Chalk Dust
Chalk dust
Under fingernails
Scribble-covered chalkboards
white on green
Smoky air
From chalk filled erasers
Pounded in the night
Chalk dust on the breeze
Floating out of sight
(April 2004)
poem by Elizabeth Peterson
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Related quotes
A Piece of Chalk (Children's Poem)
Chalk is happiest when the teachers come to him
Because he can chat about all sorts of subjects
Such as astronomy, geography, science and art
Chalk knows whatever you want to know
Chalk doesn’t like to do just one thing
When he is called on by the teacher
And he needs to follow the teacher’s orders
So Chalk hits the students chatting in class
To give them a big shock and stop their talking
Chalk hopes the seed of wisdom grows in students’ minds
And they can improve their studying a lot
If students want to learn about everything from Chalk
Even though every moment he becomes thinner and smaller
At the cost of his life
He still enjoys his work
Lucky Chalk
Keep saving...Keep saving
Or...Not
Let go and make room
For the teachers
There's wisdom on the board
The clapping of erasers
Sprinkles, tattered, and worn chalk
Like advice and re-arrangement
Dusting all the desks
For the new class
Untill they graduate
Not everyone will
Those left behiend
Can clean the board
And gather the chalk gems
Lucky janitors
poem by Josephine Lauderdale
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Tiny Angel
.Tiny Angel,
Fragile and weak,
Spun from silken chalk.
Tiny Angel,
Fierce and strong,
Spun from silken chalk.
My fallen Tiny Angel
Fragile and weak,
Gave me strength and hope.
Spun from silken chalk.
My fallen Tiny Angel,
Strong and brave,
Spun from silken chalk.
My sleeping Tiny Angel,
Spun from silken chalk,
No longer fragile and weak,
Flies.......
poem by Christina Jayne
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Sometimes I Ponder
sometimes i ponder on the useless
things that i think i have done with so much importance
for the day:
1.stopping on a white bridge in Dikayo
and seeing the flood of the brown river
seeing the floating coconuts and
some drift woods
stopping the car.
2. standing beside a bay window
seeing the sea torn into halves
brown on the shore and blue on the
upper portion
stop the reading.
3. setting aside the curtain to
let in the light from the morning sun
turning off the lights and getting
away from the hazards of the
computer screen
stopping, stopping.
stooping.
4. looking over the road from
this two-storey building left by
the Spaniards that once ruled
this old town
aimlessly.
5. stopping for a while. wanting
this world to stop revolving.
wishing.
sometimes i wonder, if all these useless
things that i do can change the world
or just my small world.
I am doing all these. Without thinking much
if the time is wasted.
i sit back on my chair. Staring on a blank wall
that is painted with the color of
the chalk.
Back to writing. The chalk reminds.
The chalk that resembles
the pen.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Statements
STATEMENTS
Statements wide, too neatly cut and dried,
approach the truth as close as most the moon,
name chalk as cheese, cheese chalk, kite thoughts buffoon
in passing caught, hot air - [t]weak tongues untied.
15 April 2001 revised 14 September 2006
robi03_0932_robi03_0000 XXX_JXX
Statements Poem (c) Jonathan Robin
poem by Jonathan Robin
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Crumbling Chalk
Beneath the cliffs of crumbling chalk was once a path
where you could walk. The walk would take you down to
the sand where fishing boats would come to land.
Now this crumbling chalk falls into the sea, where once
crabs and lobsters were caught for tea.
No scavenging left in this lonely bay even the gulls
have flown away; they have left the waves and the spray
are they to return another day.
Nets and pots have been swallowed up by the waves and
now their left to sleep in watery graves. A fishing village that was
once a boom has now become an empty tomb.
An oil slick just driffted into the shore and took away the beauty
that it had known before. Crumbling chalk that drops like tears
on the sand that's black made from the oil smears.
