The Poems And Confessions Of A Mad Man Read online

  He’s Satan’s spawn put on this earth, no doctors drugs will tame.

  He showed me the Great Warrior, the Son of the Most High,

  Who beat the river on the cross, the day when He did die.

  I once asked this Great Warrior, to save me years ago,

  He saved me from the sins I’ve had, but not Depressions woe.

  Because I pushed His help away, when He said, “Follow me.”

  Depression came in after that, this much I do now see.

  I’ll live in His great kingdom now, forever and a day,

  My family thinks I’ll burn in Hell, at least that’s what they’ll say.

  I hope to see them once again, I will if they receive,

  The King of kings into their heart, they only must believe.

  Where Is The Metal

  By: Andrew J. Green

  Whatever happened to, the music of yesterday,

  When the rock gods sang metal, and ballads that they’d play?

  We escaped reality for, a day of pure fun,

  The bands and the girls, the gigantic stadium.

  We rocked all day long, and saw them perform,

  The concerts they played, we watched like a storm.

  They made life worth living, it helped all to cope,

  Music made us feel good, it was better than dope.

  The rock stars were excessive, they pushed the needle higher,

  They wrecked their cars partying, started their hotel rooms on fire.

  It made our folks crazy, we maxed the speakers out,

  They never knew what the singer, was ever singing about.

  School days were a ball, in the days of true rock,

  We’d party all night long, sometimes around the clock.

  But somewhere the Seattle, birth was given to Grunge,

  Brought depression to these kids, soaked it up like a sponge.

  Best day in music history, the Grunge leader killed himself,

  Hope he burns in Hell forever, this generation’s needing help.

  They say life’s no fun, most have no real goal,

  Grunge music’s deep depression, has taken full control.

  The Grunge kids who have never, experienced real loss,

  Walk around like fucking losers, like shit should be tossed.

  They smell like the homeless, and won’t shower at all,

  I wish that the fire, from Heaven would fall.

  And burn up the trash, left over from when,

  Grunge music was king, kids can all live again.

  I wish some good music, would somehow come back,

  And knock this Grunge attitude, flat out on its back.

  From dust will come rock gods, sing ballads and play,

  The heavy rock music, they played yesterday.

  Forever

  By: Andrew J. Green

  I married you forever, so many years ago,

  Held each other so tight, in our times of woe.

  We loved each other through, the good and the bad,

  The things we’ve been through, the times we’ve had.

  You’re the only one that, I could love in this land,

  On my dying day, you’ll be holding my hand.

  I think of the first time, I looked at your face,

  The beauty and awe, I saw in that place.

  You looked like an angel, you shined like the sun,

  All these years now, you’ve been the only one.

  I’ve always been faithful, never wanting another,

  You’re the light of my life, you are my children’s mother.

  My life would have ended, I nearly lost you,

  The Lord gave you back, didn’t know what to do.

  If you went to Heaven, that day years ago,

  I’d follow you there, I would make it so.

  I don’t want to live, life without you here,

  You’re my queen and my love, you’re my honey and dear.

  You’ve pulled me back from, the cliff of the lost,

  Put my feet on good ground, no matter the cost.

  You’re my wife sent from God, He gave you to me.

  Spoke your name into existence, He said, “Let her be.”

  I want you to know, I would give up my life

  If that was the cost, of saving my wife.

  You are the only reason, I chose to live on,

  And live out my life, we have this precious bond.

  So thank you for being, the wife of this man,

  And being so great, like only you can.

  I’ll be here for you, no matter the weather,

  I’ll never stop loving, I’ll love you forever.

