Poem: When the School Bell Chimed

This week’s Poet’s Corner features a further contribution from Damian Balassone.

Feb 14, 2024, updated Mar 18, 2025
Photo: Valentin Antonucci / Pexels
Photo: Valentin Antonucci / Pexels

When the School Bell Chimed

When the school bell chimed and the shifting sky
was dimmed by brooding clouds,
I hastily timed a brilliant lie
and escaped the schoolyard crowd.

Through the woodlands like a maverick mare,
I crashed past autumn leaves.
Dark turned to light when I saw her there,
when I found Jacindavieve.

Her green eyes danced like butterflies,
her hair swayed to and fro.
I stood entranced, transfigured by
her alabaster glow,

her elegant Arabian nose,
her skin so rich and rare,
her cheeks that glimpsed a red, red rose,
her loom of jet black hair.

While schoolboys puffed cheap cigarettes,
we fled to sparkling streams,
and soon enough our silhouettes
were locked in a synchronised dream.

In the black of night she walked me home,
Hand in hand on midwinter’s eve.
Her face, like a light, lit the path we roamed,
The face of Jacindavieve.

Damian Balassone, from Warrandyte, Victoria, is the author of three volumes of poetry, including the forthcoming collection of short poems and epigrams Love is a Weird Cat.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.