There is nothing left to self contain, oh will they no come
back again.
poem by Sylvia Spencer
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Like an Animal
Behind the smooth texture
Of my eyes, way inside me,
A part of me has died:
I move my bloody fingernails
Across it, hard as a blackboard,
Run my fingers along it,
The chalk white scars
That say I AM SCARED,
Scared of what might become
Of me, the real me,
Behind these prison walls.
poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca
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Foolish Pride
She stayed up all night
And cried into her pillow
And fought off the urge
To just break down and call
Last night the fight, the fall
Seemed so darned easy
But now who's to blame
Don't matter much at all
She thinks if she calls him
It just shows weakness
So the hurt goes on
With every tear she's cried
Ain't it sad to see
A good love fall to pieces?
Chalk another heartbreak up
To foolish pride
[CHORUS]
Turn out the lights
The competition's over
The stubborn souls
Are the losers here tonight
And while the bridges burn
Another hard, hard lesson's learned
As in the ashes
Passion slowly dies
And this romance goes down
To foolish pride
He relives every word
They spoke in anger
He walks the floor
And punches out the wall
To apologize to her
Would be so simple
But instead he cries
"I'll be damned if I call"
If he loses her
He's lost his best friend
And more than just
A lover can provide
So he wrestles with emotions
That defeat him
Chalk another love lost up
To foolish pride
[REPEAT CHORUS]
Chalk another love lost up
To foolish pride
Yeah
song performed by by Travis Tritt
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Where The Sidewalk Ends
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
and before the street begins,
and there the grass grows soft and white,
and there the sun burns crimson bright,
and there the moon-bird rests from his flight
to cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
and the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
we shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow
and watch where the chalk-white arrows go
to the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
and we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
for the children, they mark, and the children, they know,
the place where the sidewalk ends.
poem by Sheldon Allan Silverstein
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Red Skies
that afternoon the skies are red
as tulips
the emotions however are like
stones
gray and dry
the world is sac-like
and one wonders
if music as a harmony
within the heart of
solitude
can still jibe
come to think about it
the active element
is still you
work it out then like
a piece of art
a sculpture of rivets
a canvass of smoke
a poem about chalk
and erasers,
diverse, reverse, collide
like water molecules
in sulfuric acid
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Night School in lower depths
The drug addict teacher comes with pornography
And sits on a desk half drunk.
'Hey! You idiot clean the black board.
The idiot stumbles with the matured students his equals
Quarters, Dimes, Nickels and pennies
And he cleans it seems..
Then the teacher asked him to write a sad but a correct sentence.
'No chalk.'
'Then bring it soon.'
He went to the next door pub and had a gulp of cheap liquor returned with a piece of chalk.
He writes; I skipped my golden school days and went for movies, ran behind the stars to get their signatures.
Now I learn from my mistakes
How to sign myself.
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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Doppelganger
Miss Damson
was a doppelganger
for Bette Davis
right down
to the look
and eyes
and swagger
into the classroom
to teach
and it was said
that sometimes
she‘d go into
the cupboard
and have a drag
on a smoke
and if any kid
spoke out of turn
she’d give a stare
to make his or her soul
seemingly burn
but you saw
the way she could bring
silence to a room
when she entered
or bring a shudder
of fear
into the hearts
of the classroom braggers
and when she drew chalk
across the blackboard
it’d set teeth on edge
or threw chalk
or the blackboard wiper
at any kid stupid
or brave enough
to open their mouths
and the way she wrote
upon the board
her back to the class
that firm ass
and with that neat script
her fingers tight
around the chalk
as if around
the throat of any kid
who dared to talk
and you
she’d say
you at the back
you with the dumb look
don’t stare
out of the window
open the darn book
or hey you
girl with the bangs
don’t sit there
with your mouth open
or you’ll catch flies
and there’d be
an underground snigger
from others
or just dumb looks
anywhere
but at Miss Damson
even stuck between
pages of boring books.
poem by Terry Collett
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... Dust
If only dust could talk
What would we hear it say?
Before it's brushed aside
Just as it's swept away
It's just the evidence
It's of no consequence
It's only flesh and bone
Why don't we leave it alone?
If only dust could gather into lines of chalk
Around a silhouette detective fiction walks
For it's the only witness that can testify
Can I spit out the truth?
