Photograph by Chris Sims
Five lovely poems to choose from this week and the readers fell in love with the very amusing Poem 1: Batchelor of Arts by Tina Shaw. Congratulations Tina.
Poem 1
Batchelor of Arts
What’s a BA stand for? husband said
Big Arse? and laughed,
but I couldn’t care less.
Today I have my giant hat
of cleverness on.
And I have elevated
my former self
into someone with airs.
I can add BA after my name.
It’s been a screaming, screeching day
down phones,
up the stairs,
woo hooing and
jumping on tiptoes.
No-one can snatch
this tightly grasped special day.
The beyond joy sensation
of pure happiness
that has invaded
my wide smile
Tina Shaw
Poem 2
Carpe Diem:
Carpe Diem,
We will seize the day.
Our step,
Our steps
Walking down the road.
Our future,
Our futures,
beginning to unfold.
Our dream,
Our dreams
We live a life untold.
so we walk with pride,
and our chest rise,
for life’s toll.
Our shout
Our shouts
We join in unison.
Our trial
Our trials,
the world strikes us down.
Our strength
Our strengths,
we rise from the ground.
Carpe Diem,
We have seized the day now.
Samuel Han (16)
Poem 3
Graduation
Into the hoped-for days we are about to go,
Never wanting to forget what being here made of us –
Friendships warmed by the heart’s hearth,
Cooled by the heart’s cold petulance;
The goodness of books –
We lusted for them but sometimes shunned
Their platonic invitation –
The food when we could
When we had only good between us,
And the lost hours,
When there was only nonsense between us,
While the words we had to find in the books
Loomed over us and in the mind’s
Weak ventricles the knowledge we were here for
Seeped slowly like weak blood
And we, wishing our brains would
Beat like hearts, wishing the questions, essays,
Dissertations, could be, like solved crimes, understood,
Were detectives here for terms of days.
Well, no more of that. Now, the Baccalaureate.
Now the status, stupid ceremony,
The deserved, whispered magnificat,
Now the gown, the photograph, the medieval hat.
And afterwards shall we be changed? Shall eyes
Twinkle, flash, will there be trumpets at the last?
Something leads us through the gathered academic forest
Like a grasped hand to where what is before us lies,
And what is before us draws us on and on we go,
Willingly, reluctantly, we go,
Leaving here and what here made of us behind,
With what we made of here grasped tightly in the hand
Trusting that whatever comes; new friends
To be warm and cool with, new books to be played,
New good between us, new hours to be made
And lost in, new lives, new lands,
That what has held us here these days
Once hoped for, now all used,
Will keep us, though we be bruised,
Will be always and will be always.
Michael Docker
Poem 4
Rewards
Rewards…delight us,
help us succeed,
where we might have failed.
…confirm for us
that we have tried
and been successful.
…tell others
of our success and
we are able to share that.
Rewards…help others
to know they can copy
and achieve as well.
…send us
towards the goals
we may have set ourselves.
… remind us
that we are never alone,
that others are with us.
Rewards…can enable us
to share, congratulate
and reward others
…. show us
that we are all children
and like to feel special.
…can be
a small piece of paper,
a coin or a smile.
Rewards…. can be
different at
different times.
A sticker from a teacher
A cap and a gown
A handshake from a prince
Take them, give them
Recognise their power.
Angie Butler
Poem 5
A Golden Vow
Ambiance of serenity is the proof
They depart to land on the new soil.
Years of strenuous efforts
Resolute guidance of educators…
All have shaped the harbingers’ values
To upheld morale every time.
They make the golden vow
To safeguard the blessing vouchsafed them.
This transition from students to citizens of society
They promise to make it meaningful.
Denim Deka
