Farewell, School (a poem)

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Hi. I wrote this for my poetry class, and I'm graduating next month. It's the first time I've ever tried a rhyming poem, and I wanted to try it for this particular subject because I wanted it to be kind of over the top and sound almost unkempt. It's mostly meant to be taken humorously, although there are some serious bits. I don't know, I had fun. If the moderators want to move this to the "Arts" forum, that's okay. I just wanted to post it here because it directly deals with school.


Farewell, School

Goodnight, Montessori,
where I learned all of the stupid rules
that laid down the big, long, boring story
of all my seven schools.
Raise your hand, count to ten,
Say you're sorry, say amen.

Farewell, Ryerson, K through Two,
where there was no fun, just a hue of kozmic blue.
I pondered arson but never did pursue;
I was a person only slightly askew.
After reading: Horton, I once drew,
and praised, I scribbled all the way through.

Goodbye, "Nine to three of misery
at Jeffrey Elementary,"
where Mrs. Ouimett kept me busy,
and kids began to see me grotesquely,
and so exiled from Girl Scout idiocy
for my dark words interrupting serenity.

Hi, ho, hi, ho, R.H. Brown Middle School,
where my brain became a cesspool
of existential drool.
I crawled around in sloppy psychic mush,
socially inept and forced myself to hush.
Trapped at twelve, I never grew up.

Daniel Hand High, it's off we go,
no hope for me, I was somewhere below.
Blonde nor thin, shunned long ago,
ranked second to last with a two point O:
for a class of a thousand, I must have been slow.
Drawing silenced the mathematical echo—
sketchbooks packed like bones with marrow.
Fifteen years and not able to grow,
no turns or twists: my life a plateau:
downed a pack of pills, and waited for the crow.

Almost two decades of these schools,
filled box after box of incompetent fools,
and idle standardized tests each year,
every page so blatantly austere--
don't think for yourself, think as a crowd.
Questions really aren't allowed.

I haven't learned a damned thing new
since Montessori's grand debut.
Raise your hand, count to ten,
say you're sorry, say amen.

So lived another year, at only sixteen,
turned to mother, said, "It's time to leave."
The house up for sale in a town we don't grieve,
to a different state, maybe this one serene.

So long, be gone, Penfield High,
this place like a gift of the magi,
where one friend hanged from a rope
and another, together, we learned to cope:
the one who cracked my concrete wall
and planted seeds, and let rain fall.

It’s time, Alfred University
School of Art and Design.
where I was conquered and slain
with my only way to explain
emotions with no words or expressions
and locked into a narrow maze of dungeons.
I learned some things, here and there,
but overall, it’s a lot of nowhere.
Always lost and bitterly confused,
every chance of freedom I abused.
Promises spoken were never given,
college is a lonely station.

I’m leaving now, with this paper,
my silly hat on, and intense stupor.
I’m ready for the real world,
which is just like high school,
from what I’ve been told.

Not a person I’ll miss,
no rumors to dismiss.
So thanks for the armor,
thanks for the tumor,
thanks for the debt
and for nothing to regret.

So, farewell, school.
Raise your hand, count to ten,
please say you’re sorry, and say amen.


Shannon Lindsay E.

If that was for class, it deserves an A+.