Dear Jeff,
look after your cat,
make sure he doesn’t get fat.
Dear Bob,
look after your dog,
make sure he doesn’t get lost in a bog
Dear Sam,
look after your goat,
make sure he doesn’t get in a boat.
Dear friends,
don’t forget about your pets,
and remember when we met.
Jeff, remember the time that you said to be kind and take care of your cat for a week. I gave him a treat so he climbed up a tree and couldn’t get down for tea.
Jack, remember the time you said to be kind and take care of your pet pig. I told him to sit but he fell over a bit and couldn’t get up to be sick.
Bob, remember the time that you said to be kind and take care of your pet cod. I got him a friend but he ate up his friend and said, ‘Oh No, I feel a bit odd.’
Cedric, remember the time you said to be kind and take care of your pet snake? So I gave him some steak then he trod on as rake and fell on the plate, his head spun around then fell to the ground and ended up in the lake.
Text me text me I’m waiting all night
Filled to the brim with terror and fright
I’m tossing and turning in my bed
It feels like my body is out of my head
My eyes are suddenly turning red
I feel like stabbing myself with lead
Text me text me I need to know
Am I going loopy or am I gonna go
Text me text me I’m still waiting
Doctor doctor what is going on
Did something go w r O N g
I need that message I need it now
I seem to be getting quite slow
I’m drowning I’m drowning the wolves are howling.
Dear Maddi my best friend
You make me laugh and wail
Therefore you can come to
My party
We will have so much fun
Come , come , come
We will have fish and chips
And coo koo cola
Or lemon on juice
I think you’re kind
So come and play
Come for a sleepover any day
We will wake up
We will go to the park
We will play for an hour or two
It is time to go home Maddi
I will miss you when you go
You’re like a little sister to me
Good bye Maddi
Love Hollie
xxxx
The trenches are dark and lonely, full of heart shattering memories,
I trample over the losses of soldiers that lay in silence, and streams of human blood,
When the moon is high above, rats scuttle down the trench, nibbling at the soldiers feet, devouring human flesh,
As blood tears down my arms the pain grows worse and worse,
The silence of death brings loneliness to my veins, and fear consumes my hope,
When I dare to look out of the trench, No Man’s Land is in sight,
When I take a closer look, the field is a sea of death,
Sweat slides down my face as bombs drop from the sky,
The explosions make my heart beat as fast as lightening,
As I grip onto my gun, I kneel and say,
“Please God give me luck, erase my fear.”
As the sun rises upon us, a theory is in thought,
What if every soldier that falls to the ground brings a poppy to life….
“CIVIL WAR IS OUT!” they screamed,
With trembling fingers, and quivering lips,
I vulnerably clasped my throbbing ankle, wiped my blood-smeared knee
Wrenching my dictionaries from the shelf, I zipped my tan Naugahyde bag
And my chest heaved with immense grief, as I hysterically hobbled out
Cringing as the scorching flames engulfed the school building
Tears trickled down my cheeks, as I gasped at all the incarnate art works falling
With bare feet, I breathed in the odour of perspiration and blood
Stepping over the lifeless bodies, of deceased ones
For Civil War had broken out
I watched sharp, rugged stones blind little eyes, as little, bruised infants
Sat with their dirty little fists, a petrified look haunting their eyes
I pushed through the swarm of people, and dashed towards the railway,
Which was now only fit for the hands of the white,
The porters clustered around, bewildered and befuddled
As people invaded the trains, shattering the windows
Tall, powerful men with iron sticks, and metal handcuffs
Dragged the family of negroes, from within the train
They pulled the mother apart from her baby, and shoved the man ahead
And clinging onto the compartments, with an old rusty chain
Was a beautiful little boxcar, with little handprints, yet it was veiled with dust
“That’s for our lunch boxes and baggage” explained a servant boy,
I nodded gratefully, and climbed on
I buried my fair head, within my knees, reminiscing the cherubic faces, of my students
And sobbed my heart out, devastated
“Where’s the teacher of the negroes?” barked a rough looking policeman,
As the servant boy urgently pulled the windows open, and thrust piles of blankets within,
