Poems to Share

Every year our local high school publishes a collection of poems that students have written and submitted. My son has three of his poems published in this edition, not submitted because he wanted his name in lights, but submitted because he was offered extra credit by his teacher, who told the students that anyone published would receive extra credit. No matter his intent, I loved what he wrote and wanted to share them.

Beauty in Islands

Same environments,

Different ways,

Different tools,

Different clothes,

Different games,

But all are connected by one great common factor:

Their culture is music and dance is their art.

They have different instruments

With different sounds

And different movement to their songs.

The islands of Hawaii, Tahiti, Aotearoa, Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga

Make up the Polynesian Triangle,

Where beauty is endless,

Natural resources are never useless,

And the culture has not been forgotten.

A November Dream

Do I know you?

Have we met?

No, your face I could not forget.

We haven't met, 

But I know you.

Your face is unforgettable too.

I saw you

In a dream, I think.

You rescued me from Hades' brink.

I don't remember

Who you are,

But you shine brighter than the stars.

And now I look

Into your eyes.

I see a soul that could not lie.

I look at you

And match your gaze.

Your eyes are bright as summer days.

I look at you

And I see me.

I can recall a time of glee.

Now I remember

You are me.

And you have come to set me free.

The Desert Sands

Ages of dust have covered the earth

With fear and death and flesh and birth.

I know there was a city here—

A city built on love and cheer

A peaceful people settled down.

They saw the forest all around.

They said, "We'll build a city here.

A city where we need not fear."

The houses grew up from the trees.

I look, and I can almost see

The happiness that once was here.

But here I stand and feel no cheer.

The flesh of seven hundred bore

The flesh of seven hundred more.

A nation started rising here.

A nation born of love and cheer.

The time flew by. The nation grew,

But all I see is brown and blue.

A revelation strikes me here:

The sand and sky are void of cheer.

And so I think, and then I see

In my mind's eye, a sea of trees.

A civil war is in the forest here.

The trees are burning; death is near.

The birds have ceased their rapturous song,

But no-one knows what had gone wrong.

The fields, I see, were red right here.

The earth was stained with blood and fear.

A thousand years or more have passed.

That nation, sadly, did not last.

A people was forgotten here.

A people plagued by death and fear.

What once was earth is earth again.

I close my eyes and feel their pain.

They say there was a city here.

I sit to rest...and shed a tear.

Last Day of National Poetry Month

Here are some poems that I read today that I really liked (in honor of the last day of National Poetry Month):

When I awake...
with morning's dew,..
My thoughts are alive, these thoughts of you.
As the sun sets, my eyes a new
Open widely a life with you be true
Troubled with a past, gloomy and blue
Can only be changed from the love of two
My thoughts of old and withered past
Now new life of hope outlast
So as the evening ends
Carrying nights white moon
Is when my thoughts are strongest
That seeing you will be soon
Questioning reasons of love be true
These are a few, of why the sun set with you...

--Michael Anthony Keaulana


If I could have just one wish,
I would wish to wake up everyday
to the sound of your breath on my neck,
the warmth of your lips on my cheek,
the touch of your fingers on my skin,
and the feel of your heart beating with mine...
Knowing that I could never find that feeling
with anyone other than you.

- Courtney Kuchta


Beauty and love are all my dream;
They change not with the changing day;
Love stays forever like a stream
That flows but never flows away;

And beauty is the bright sun-bow
That blossoms on the spray that showers
Where the loud water falls below,
Making a wind among the flowers.

- Andrew Young


Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

- Carl Sandburg


The wondrous moment of our meeting . . .
I well remember you appear
Before me like a vision fleeting,
A beauty's angel pure and clear.

In hopeless ennui surrounding
The worldly bustle, to my ear
For long your tender voice kept sounding,
For long in dreams came features dear.

Time passed. Unruly storms confounded
Old dreams, and I from year to year
Forgot how tender you had sounded,
Your heavenly features once so dear.

My backwoods days dragged slow and quiet —
Dull fence around, dark vault above —
Devoid of God and uninspired,
Devoid of tears, of fire, of love.

Sleep from my soul began retreating,
And here you once again appear
Before me like a vision fleeting,
A beauty's angel pure and clear.

In ecstasy the heart is beating,
Old joys for it anew revive;
Inspired and God-filled, it is greeting
The fire, and tears, and love alive.

--Alexander Pushkin


The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever,
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle;--
Why not I with thine?

See! the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower would be forgiven,
If it disdained it's brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;--
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?

- Percy Bysshe Shelley


i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

--e.e. cummings


I ne'er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet.
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete.

My face turned pale, a deadly pale.
My legs refused to walk away,
And when she looked what could I ail
My life and all seemed turned to clay.

And then my blood rushed to my face
And took my eyesight quite away.
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noonday.

I could not see a single thing,
Words from my eyes did start.
They spoke as chords do from the string,
And blood burnt round my heart.

Are flowers the winter's choice
Is love's bed always snow
She seemed to hear my silent voice
Not love appeals to know.

