Grades are like grenades

Photo from Flickr 

Grades are grenades exploding in the mind like waves and wounding little children as they try to find a place to avoid the flying shrapnel of sarcasm and hide behind the walls they build and weep within a chasm of silence their faces contorted with confusion at the verbal violence.

Grades are like grenades

With remnants of regret they strive to avoid the bottom set while aspiring to be the teacher’s pet which is something many grasp for but few will reach if the teacher is as cold as polar ice and does little more than teach and preach and throw content about like gambling dice.

Grades are like grenades

The curriculum is dour and should be rearranged but lesson plans pass through many hands unchanged, unrevised and undisturbed which leaves the children unprepared and much perturbed about where their future in society rests while expression and creativity matter less than tests.

Grades are like grenades

Steve Wheeler © 29 June, 2020

Creative

Image from Pxhere

Set the thoughts in fluid motion

Motivate the literary urge

Capture every fleeting notion

Feed that wild creative surge

Flutter like a little child

Fill the canvas using fingers

Mix the flowing pigments wild

Catch the fragrance as it lingers

Forge the bonds between the lines

Make the notes flow crossing borders

Create the ambience of the mind

Loose every element of order

Steve Wheeler © 28 June, 2020

Simile Smile

Image from Public Domain

You're as poor as a man in a cellar
You're as rich as a Rockefeller
You're as wise as a print by Titian
You're as kitsch as Eurovision

You're as bright as the midday sun
You exhaust me like a morning run
You're as high as a cathedral spire
You're as hot as a funeral pyre

You're as colourful as Marilyn
You are a monochrome mannikin
You're as strong as a nuclear blast
You weaken me with your chequered past

You're alive like a chimpanzee
You're as mortal as a fallacy
You're eternal in a relative way
Time will tell if you are what you say



Steve Wheeler © 28 June, 2020  

Aftermath

Photo from Flickr

When this fierce battle is done and our ordeal ends

And there is no more cause to shelter from the threat of infection

We will finally be free to share embraces with our family and our friends

And shed between ourselves our pent up love and affection

As we emerge uncertain, into that tenuous aftermath

And look back upon the tragedy and loss our hearts endured

Where we no longer have cause to fear, and our joyful collective laugh

Disguises the worst of times to which our minds were inured

What will be forever revised and what will remain the same?

How might we measure each and every nuance of the change?

Will we as a people be intent on assigning any blame?

Will we trust each other more as we turn to face the strange?

As we emerge from our enforced and global hibernation

And we begin to pick up pieces of lives the storm has scattered

And a semblance of normality returns once more to our ravaged nation

Perhaps we might treasure values that previously should have mattered

Steve Wheeler © 26 June, 2020

The R

In case you really need to ask

Although I have a homemade mask

I won’t be going out at all

Until the R rate starts to fall

Until the R rate falls to zero

I won’t be acting like a hero

I will be strictly staying home

Locked down inside my safety zone

To step outside my door would be

Too dangerous for me, you see

Some don’t comply with health advice

Their actions make the R rate rise

So replying to your RSVP

Accept please, my apologies

I hope your birthday’s second to none

And that your party will be fun

And you’ll enjoy plenty of sun

But when everything is said and done

I’d rather stay at home, and be safe inside

Than adding to the R rate rise

Steve Wheeler © 24 June, 2020

Image from Pikrepo

Meds

Photo from Flickr

Remdesivir and

Dexamethasone

Are both difficult to say

But they fit in this poem

They could save your life and

They’ll definitely help some

As medicines go 

They are both fairly awesome

Steve Wheeler © 24 June, 2020

Uncanny Valley

The first time I encountered a robot machine
Was in a deserted street in Milton Keynes.
I was making my way through a bland shopping mall
When the robot passed by, like some strange magic ball.

The sudden appearance of the automaton
Gained my full attention, and I stopped to look on
At the sleek new design and its enamelled curves
And I wondered what mission, what purpose it served

In that uncanny moment I perceived its intent
As it pressed on ahead to the point it was sent
It showed no concern at my rapt fascination
Programmed to continue regardless of humans, to its destination.

Other robots I had previously observed
Looked static and harmless, no jangling of the nerves
Exhibited in museums, and limited in their reach
Yet this device was free to range through deserted streets

And I wondered as I watched it pass eerily by
Along the darkened streets of MK, oblivious to the gaze of my eye
Whether any intelligence, malevolent or kind
Could ever exist inside such a digital mind.

Steve Wheeler © 21 June, 2020

Mindful

Photo from Needpix

It’s that sudden thought of childhood

Like a furious beam of light

Finds us fearful in the darkness

Keeps us blinded in the night

Sends us stumbling into silence

Takes us trembling into truth

Makes us mindful of our memories

Leaves us yearning for our youth

Steve Wheeler © 21 June, 2020

Deep Clean

Photo from Pixnio

I have a vacuum cleaner

That cleans the carpet well

It deals with all the messy stains

And takes away the smell

It picks up toe nail clippings

And a hundred kinds of bits

It gathers up the ear wax

And incarcerates the nits

It eradicates the fluff and stuff

And every kind of dander

It cleans up every surface

From the backdoor to the front door

It clears out nooks and crannies

And scours every niche

It sucks up cake and biscuit crumbs

And dried up bits of quiche

What annoys me most of all

Is the cleaning never ends

No matter how you suck it up

The more the dust descends

And when its little bag is full

It’s emptied in the bin

And then the cycle starts again -

It’s a lot like me, and sin

I have a vacuum cleaner

That cleans my carpet well

It deals with the unsavoury

But it can’t save me from Hell

My soul was deeply stained by sin

Through wilful dark manoeuvres

Then Jesus Christ deep cleaned my soul

More efficient than a hundred Hoovers

Steve Wheeler © 21 July, 1997 (Revised 20 June, 2020)

Isaiah 64:6

Fear of Difference

Fear of difference fear of other

Though the black man is my brother

We’re not the same as one another

Still Black Lives Matter

Bigots of an elitist tribe

Ethnicity and race divide

Don’t know don’t care what beats inside

But Black Lives Matter

Indifference to those who’ve died

Reveals your prejudice and pride

Your diseased imagination lied

Yet Black Lives Matter

Within the invective that you spew

You say that White Lives Matter too

But that’s such an ignorant point of view

When Black Lives Matter

In the recesses of your mind

You seek no evidence to find

A reason to be colour blind

But Black Lives Matter

Steve Wheeler © 18 June, 2020

White Supremacy

Running through the city streets

Marching to the Nazi beat

Fists flailing kicking feet

Banners flying in the heat

Of white supremacy

Every slogan that they shout

Every slur that tumbles out

Leaves us all in little doubt

Their way of life is laced throughout

With white supremacy

See the mobs intent on killing

Inward looking, lager swilling

In horror watch as blood is spilling

Urban communities down-hilling

Through white supremacy

It needs no great intelligence

To see that we should take offence

As the actions of the malcontents

Cause mental scars of violence

Through white supremacy

The readers of the Daily Mail

With tongues that wag and fists that flail.

The hatred rising off the scale

Should tell us all from what we ail:

It’s white supremacy

Steve Wheeler © 17 June, 2020