Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Of Flags And Pupils
Somethings gripped me today and brought to mind it might be time to post this poem from our Library. It seemed to settle and make sense of the gripping events.
Not Normal
by Charles Bukowski
when I was in grammar school
our teacher told us a story
about a sailor
who told the captain,
"the flag? I hope that I never
see the flag again!"
"very well," he was told,
"you will get your
wish!"
and they put him in the
hold of the sailing ship
and kept him there,
sending down his
food
and he died down there
without ever seeing the
flag again.
it was a real horror
story for the other children,
very
effective.
but it wasn't quite
as effective with
me.
I sat there thinking,
well, it's too bad
about not seeing the
flag
but the best part was
not having to see the
other people.
I didn't raise my hand to
say anything about that,
though.
that would mean that
I didn't want to see them
either.
which was true.
I looked straight forward
at the blackboard
which looked far better
than
any of
them.
Not Normal
by Charles Bukowski
when I was in grammar school
our teacher told us a story
about a sailor
who told the captain,
"the flag? I hope that I never
see the flag again!"
"very well," he was told,
"you will get your
wish!"
and they put him in the
hold of the sailing ship
and kept him there,
sending down his
food
and he died down there
without ever seeing the
flag again.
it was a real horror
story for the other children,
very
effective.
but it wasn't quite
as effective with
me.
I sat there thinking,
well, it's too bad
about not seeing the
flag
but the best part was
not having to see the
other people.
I didn't raise my hand to
say anything about that,
though.
that would mean that
I didn't want to see them
either.
which was true.
I looked straight forward
at the blackboard
which looked far better
than
any of
them.