I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before.
My heart has left its dwelling place
And can return no more.

--John Clare


If questioning would make us wise
No eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
If all our tale were told in speech
No mouths would wander each to each.

Were spirits free from mortal mesh
And love not bound in hearts of flesh
No aching breasts would yearn to meet
And find their ecstasy complete.

For who is there that lives and knows
The secret powers by which he grows?
Were knowledge all, what were our need
To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?

Then seek not, sweet, the "If" and "Why"
I love you now until I die.
For I must love because I live
And life in me is what you give.

--Christopher Brennan

National Poetry Month 2011

April is National Poetry Month and I try to read at least one new poem each year. Yes, I know, pretty pathetic to only read one poem in a year, but this year's is a doozie!

I recently heard a synopsis on the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1797) and thought I'd read the epic poem in its entirety. Now, I'm thinking that I read it once in high school English class many years ago, but the storyline totally slipped my mind, if it ever entered it.

I did know that the well-known verse,

"Water, water, every where,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink."

came from this poem, but that's about it. So much for retention. But I didn't know that the poem's story is centered on a man who feels total guilt for a wrong that he committed. His guilt consumed his soul.Besides guilt as a central theme, there is a lot of symbolism written within the poem.

The synopsis of the poem that I heard concluded with the fact that we all have things to be guilty for, maybe some wrong committed toward another person, but nobody is perfect. It is up to you to make amends, to forgive yourself, and to move on.

I like the ending of the poem where Coleridge writes,

"Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

Note: photo at the top is the Statue of the Ancient Mariner by Scottish sculptor Alan Herriot. It was unveiled in 2003 on the waterfront in Watchet, Somerset, UK.

The plaque on the statue reads,

"Ah ! well a-day ! what evil looks

Had I from old and young!

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.

April

(Painting: "Fields in Spring" by Claude Monet)
Where has the time gone? It is already April. My sister informs me that April is National Poetry Month. I already knew that April is Autism Awareness Month, but out of curiosity, I Googled what else April is (besides the 4th month of the Gregorian calendar). It is also Alcohol Awareness Month, Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Genocide Prevention Month, and National STD Awareness Month. For an amazingly long list, click the link here at "April Holidays 2009". It also lists weekly and daily observances for April.

So back to Poetry Month....on my sister's blog, my mom mentioned in a comment that she remembers reciting a Robert Frost poem in 7th grade, which is one of my favorites.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep. 

But my all time favorite poem is one of the only poems that I have memorized (besides some cute Shel Silverstein poems:  "Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair, Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't very fuzzy was he?").  It is also by Robert Frost and I read it for the first time in S.E. Hinton's book, "The Outsiders" that I read as a teenager. It is pretty appropriate for spring and April, too.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold

Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

So read some poetry this month and share any that you enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~
Neat

What is "Emo"?

The term "emo" is out there in the music world, the news, and comes up every now and then in conversations and in the school environment.  I was wondering what it really meant and someone had the great idea to Google it. So I did. Amazing what comes up!

According to Emo Corner, when you are referring to someone as "emo", you are stating that they are sensitive, or that they have an emotional personality. Attached to the personality trait is the music, and in some cases, hair and fashion. Emo music is tied very closely back to the punk music of the 1980's where lyrics are direct descriptions of feelings, without metaphors, and the melodies are hard, but simple. Popular emo bands today were influenced by such 80's bands like The Cure (one of my old favorites) and include Suicidal Tendencies and Evanescence. (I've heard from and liked some songs by these bands :-))

Wikipedia writes, "In recent years the popular media has associated emo with a stereotype that includes being emotional, sensitive, shy, or angsty. It is also associated with depression, self-injury, and suicide." That is the scary part of emo.

Hair is dyed black and is spiky and cut chunkily. Makeup is heavy for both boys and girls. Clothes are dark and tight. 

Besides emo fashion and hair, there is also emo poetry. Emo poetry is very harsh, direct, and full of stress and emotion. The main goal of emo poetry is to give the writer an outlet for these tormenting feelings. The poetry is often about suicidal thoughts, painful topics, and anger, and is considered art. Some poetry is not about suicide. Here is one from the Emo Corner website:

Autumn Times
Autumn breeze frigidly touches ailing dreadful lives
Harshly darkness quietly surrounds the broken souls
Mellow serenades that once played between hearts
Pathetically have transformed into bitter sad songs

Somewhere beyond the flossy clouds
Cupid has lost his romancing arrows
Plays sad sonorous tunes on his bow
Dedicated to all weepy lonely hearts

Howling chilly wind blows through the mist
Sounds of sorrow spread allover the place
Fuzzy humid air submerges the inner lust
Lives decay slowly as the autumn leaves fall...

So now I think I understand the emo movement better after spending some time exploring the Google hits that came up. It isn't as scary as some people say it is. I can definitely think of some teens that are very emo-ish, even if they don't dress or style themselves that way (yet).

The decade and the name may have changed, but teen angst and pain is universal.

~~~~~~~~~
Neat