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Visiting High School                (NaPoWriMo Poem 3)

4/5/2015

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When I was going there
From 2000-2004,
Visitors came back all the time
People who graduated the year before
2 years before
Or even ten years before
People in their careers
Or just college students eager to visit
Their old friends
Or feeling nostalgia
For the heart of Northport
That was their home 5 days a week
For 4 years.
The doors, on all sides of the building
Were open
You technically were supposed to check in
With the front desk
But no one did
And no one cared.

Old friends who had come and gone
Would pop their heads into the class room
Greeted warmly by the teachers
Hang out in the library
With Mr. Hanley,
The coolest librarian in the world
Free of the burden of classes and warning bells.
By the time I had graduated
I managed to get in 1 visit like this
1 stress free, care-free visit
before the
post 9-11 hysteria
School shooting paranoia
Started keeping security guards at every door
Restrictions on visitor passes
And every entrance to the school locked.
I sometimes miss my high school
And want to go back there
And every time the thought crosses my mind
I sigh in disappointment
At the realization
I’d have a better chance
Of getting granted
A pass for visiting hours
At a prison.

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The Hill (NaPoWriMo Poem 2)

4/5/2015

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Out at the edge of the property
Of my high school
Across the circular drive way for buses to pull up
Past the parking lot
Was a staircase on the hill
The hill
We called it.
Where all the kids who smoked
Would line up after school
Ritualistically
Take out their cigarettes
And light up

Sometimes a shady shop keeper from downtown
Would drive up to the hill
To discreetly sell cigarettes to
Those who couldn’t smoke
Or to those who could smoke with the intent
Of them spreading them around.

I always thought the hill was where the
Wannabes and the posers gathered
And yet, at the ten year reunion
I could see if nothing else
Some friendships that formed there
Chatting after school
Still held strong.

Now that New York
The nanny state
Raised the smoking age
From 18 to 21
And no high school kid
Can legally smoke
I wonder if people still gather at the hill
after school.

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15 Songs (NaPoWriMo 2015)

4/1/2015

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(NaPoWriMo Theme: 10 Year Reunion)

In 2001
My sophomore year of high school
I got the new Gorillaz CD
They were a cool band
With cool songs
And this CD had 15 of them.

So thankful we had come so far from the days of
Records
A Track Tapes
Cassettes
My CD player
Came everywhere with me
Going through the anguish
Of trying to fit the big round device
Into regular sized pockets
I would listen to my songs
While walking in the hallway between class rooms

I had my favorites on the CD
But listened to all of them
Got to know all of them
Just me and the band’s music
Little did I know
That by the time of my 10 year high school reunion
The devices we’d have would be 15 times smaller
Hold over 15,000 songs on them
And that it wouldn’t be very often
That anyone would listen
To an entire album
Anymore.
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    About Ishwa

    James P. Wagner (Ishwa) is the founder and publisher for Local Gems Poetry Press. He is a poet from Long Island and sits on 3 local poetry non-profit boards. He has edited several anthologies and believes in poetry's power to make a difference. 

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