birds". 

I met a girl named Laura Latimer
and studied dance with her. 


 
Singing

I was very busy in high school studying
singing, dance, acting, French and poetry. 

My poems were published in
my North Hollywood High School yearbook.   

I went to school with my younger sister,
Shirley Marie.
We were very close. 

One time someone got into my school locker
and laced my sandwich with a drug. 

I ended up sleeping on my grandmother's
couch in her living room for a week. 
I survived.   
After this I always looked behind me. 

My sister supported me in my
creative endeavors. 

I also began modeling and studied
with Caroline Leonetti in Hollywood. 

l loved singing and studied voice
after school.  I took voice lessons
with a private voice teacher who
lived in a house in Laurel Canyon. 

I began working at thirteen years old
to pay for my voice lessons. 

When I was eighteen years old I
made my singing debut at my
uncle's restaurant, Barbata's
Steak House in Woodland Hills.   

CaLokie AKA Carl Stilwell

Hooky Highway

Cotton blond Dean James so cool
Whenever any hair’s out of order, he throws
head back and every strand falls back
in place like it’d just been combed

Dean’s dad owns two postwar model cars,
motor boat on trailer and power mower
Best Bermuda lawn on block
No goddamned crab grass allowed!

Dean gets to drive shinin’ white
‘49 Ford any time he wants
Old man don’t give shit son’s
too young for driver license

Dean and Natalie crazy about each other
He likes to drive her to Springlake
amusement park and thrill the hell
out of her on roller coaster rides

One spring morning
Dean and Natalie feel day
too beautiful to waste
on boring eighth grade classes

Speed limit sign says 65
but Henry Ford
don’t make Model T’s no more
FASTER! FASTER!

75 Miles per hour
Depression...World War II behind
Good times rollin’ like Oklahoma hills
FASTER! FASTER!

85-90...Washita River Bridge before
Let’s see whatya got, hot mama!
It’s a great day
to die in the Indian State



Christina (9/11/01-1/8/11)

Why does an estranged man
have the right to buy a Glock 19
along with three 30 bullet clips
to carry concealed without permit
to a supermarket for Second Amendment
redress of grievances
over the right
of a bright third grader to
dance
jump in rain puddles
play baseball with boys
meet her congresswoman at a supermarket
for a lesson on democracy
and tell daddy every morning
it’s time to wake up

and why do they call pro-life
those supporting the right
of  embryonic life to be born regardless
the circumstances of conception
even if they’re also for the right
of an estranged man to buy a Glock 19
along with three 30 bullet clips
to carry concealed without permit
to a supermarket for Second Amendment
redress of grievances
over the right
of a bright third grader to
dance
jump in rain puddles
play baseball with boys
meet her congresswoman at a supermarket
for a lesson on democracy
and tell daddy every morning
it’s time to wake up

and why do so many people fear
the loss of the right
of an estranged man to buy a Glock 19
along with three 30 bullet clips
to carry concealed without permit
to a supermarket for Second Amendment
redress of grievances
over the loss of the right
of a bright third grader to
dance
jump in rain puddles
play baseball with boys
meet her congresswoman at a supermarket
for a lesson on democracy
and tell daddy every morning

it’s time to wake up



Millennial Grad

Omar, what’s the matter with you?
It’s twelve weeks before you’re to graduate
from the City of Angels Home Studies School
and you’re arrested for trying to steal a car.

It’s ten weeks before graduation, Omar.
You’re out on probation and you’ve got a second
chance to be part of the first class to graduate
in the new millennium. Don’t blow it!

It’s eight weeks to go before graduation, Omar.
You have three courses to complete to get yhour diploma
and if you’d spend at least as much time studying
as you do partying, it’d be a piece of cake.

 It’s six weeks to go before graduation, Omar.
One down, two to go--both English, your most difficult
subject.  But hey, you’ve got seven baseball trophies
in your room, so you know what it takes to win.

It’s four weeks to go before graduation, Omar.
Two down, one to go. Hear you got a job and Ana’s now
your girl friend. She’s a hell of a nice girl and oh,
them there dimples! But some of your friends have said
part of the writing on your last assignment was hers. Hmm!

It’s two weeks to go before graduation, Omar.
You drive by school, hand in your last Contemporary
Composition assignments for final five csredits.
That Saturday you take Ana to Disneyland.

It’s one week to go before graduation, Omar.
You were no gangbanger but shot and killed anyway
in front of your home by some guy who I hear
had this longstanding grudge against you.

Omar, it’s one week after graduation.
Like Hamlet’s flight of angels, a dance band on truck
leading the procession sing you to your rest.
Your mama asks that there’ll be no revenge.
She doesn’t want any mother to go through what she has.
Farewell, New Era grad.

Radomir Vojtech Luza

Eighth Grade

Sitting in front
I could not see faces
Behind me

Some wrapped in gray
Others bright as May
Most on delay

Words and
Guttural utterances hurled

Hit spine and
Pushed out of line

Boys from best families
With lots of money
In finest school in city

All I can find are tears
Denting cheeks like sneers

Arrows bent at tip
Like bullets

Armor pierced at heart
Like rag doll

Stomach in knots
Over disintegration
Based on alienation

Making face pall
As I thought I deserved it all

Not for my parents
But for me

For not fighting back or
Being free

For not believing in myself and
Wading through those
Syllables and syntaxes of
Hate with a broom

For crying alone
In bedroom

Instead of laughing together
In living room

For dying at 12
Instead of 82 and

Giving soul, goal and role away

Like game show leaving air
Barber cutting hair
Drummer giving snare
Hunter dropping bear

Writer in electric chair
Actor sending glare

For God and
What he gave me

Time and
How it saved me

Cross by cross
Nail by nail

Tooth by tooth
Beginning to end

Nothing to mend
But fate and
Its long wait

Like spies at a funeral
Friends give but do not take

One month later
I sat in back

The view better
Than crowded Seder



Time To Live

Get rid of the barricades
Put the loudspeaker in the attic
Dump the tear gas
Set fire to the rubber bullets
Just know that black lives have always mattered and
Will forever matter

It is time to live
Time to tell your truth in a voting booth
Dwell in your existence without a metaphysical distance
Put faith behind the message
While you work, sleep and go to school

The demonstrating is through
The marching is finished
The protesting is over
It is time to call it a day

And do the most difficult thing:
Live the call

In the hall
Down the mall
With no fall

Fight the good fight with
A peaceful soul
Courageous heart
Stout spirit

Sure hands
Still knees
Hive of bees

Time to live
Remembering to give
Trying to forgive