  Confessions Of A Mad Man

  My Theater Of Pain

  By

  Andrew J. Green

  Catholic School

  By: Andrew J. Green

  On September 6, 1970 my parents sent me for my first day of kindergarten. I’ll never forget the smell of crayon boxes and the look on the faces of the other kids in my class. I remember a lot of the little kids crying as though their mothers were abandoning them forever. One kid named Mike even pissed all over himself after being there for only an hour or so. I figured this kid was going to wash out of the program for sure. Needless to say, after a week of pissing himself, his mother pulled him out of that school and put him into another. I can’t blame the kid though, because that kindergarten was one of the toughest classes in the joint.

  I remember the teacher’s name. Ms. Tellarico. Just the mention of her name still sends a chill up my spine. She reminds me of my Army drill sergeant. What she would prepare us for, is still talked about at everyone of our family gatherings to this day. I remember one time when a class mate named Patricia, was coloring outside of the lines in the coloring book. Ms. Tellarico wouldn’t tolerate any deliberate rebellion, so she pulled Patricia’s out of her chair by her hair and yanked her over to the corner of the room. I can still hear what Patricia told the teacher. With a look of horror in her eyes, she said, “I’m going to tell my mommy that you hurt me!” But Ms. Tellarico said sternly, “You’re never going to tell anyone what happens in here.” Patricia washed out of the program within 2 weeks of starting.

  These kids were dropping like flies, but I had 4 of my siblings, along with my mother, who had made it through this Basic Training part of this hell hole of a school, and I knew I had no choice. Everyday I wished my big brother had quit when he was in kindergarten so my parents would have sent us to public school, but that didn’t happen. I knew I had no choice but to keep going back to the belly of the beast where Ms. Tellarico ruled with an iron fist.

  Our kindergarten room was just across the hall from the office where the Mother Superior sat on her thrown. The word in the bathroom was, that the only way a nun could become the Mother Superior, is by killing a student. It’s kind of like being a “Made Man” in the mob. This Mother Superior must have earned that position by finally wasting one of the students in the school. I’m sure her other nuns probably buried the body of the child back by the fence where we had to clap the erasers.

  Once when I went down to clap the erasers, I saw a man sleeping by the fence. I thought he was one of the bigger students that the Mother Superior had killed and didn’t bury yet, but he moved and looked at me. He spoke to me and said he was a student in this school a long time ago. I concluded that this must be either what a graduate will become if you survive this place, or that he had washed out of the program many years earlier, and is now a bum because of it. Either way, I didn’t want to be seen associating with him so I ran with the half cleaned erasers back to the room.

  I remember us kids trying to get on Ms. Tellaricos good side so that when she lost her temper on us, her wrath wouldn’t be the full blast. She had us all clean the chalk boards and sweep up the class room. We basically were doing what the janitor was paid to do. It seemed like a small sweat shop but without the pay. I remember hearing the wale’s and crying coming from the Mother Superiors office and
how all of the other kindergarteners would try to act like they didn’t hear the poor soul that was in there, getting whipped for something that didn’t deserve a beating. That Principals Office was truly the quintessential Theater Of Pain. I may not have realized it at the time, but I would be one of those poor souls that would visit the Mother Superiors Principal Office in the future.

  I can remember one time being told that the 2nd grade teacher, Sister Buzzy, was worse than our kindergarten teacher. It was believed that Sister Buzzy, was bucking for the Mother Superiors slot, so she wouldn’t ever send the naughty students to the office, she would just beat them in front of all of the other students. She instilled pain and fear like no other. I hoped that the rumors would prove to be lies, but would find out the hard way, that the legends and myths were a reality like no other.

  In May of the 1971, there was only about a month or so left of school. I remember how Ms. Tellarico lost it on one day like never before. One of the girls in class was crying because her grandmother had died a week earlier and Ms. Tellarico told the girl that her crying was disturbing the class. The girl did something that would bring certain doom upon her. The girl said, “Ms. Tellarico, my mommy said that you should call her if you have a problem with me.” Apparently, the girl’s mother had told the faculty members that she didn’t want any teacher to touch her child. What happened next would be denied by the school up until this day, and go down in the books as just a legend.

