He knows pain

He knows pain

He let them take his advantage,

Plunder the soft tissues of heart.

The eyes hurt to conceal dark brooks.

They pick him so easy and taunt.

We never know abstract pain.

We can ask the boy, a minor

Who is certain to know much more

As his mates know of ways to rag.

The school gate and the palsy green

The face with a slight twitch is mute

To a world of less important

Busy buzz and complex layers.

He bows his head and moves inside

To face another day’s darkness.

 

 

Reviews

[Kara Emily Krantz]

parts were very abstract, parts were more concrete and allowed me experience some emotions. towards the end i had the feeling of... autism... of a boy with autism, lost in his own world, feeling a pain beyond the type that we normally know... the pain of being alone, and not able to communicate the way we need to.

of course, that ws my interpretation. :)
i enjoyed it, nontheless. i did find the second half to be mor relatable than the first half though
hugs

[Emily B]

He bows his head and moves inside
to face another day's darkness.

Wow! Insightful and touching.

[Nick Erickson]

I could see the boy and his fear of going back into that school so very clearly.
This was a very vivid piece for me, having heard of so many curel things children have done lately... though I wonder if it's any more cruel than what I had to endure or dished out myself...
Well done.

[TL Boehm]

well written blend of emotion and visual images, the inner desperation of 'normalcy.' presented poetically.

[Jade Mayhew]

I liked it a lot. I thought it was very abstract, as many people have said, but at the same time, easy to follow. Great job!!!

[Captain Blackheart (The..]

Different, your writting had a very unique approach to it. A good piece.

[JC Fox]

this was an abstract piece and could be talking about a deity or a person, good poem

[R J Askew]

I have two young boys and I see all kinds of pain and grief taken and given every week. We can be very brutal animals. Some give pain without even realising it. Others take it and hide it. It is just the way nature makes us. Some are made sensitive some are made brutal. I like the poem as it captures the hell that many kids feel daily in the chaos of heirarchies that exist in any school.

But the biggest bully in the English school system is the government which drives kids to sit test, after test, after test, after test from the age of about 7. The whole testing system puts massive stress on children, massive stress. Winners and losers are identified early. But then a 'modern market economy' MUST have winners. Kids in other European countries do not even go near a school until they are 7.

[Dani California]

I felt emotions of loneliness and social isolation in this poem. It left me with a feeling of overall sadness. Great poem!

[George Love]

I like the abstract points here. Nicely done!

[Sparrow]

Bullies can jade a child's malleable heart so easily and usually without remorse. What's hard to remember when you see a grown up bully is that they might have been the heart broken child one day long ago.

Superb write.