Or would you rather just swallow a lie?
Why did they dam the land?
How did they flood the plain?
Did they erase the name?
And wipe away the stain
You kept your mouth well shut
Appeared to turn your coat
Now there's a name for you but it's stuck in my throat
If dust could only mutter
Or in laughter trill
If it could warn and whisper from the windowsill
But it's the only witness that can testify
Can I split out the truth?
Or would you rather just swallow a lie?
Here comes the juggernaut
Here come The Poisoners
They choke the life and land
And rob the joy from us
Why do they taste of sugar?
Oh, when they're made of money
Here come the Lamb of God
And the butcher's boy, sonny
If dust could only gather in the needle track
Then it would skip a beat and it would jump right back
If dust could only gather in a needle track
Then it would skip a beat
And all the sense I lack
song performed by by Elvis Costello
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Miss Macbeth
All the children testified that miss macbeth
Wore a fishbone slide in her cobweb tresses
Her eyes were black like first foot coal, clutched as white as chalk-dust
Her fingers sweated india-ink and poison-pen letters
There is a hungry hanging tree, just below your bedroom window
You can hear her take a broom to beat out a tattoo on the ceiling
Her bloodless face ran red inside but was she
Really evil, was she only pantomime
Now the chalk on the wall says that somebody
Saves, that somebodys face has just been washed off the pavement
Into a puzzle where petrol will be poisoned by rain
Miss macbeth saw her reflection
As confetti bled its colours down the drain
Chorus:
And everyday she lives out another love song
Its a tearful lament of somebody done wrong
Well how can you miss what youve never possessed?
Miss macbeth
Well we all should have known when the children paraded
They portrayed her in their fairytales, sprinkling deadly nightshade
And as they tormented her she rose to the bait
Even a scapegoat must have someone to hate
And everyday she lives out another love song
Youre up there enjoying yourself, and I know its wrong
Well how can you miss what youve never possessed
Miss macbeth
Sometimes people are just what they appear to be
With no redemption at all
We try to walk upright when we cant even crawl
Miss macbeth has a gollywog she chucks under
The chin and she whispers to it tenderly then sticks it on a pin
And it might be coincidence, but a boy down
The lane, that she said went white as he could do, then doubled over in pain
Chorus
song performed by by Elvis Costello
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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And I promise to reserve a seat for my lonesome Master
Still I am going to school and nobody sits in the class.
Peeled walls look so sad like an old fresco
And I think of my old friends.
A piece of chalk and the duster
Still remain in a corner on the rack below the blackboard.
Some letters were missing in the old essays but readable.
Before I step down I hear the echoes of music teacher's melancholy voice
And I never thought a chalk could speak like a parrot.
'Hey! Master I watched your regrets and I want to tell you that some of your friends already stuck in a home for the elders.
Your favorite teacher was retired and she collects her last pension it seems.
But it's glad to see still you look as a student's charisma with your old haversack.
Please come another day after the refurbishment of the school
Then you could see the new students and teachers
And I promise to reserve a seat for my lonesome Master.'
* To Sandra Fowler in gratitude.
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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Lila & Eve
Jennifer Lopez, Aml Ameen, Viola Davis, Shea Whigham, Andre Royo, Chris Chalk, Michole Briana White, Rey Hernandez
by Pat Gilfillan from Lila & Eve (2015)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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All the American women had purple noses and gray lips and their faces were chalk white from terrible powder. I recognized that the United States could be my life's work.
quote by Helena Rubinstein
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Temporality.....
nothing is kept forever
each day we lose part of our skin
our feet dissolve
in water
our heads evaporate in air
time
we are immersed in it like
a solution
we diffuse like molecules
of ink
we invade what seems at
first is colorless
then each of us settles
like moss
to rocks
we think that finally stability
is there
the rocks crumple like chalk
turning to dust again
upon our fingers the wind comes
blows everything
we imagine we exist
until our imagination leaves us
we become strangers again
like a migrating bird
upon a tree
in an unknown island
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The chalk marks are transient, the formulas eternal.
quote by S. Weinstein
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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