THUMBPRINTS
THUMBPRINTS
(a Literary
Magazine)
Thumbprints
staff published our fourth edition this past year. Meeting are held on
Wednesdays after school. To join, you must
be willing to read poetry, short stories, and essays, then discuss the merits of
each piece you read.
A FEW SAMPLES
Live
or Die
Dark, grey, bloodshot.
Salty tears overflowing like great, prodigious waterfalls.
Saddened by the state of the world,
By relationships gone wrong,
By loneliness, by betrayal, by disrespect.
Tired of working their hands to the bone,
Tired of solving everyone else’s problems.
They choose to die.
I’ve also seen a living eye.
Bright, blue, sparkling.
Tears of joy overflowing like too much water in a bathtub full of bubbles.
Encouraged and enlightened by the state of the world,
Thinking, what can I do to help,
By relationships gone wrong
From which they have learned an prospered from in their lifelong friendships,
By togetherness, by loyalty, by respect.
Eager to works their hands to the bone
Because of the self-respect and reward they gain.
Eager to solve other people’s problems
Because of the prosperity and gratitude received.
They choose to live.
Krista Virgin ’03
Anonymous
Riding on the bus one day coming home from Boston I watched a man. He was crouching on his heels on the seat at the back of the bus. He had a gym bag that he rummaged through a long time. He pulled out a rolled up newspaper, a half-eaten sub, and other miscellaneous things. The last item he pulled out was one of those orange pill bottle with the prescription label on it. He ate one and replaced all his belongings.
He was sick. You could see it in the way he sat, the way he breathed, the hollows in his face. It seemed to me that he could be as old as the world itself. His illness could be the pollution and hatred consuming the people of today.
Jesus, had he made it this long, would look like this. All the pain and suffering of the human race would have eaten away at his heart until his body gave out. In that moment it seemed perfectly reasonable to see him as a god who was dying for the wasting away of his father’s greatest accomplishment. He could have been a Jesus incapable of absorbing all our sins the way he was sent here to do. And I really believed that had I looked closely at the label on his medicine bottle that his prescription would have been hope.~
Megan O’Toole ’00
Ode to the Lyricist
WORDSMITH, PUT YOUR HAMMER DOWN!
Help me craft the tools with which I can articulate my path.
Let the sparks fly as you create my custom-made lyrical blade
Double-sided saber full of flavor.
Place it on the stand with my grammar war hammer
And the multi-syllable samurai stars
Next to the solid steel rap bars, soliloqual smoke bombs
Concentrate the essence in between my palms
And create material from which to craft these miracles
Expressive tools which I wield against aggressive fools
And use to construct aqueducts to catch the fluid from my brainstorm
Irrigate fertile fields.
WORDSMITH, LAY YOUR HAMMER DOWN!
Con-struct con-crete con-cepts
Those of love poems and bomb threats
That I might take my war stance in the dance well-equipped
Leave the world stripped to its naked frame
Player, not a piece in this game
But I mislead, this life is not a game, bes’ believe
There are those who’ll knock you down just to watch you bleed
So I war for my people with spectacular vernacular’
Accurately depict the script of my life
To put it in ‘hood terms, “sh_t iz real”
So this warlord swings rhyme swords to make you feel
My pain, plus maintain my sanity
And to bolster my innate vanity
‘Cause it’s about the wordplay:
The lyrical precision used to make a deep incision
In the path neurological and smash thoughts illogical
We’re up against odds astronomical, that why I’m forced to perform phenomenal
Control the globe like ecological, plus I’m interplanetary astrological
With maladjusted sociopathological tendencies
Form hypotheses like I’m Socrates, you’ll be jockin’ the N-U-T’s
Until ejaculation now proceed with assassination and domination of this nation.
Till's Collage
Run!!! The Bus is Coming!
You probably know by now that there are buses taking students back and forth to school. I don’t really have any problems with the morning buses but the ones at the end of school are different. Now, I take the bus every day, at least I plan to. There are three buses waiting in the “front” of the school by the end of the last bell. When I don’t plan to stay after school, I always run to my locker, get my stuff as fast as I can, and start my race again to catch the bus. If you don’t believe me, you can ask one of the hall monitors; he’s asked me a couple of times to slow down. Running that fast, you’d think I’d catch the bus. You are right, but not completely. You see, if I’m lucky I can catch one of the three buses, but if I don’t, oh, the horror! I don’t understand at all why they leave so early, especially when some of them still have vacant seats. This is not exaggeration, my friends. On one of my fastest runs, I caught one of the buses. When I looked around, there was one seat available and no one, and I mean NO ONE was standing or holding onto the poles.
Now imagine the horror if you missed the first three buses, which happens to me a lot, and I do keep track! I always wonder how some of you can catch the bus so early. Anyway, the one and only late bus usually comes 3-5 minutes later. If some of you are waiting for your rides outside, you can see there’s a big blob of people waiting at a certain spot on the sidewalk, hoping and praying that the bus will stop there. Now, when the bus finally comes everyone stops what he or she is doing and starts following to see where it will stop. You can never guess where it will stop. It’s such a pain in the neck, and I mean that literally, because everyone pushes, pulls, knocks, screams, and steps on you just to get in the bus, even if they have to stand. I always get pushed because I’m so small and pushing is back is out of the question.
Some people laugh but I don’t see it as a laughing matter because we are all civilized human beings and we don’t need to be faced with physical challenge when catching our ride. It’s not like we don’t pay. I’m so embarrassed and ashamed because we look like vicious animals with backpacks on, knocking down weaker ones to reach our destination. And you’re lucky if you’re the last one to get on and don’t get half of your body stuck in the violent door. Forget about the condition inside the bus. Whatever position you take in the bus, that’s the way you stay until 1-15 minutes later.
Now I mentioned that there is only one late bus.
That’s because the next bus (4:00) that passes by Classical isn’t
supposed to stop for students. That’s
why some buses don’t stop for us, and that would be the ride for those that
have to stay after school for clubs, detention, and other obligations.
After reading this, I hope that we can all come up with some ideas to
improve Lynn Classical students’ public transportation.
Thank you.