The School Board Calls for Reductions
By James B. Nicola
April 15, 2024
April 15, 2024
Last November we learned how the original Americans saved the surviving Pilgrims’ lives by feeding them and teaching them how to farm in salty, sandy soil, and then invited them to join them—join their tribe, not just settle nearby lands. It seems they were natural Christians and already knew that all peoples were really one Great Tribe beneath the Sky. Eventually the originals were massacred by their guests, who founded a church so they could live with themselves, perhaps, or at least slay in the name of a Prince of Peace. Nathan P. showed us all this in a book. We confirmed it on the Internet. But now the book, those websites, and Nathan P. are gone. The School Board’s keeping its promise to reduce class size.
Later we learned of Wilmington and Tulsa from Freddie D. and now he too is gone. The Daily News reported how the School Board keeps its promises.
Last week we learned that lynchings spread as far north as New York and Minnesota. And sheriffs looked the other way for over a hundred years, sheriffs that people kept voting for, who called themselves Good People. Eventually even cops, with the squeeze of knees instead of nooses, and kids with thirsty guns, got in the act. Cops and kids and courts—some, though not all. Nomey C. and Sammy C. told us all this. We confirmed it on the Internet; there were no books to find. But now those sites and Sammy C. and Nomey C. are gone.
Yesterday we learned of Nazis and the Holocaust and swastikas, and that on January 6, a lynch mob at our Capitol not only boasted a noose, but also swastikas and battle flags of treason. Quickly we confirmed this with photos on the Internet and saw the noose, the swastikas, and battle flags of treason, and that some mobsters had guns, the day that five were slain. Howie Z. told us this. Today, though, all those sites are down and Howie Z. is gone.
The School Board, up for re-election, reminds us of their great success in reducing class size.
We miss our friends and meet to discuss remembering them in a book, but on second thought perhaps a fictive poem or flashy fiction would better contain the truth, lest we, too, help quench the School Board, thirsty as kids’ guns, and, so like you, begin to disappear.
Later we learned of Wilmington and Tulsa from Freddie D. and now he too is gone. The Daily News reported how the School Board keeps its promises.
Last week we learned that lynchings spread as far north as New York and Minnesota. And sheriffs looked the other way for over a hundred years, sheriffs that people kept voting for, who called themselves Good People. Eventually even cops, with the squeeze of knees instead of nooses, and kids with thirsty guns, got in the act. Cops and kids and courts—some, though not all. Nomey C. and Sammy C. told us all this. We confirmed it on the Internet; there were no books to find. But now those sites and Sammy C. and Nomey C. are gone.
Yesterday we learned of Nazis and the Holocaust and swastikas, and that on January 6, a lynch mob at our Capitol not only boasted a noose, but also swastikas and battle flags of treason. Quickly we confirmed this with photos on the Internet and saw the noose, the swastikas, and battle flags of treason, and that some mobsters had guns, the day that five were slain. Howie Z. told us this. Today, though, all those sites are down and Howie Z. is gone.
The School Board, up for re-election, reminds us of their great success in reducing class size.
We miss our friends and meet to discuss remembering them in a book, but on second thought perhaps a fictive poem or flashy fiction would better contain the truth, lest we, too, help quench the School Board, thirsty as kids’ guns, and, so like you, begin to disappear.
in honor of
Nathaniel Philbrick, Frederick Douglass,
Noam Chomsky, Samuel Clemens, & Howard Zinn
Nathaniel Philbrick, Frederick Douglass,
Noam Chomsky, Samuel Clemens, & Howard Zinn
~
“The School Board Calls for Reductions” was previously published in South Shore Review (2022)
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James B. Nicola is the author of eight collections of poetry, the latest three being Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense, Turns & Twists, and Natural Tendencies. His nonfiction book, Playing the Audience: The Practical Actor’s Guide to Live Performance, won a Choice magazine award. He has received a Dana Literary Award, two Willow Review awards, Storyteller’s People’s Choice magazine award, one Best of Net, one Rhysling, and eleven Pushcart nominations—for which he feels stunned and grateful. A graduate of Yale, James hosts the Writers’ Roundtable at his library branch in Manhattan: walk-ins are always welcome.
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Author's Note:
In case you are not familiar with the poem’s honorees, listed in the afternote:
- Nathaniel Philbrick wrote, among other books, Mayflower. Last year a Wampanoag Elder blessed a poetry event I participated in (in Cranston, RI, not too far from that part of Massachusetts), and she was just about the most gracious person on the planet, so I believe what Philbrick said.
- Frederick Douglass, born a slave, never went to school, but by the time he was 24 he could write like Shakespeare. The most photographed American of the 19th century. Read Blight’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of him to start—or one of Douglass’s own autobiographies.
- Wilmington (NC) and Tulsa refer to massacres, in 1898 and 1921, respectively.
- Noam Chomsky, mild-mannered by personality, is a linguist by profession. Check out any of his books, interviews, talks, or videos.
- Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, wrote the great American novel Huckleberry Finn. The passage where Huck, a kid, decides that he would rather “go to hell” than turn in his friend Jim is an invitation to all of America to rethink our racist ways.
- Howard Zinn wrote A People’s History of the United States. A must read.
- Known increasingly as the American swastika and a symbol of terrorism, the Confederate battle flag is often misconstrued as the official flag of the Confederacy. It wasn’t. It invokes a violent, treasonous call to arms. If anyone tries to tell you otherwise, please set them straight.