Poem Spam.

[aquabean]

For those of you with finals...

You Go to School to Learn
by Thomas Lux

You go to school to learn to
read and add, to someday
make some money. It—money—makes
sense: you need
a better tractor, an addition
to the gameroom, you prefer
to buy your beancurd by the barrel.
There's no other way to get the goods
you need. Besides, it keeps people busy
working—for it.
It's sensible and, therefore, you go
to school to learn (and the teacher,
having learned, gets paid to teach you) how
to get it. Fine. But:
you're taught away from poetry
or, say, dancing (That's nice, dear,
but there's no dough in it). No poem
ever bought a hamburger, or not too many. It's true,
and so, every morning—it's still dark!—
you see them, the children, like angels
being marched off to execution,
or banks. Their bodies luminous
in headlights. Going to school.

Comments

[nightengale.livejournal.com]

HEH. I really like this one. ♥

We were talking about this tonight, Shannon and Shannon and me, keeping company and figuring out what routes each of us will take toward whatever goals we have for our writing. Who'll schmooze her way in, who'll be driven and pure and hopeful in submission, and who'll take a Real Job and write on the side.

It ended up a really good night, for how it started (not counting work, which rocked).