  Ms. Tellarico grabbed the girl by the pony tail part of her hair and lifted the little girl off of the ground. She shook her like a wolf shakes its prey when trying to kill it. The girl let out a blood curling scream as she dangled in the air like a Christmas ornament. Just then, the Mother Superior came in the door because of the screams and Ms. Tellarico set the girl down. Ms. Tellarico told Mother Superior of the disrespect the girl showed. I thought that Mother Superior was going to beat up Ms. Tellarico but instead, she grabbed the little girl and shoved her out of the class and into the Principal’s Office. I heard the girl scream like never before as the Mother Superior introduced her to a belt. After that day, the girl never returned to school. I thought Mother Superior killed her but was told by a classmate, that she was seen in the park on the weekend.

  I finished kindergarten in June of 1971 and was released like a parolee from prison, for the summer. I tried to forget the whole year but would never get that out of my mind. I remember when the next September came around again, and I was so afraid of what would happen to me that year. I wondered if my new teacher would be mean, but remembered that someone had said the 1st grade teacher was really nice. Thank God, they were right. Mrs. Winger was no saint, but Ms. Tellarico made Mrs. Winger look like Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I cruised through 1st grade without a problem but would run into a brick wall when I went into 2nd grade.

  Sister Buzzy was the 2nd grade teacher that may have worked as a bouncer at one of the biker bars when she wasn’t teaching. She was brutal. I remember one time when she was teaching the singing lesson and all of us kids were around the piano as she played. I remember being behind her because she had real bad body odor and her aroma was going right up my nose. There was a kid on the left side of the piano who was just gently touching the keys with his fingers. Some of the other kids weren’t paying attention and were whispering. Sister Buzzy freaked out and yelled, “Shut up!” As she yelled this, she slammed shut the wooden box cover that a piano has on it.

  Suddenly, from the left side of the piano, there was a scream that I haven’t heard since kindergarten. The little boy that was touching the piano keys had his fingers stuck in the now closed piano box. When Sister Buzzy opened the piano box, the boy’s fingers were crushed. She grabbed the boy and covered his mouth with her hand. She told the boy to shut his mouth and then slapped him. I later found out at a bake sale, that all 10 fingers on that poor boy’s hands were broken. 2 mothers were talking about it and everyone found out about the boy’s condition. He never came back to school. The 2 mothers were also saying that Ms. Tellarico was in trouble with the school district because she pulled a little kindergarten girl’s hair, and the child’s scalp bled.

  I can remember telling my parents that I was hit in the face by Sister Buzzy once, and my father spanked me because he said if I was hit by a nun, then I was probably being bad and that they don’t know how to give a spanking hard enough. I never told my parents when the nuns beat me after that because of the double jeopardy thing that was going on. A couple days after that, I called another student a Pig because he was hogging up the bathroom sink and we only had a few minutes to use the bathroom. The boy told Sister Buzzy and she slapped me in the face and knuckles with a board that she referred to as, Mr. Karate. My face was still red when I went home, and that was a few hours after I was hit. When my mother asked me what happened, I wouldn’t tell her because I was afraid of being spanked by my dad.

  In the summer between 2nd and 3rd grade, my father made me change from being left handed to being right handed. He said that it was too expensive to have a left handed kid. He said that left handed baseball gloves and golf clubs were custom made and that they would cost a lot to have made. Like I was going to be a pro player or something, instead of just a kid. Anyway, changing from left handed to right handed really screwed up my learning ability and it caused me to fail 3rd grade. Failing 3rd grade meant that I would spend another year in that hell hole called Catholic School. Failing and having to stay in that place for an extra year is how an inmate must feel when they are denied parole.