“I don’t know sir,” replied the youth. “I expect she’s with one of them”
And as the policeman marched away, I felt a familiar rustle of soft feathers,
And smiled at a familiar, bedazzling beak
“Hermes!” I whispered, as relief surged up my spine,
For Hermes, our messenger pigeon was finally here,
Pulling out my parchment, I scribbled messages of trust,
And tied them onto Hermes’s slender ankles, with bits of twine and thread,
“Go to all my dears!” I murmured softly, “And lead them over here”
“We’ll make a break for the border tonight! And shall truly savour the nectar”
“For the grass is certainly more lush and greener on the other side”
His beady eyes twinkled as he extended a wing for me to stroke,
And soared into the twilit sky,
I beheld the purple shadows which danced on his wings,
And smiled, contented
While Hermes knocked on the windows of the abode of the negroes,
Skimming past the ferocious guards, who scowled around, grimacing
Armed with daggers, their dark arms bulging with glistening biceps,
He extended an ankle in peace
As the anxious mothers unfolded the parchment,
They nodded, and gestured to their children, to follow the beautiful bird
Followed by one of the guards, the children ran after Hermes,
And were ushered into the boxcar, by the servant boy
I gazed around at my students, pulled them under blankets,
Lisping my thanks to the benevolent servant boy, I pulled out my dictionaries,
And passed them around smilingly
While the white passengers got onto the sleek sleeper cabins,
I held my students close, and murmured softly, “We’re off to Sweden, now”
For even though I was white, I had chosen the black
And that night, while the moon’s silvery beams, slithered into the boxcar,
I mulled over my continuous whirlwind of questions,
Martin Luther King yearned for that day, when his black brother could sit with the white
I hope he yearned for that day too, when a white teacher, could sit by the black children
And help illuminate the path towards a brighter and better tomorrow
Waiting for a message, waiting for a reply,
“I’m sorry Hazel,” I tap into my phone,
“I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
I wait for just a minute,
But seems like a day, because,
So far things are definitely
Not going my way.
It started yesterday afternoon,
Walking home from school,
I said my team in sports was better,
At the swimming pool.
Though, now I wish I hadn’t,
Because Hazel got mad,
She said, she used to be feeling good,
But now she’s feeling bad.
When I got home that day, I stared at
My laptop for an hour, but then as I was giving in
It ran out of power.
Waiting for a message, waiting for a reply,
“I’m sorry Hazel.” I type again,
“I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“Wrong number’’, said a familiar voice.
I slammed down the receiver, my insides burning like hell.
No point trying. She wasn’t going to talk to me
So scooped up the remote from the grimy, vinyl floor
Clicked the green button
Same, old voices rambling like drunken baboons
“Anarchists are protested against, and I protest!’’
(Why did the subtitles have an Oxford comma?!)
“We are a constitutional monarchy, never absolute!’’
Voice babbles in vigour and pain
Wrong
Switching back and forth between each channel
Childish cartoons – ”Let’s go out and play!”
Dramatic soaps – “David, I hate you!”
I throw the remote. Turn the flipping thing off.
A faint squeaking noise across the hard, wooden floor
Wheels rotating all the way round
Jack. My differently-abled brother, I was learning to like
He was the only ruddy person I was ever nice to
Or appeared to be.
His hands rapidly moved, dexterous with sign language by now
“Whoa whoa, mate! Slow down with your signs!”, I said
Appearing to be cheerful.
I scanned the letters in my mind
“A..F.F…I..R…M..A..T.I..V….E”
Affirmative. That’s what he was saying
My mind flashed across the past
Snipers. Screaming. Crippled.
He still talked as if he was in the war
Oh, yes. Affirmative.
The answer to a simple question
“Do you want to come with me to Libby’s party?”
The answer: affirmative.
Meaning, Yes.
Hello our dear best friend,
Who went to Scotland,
But our friendship didn’t end.
We hope you and your family are ok,
You might not know this,
But we think of you everyday.
You have probably made loads of new friends,
But we just want you to know
Our friendship will never end.
Miss you