Miami Carol City Senior High School
Class of 1971
MCC Poetry
A beloved now lost to me. Lost perhaps due to my momentary inattention while I swerved around life’s corners at a youthful pace. We came together too fast without realizing our relative speed. We smashed fiercely up against one another in a sudden explosion of so many lost opportunities and shattered dreams. We tore past and through one another despite our desperate clinging, scarcely stopping to breath. Our parent’s restraints, applied for our protection, left us only the more bruised and wrenched out of joint when we finally came to rest. My first reaction was to flee the scene of such great destruction. I stomped the accelerator of my life and ran careening blindly away, fleeing the carnage of our collision. I clawed my way away from the pain and damage I had inflicted with a drowning man’s panic towards the surface. I tried to move so fast that the wind filled my face and all my dread wafted out behind me that I might again take breath. I sped on so far and fast until I could almost believe there had been no impact between us. Yet as I regained my breath in this distant self where I had arrived I was immediately overcome by my desperate need to remember her face, her touch, the smell of her hair, and the arch of her breasts against me. My head still swims with textures and fragrances just beyond my defining. They are an agony, these ecstatic promptings of near remembered times. They have been lost to me by the speed of my own cowardice. I cannot find her, so I must return to the scene of my greatest failing and see what remains. All here is only a shamble of destruction. Tiny little shards of tears once spent for me lie jumbled amidst a tumult of whispered words of love and broken promises. All gone now like yesterday’s songs faded from the air. This place is a desolation of hurting. Even yesterday’s happy thoughts lie exhausted and brushed to the shoulder of the road. I am staggered at the damage done. So many wounds lie hidden all around that claim me as their author. I recognize that I am alive now only in a diminished state. All my other futures are only refractions of this shattered love’s beginning. I wander aimlessly with no desire to remain in this wasteland but have no sense of where to go from here. No memorial I erect here will heal this place. No prayers spoken here can undo the hurt that lies slinking around every hidden corner and stings my eyes with the bitter recollection of what I allowed to slip away. This place is a place best left abandoned. Let the passage of time bring an apathy of love here. In my self-assessment I am entitled to no peace. I am a creature now only of diminished sensibilities, revolted by my past failings. Yet still I crawl forward happily even into tomorrow’s unwavering promise of pain. I go on because it was me in all the world that Susan loved. R. MandigoSusan Accidentally
#2
Cherished Sister
We are of the Father, you and I.
Love eternal, doubly promised.
is my heartbeat and my strength.
Sometimes your prayers caress me.
Your tears weep slowly down my cheek.
My days twice empty after dreaming.
Love is all around yet far from me.
I Trace your footsteps always leading away.
I ponder over your familiar missing face.
We are one, you and I, though separate.
Even this time of loneliness is shared.
We mean everything to each other.
Everything except todays embrace.
Kiss me through the distance.
Wait for me. Expect my coming.
I am most alive in my journey to you.
MCC Phantom
#3
Hallowed Halls
Dedicated with Warm Affection
To the
Commemorating our 40th
By David Roth
10th March 2011
It was the end of the Summer of Love,
first Monday after Labor Day, 1968,
the year that signaled
the beginning of the end
of the Beatles.
From cars,
sidewalks,
and the gaping jaws
of an endless convoy of yellow submarines
shining in the bright September morning
we clamored into position.
Black, White, Cuban,
a pulsing throng nearly a thousand strong,
we entered the hallowed halls of education
where, upon seeing the herd broken
into manageable bits of thirty or so,
we would live for the next three years,
emblazoned, as it were with the invisible
club stamp of pride and belonging,
“
Class of Nineteen Hundred Seventy-one!”
From “I pledge Allegiance to the Flag”
to “Hail to thee, oh Alma Mater”
we lived, loved, breathed and dreamed
the glorious fire that was
the Mighty Chiefs proud and storied.
Together we cheered our teams,
sang our songs, debated with our teachers,
served our fellow man, and looked
with choked anticipation to see
what future might unfold.