  Years went by, and the beatings continued until I graduated from that school in the 8th grade. My father never let me forget that I was the dummy in the family and I think somewhere in those years, my mind went bad. I had been thinking of bad things like suicide for a few years but was afraid to kill myself because I was told I would go to Hell. I was afraid of the God and Jesus that the Catholic Church preached because the nuns beat us all of the time, and they said that God told them to. I thought He was a mean God and was afraid of going to Hell, and afraid of going to Heaven and being beaten by God.

  When I finally got out of that terrible school, my grades went from “F’s” and “D’s” to “C’s” and “B’s” in high school. My parents thought my grades went up because the public high school was easier than the Catholic grade school. They tell me now that if they knew what was going on, then they would have taken all of us out of that school. They knew that the teachers exercised corporal punishment in that school, but didn’t know to what extent they took it. None of us kids would tell when the nuns’ beat us because we were afraid of our father’s double jeopardy rule.

  Many years later, I spitefully studied the Bible to see what this Catholic God was all about, only to find that the nuns taught us things that aren’t in the Bible. Lots of what they said was wrong and not Biblical truths. I did find one thing in the Bible that I liked though. It says that if anyone causes a child of fall away from God, then it would be better for that person, if a mill stone was wrapped around their neck and they were thrown in the sea to drown. I sleep well at night knowing that all of those nuns that caused me to fall away from God, are now burning in a place called Hell for what they have done to me and many other children. I realize that I haven’t perfected the forgiveness thing yet, but I’m working on it. At least I’m not causing children to run from God like the nuns did to so many children in that prison called Catholic School.

  School Bus Bullies

  By: Andrew J. Green

  In 1974, all of my siblings, except for my big brother, were still in grade school and we all rode on the school bus together. There were years on the bus that we never had problems with other students, but those years were far and few between. Our school bus picked up and dropped off students from 4 or 5 different schools including one high school. There was a major problem with the high school boys because they would torment my older sisters relentlessly and there was not much that I could do about it. I was only 8 or 9 years old
but I knew I had to do something about these boys because they were bothering my sisters.

  I remember 2 particular boys that would always take my sisters cheerleading shoes, and tie them out side of the windows of the bus. The shoes would be hanging by their laces that were tied between the window frames of 2 different windows and my sisters couldn’t do anything to get them back. Eventually, the boys would have to give them back, but only because it was their bus stop and they were at their homes. Sometimes, it rained on the way home and by the time my sisters got their shoes back, they would by soaking wet.

  When the issue was brought to the attention of our father, he would tell my mother to call the school district and report what was happening but other then that, he wouldn’t do shit for his own daughters. One time Jeano Gay and Herb Seaver, those are the names of the boys, had hurt my oldest sister and made her cry. The bus driver wouldn’t do anything to help her, so I pulled off my belt that had a big metal buckle on it and swung it as hard as I could and hit Herb square on the back. He yelled with pain and then came after me. He beat on me for a little while but I thought it was worth it as long as he wasn’t hurting my sister.

  I remember when it was all over; he felt he had to apologize to me and he said that he was sorry but if I ever hit him again, he would hurt me real bad. I told him that when I was a big kid, then I was going to beat him up. He laughed at me and then gave me a noogie and made me cry again. He said that I was to stupid to ever beat him up because I had failed 3rd grade that year and that we would have to take whatever abuse he gave us. If he only knew that when I was 17 years old, I would run into him at a local bar and beat him and his friend mercilessly, then he would have never bothered my sisters that year.

  That grade school year finally ended and another year of battles on the bus would soon begin. I remember some years weren’t as bad as others but there were a couple of years that the punishment we took was horrendous. In 1978, there were only 3 of us kids in my family, still in grade school. There was a family of kids that rode on the school bus, one year after another and they were all in high school. They were the Babzie family. There was a girl in their family whose name was Sue. She had a hard-on for my older sister and would beat up my sister for no reason at all. I guess she wanted to show the other guys that she was a guy too. She was pretty ugly and had all of the qualities of a real Butch woman. I wouldn’t doubt it if she was a man with a set of balls because of the way that she carried herself.