PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

"Almost tiring,

the bump of the shoulders passing by,

the hallways so full of students, mean, 

their intentions unknown to what they vie. 

But the Janitor, 

mop handle twisting in wrists, 

cleans the bustling halls, murder

of the sparkling floors committed with fervor.

Moreover, the students don't care!

But no matter, the Janitor smiles as he cleans,

leaning on his swab bucket, no flair

for how unfair redoing the swab job is.

But now it is after five,

the older gentleman is working his way up and down,

the passageways now empty, 

all the students long gone home. 

Quite the opposite scene,

from when the school was full,

a loud and swarming event, specifcally

during the lunch periods. 

And during those times? While constantly 

going back and forth, picking up spills

and keeping the floor clean,

he even feels grumpy.

But only now at this momement,

a longing, a forlorn feeling wraps itself

over the un-bumped shoulders of the man,

alone, doing his job.

The sudden wish the students were there,

to fill the empty space he cleans, 

the abandoned place to fill up soon,

but not a moment too late, he steams.

All the moments that he's spent,

breaking up a fight between two boys,

frankly taking both collars in each hand

and talking to them sharply, they listened.

The time he talked to the crying girl,

leaning on the mop handle, wise counsel

spewed at a comforting rate to the young one

who had her first broken heart. 

Or the time he tutored the troubled youth,

not in math or english but in life,

the boy sticking around while he cleaned. 

alone, his only brother having been knifed. 

Every smile he evoked,

with silly, word-play jokes,

every time he snapped at young students passing by, 

keeping the rowdy in line. 

The old man now smiled himself,

finishing up the entire school,

looking forward to the bustle to come,

the lockers that will slam, voices, loud.

The end of this feeling, eerie,

sudden, and no more farther then

when he will grumble, with a slight smile,

of the busy hallways where he will be bumped again."