We witnessed first hand
Amazin’ Mets,
Perfect Dolphins,
and Apollo’s eleven and thirteen.
June 6th, 1971
We gathered, robed as scholars,
proudly donning cap and gown
attrition diluting our number
yet a force with which to reckon,
diploma in hand, the pinnacle reached,
the road ahead awaiting,
we laughed, we cried, we hugged,
we promised we’d never forget,
knowing all the while however well intentioned,
the great lie was our last exchange of words.
Some of our number continued their education,
some went off to work,
others off to war, and of these latter former Chiefs,
some gave their life in the soggy jungle
of a horror known as
for some a quick and shattered end,
while others waited years for ‘the ‘
to finally kill them,
while those who came home
were not welcomed as the heroes they still are.
We who survived or avoided
the steamy mosquito infested hell of
pursued our dreams to become doctors, lawyers
teachers, nurses, bus drivers
and the occasional obscure poet.
Our class president, to no one’s surprise,
Earned her PhD., and remains
a vibrant, dedicated, talented leader.
The soundtrack of our lives,
from John, George, Paul and Ringo,
to Jimmy and Jim, to Sam and Dave,
to Temps and Tops and Supremes,
Donnie, Marie, and Michael,
Richard and Karen
would remind us that “We’ve only just Begun,”
and transition with the years
from rock to pop to disco to hip-hop
while in secret longing,
our radio dials still saving a spot
for the Golden Oldies of our dancing days.
So now.
Forty years later.
A different year.
A different decade.
A different century!
Now we bridge the gap,
and endeavor to heal the broken promises
of time, faded as a
and memories left behind
in for what, to those of us
still blessed to draw breath,
would be our fifty-seventh,
or fifty-eighth year
in the quantum vestibule called life,
remembering those who have left us behind,
honoring and cherishing their time,
we who live,
we who still walk the halls,
sing the songs,
cheer the cheers
and smile at the memories,
I salute you, my friends.
Class of Nineteen Seventy-One,
Mighty, Mighty Chiefs.
#4
Mugwump
Mugwump sees you giggle, then he too slips a laugh.
For whatever tickles funny bones is included in his craft.
He's the Imp of leisure time and lazy summer days.
Beauty was first kissed by him and kindness is his gaze.
Whatever your life's station he'll be sneaking up on you.
He may hide your keys forever or put dog poop on your shoe.
'Tis he that lifts the skirts with breezes down those autumn lanes.
He first played at make believe and all the childhood games.
His heart directed Disney. His foot tripped Gerald Ford.
He dotted Shirley's dimples in and pulled out Arthur's sword.
He's always been amongst us, operating as he does
To lighten our self-opinion that we might more partake of love.
He posed as Cupid in the pink, without a stitch of clothes.
He taught Skelton how to fall and lumped up Jimmy's nose.
He likes secluded places where lovers go alone.
But sometimes he can't help it and he rings the telephone.
He invented slingshots and he stole the missing part.
He greases up your shirtsleeve when the car is hard to start.
I'm sure he dabbles in politics and directs all gutter balls.
He is energized by giggles, and squeezes leaky dolls.
Sometimes he helps in fashion. Bow ties were his design.
He helps the collar not quite reach and women's noses shine.
Perfume makes him giddy. Lipstick often tints his smile.
Lollipops are his hobby and chocolate kisses just his style.
Shoestrings he loves to loosen or tie up all in knots.
He decorates with graffiti and assorted blue ink blots.
He bugged rubber baby bumpers, put the burp in soda pop.
Without his hand in batteries the darn things never stop.
When you put on your panty hose he's arranged the run that's there.
He teaches through inconvenience, with his antics we find fault.
Yet we learn by our reactions what human being is all about.
We can laugh at our own frailties. Giggle at another's woe.
Be rendered all incontinent by stubbing our big toe.
Our visions grow ever grandiose about the human race.
Without our licks from Mugwump we would hardly know our place.
Sex Goddesses must brush their teeth and spit out in the sink.