Poems - Page 5



The Choice	I Wonder
Solitary	Unobtainable Clouds
Skinhead	Tarnished
Hold Her High	The Bird
Life	Who Am I
Where Is My Glory	Liberty and Death
The Other One	On Death
Away



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The Choice

What is your name, my child?
And do you know your fate?
And will you become what
You love or what you hate?
-Michael George Brock
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I Wonder

I wonder what you want
And I wonder why you look at me that way,
With hate piercing through your baby blues
And I can't remember what I did wrong
Or what I said wrong
And then I realize
It's not what I did or said
It's who I am.
-Sarah Freeman
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Solitary

Try as hard as I can
I can't seem to get to
That place inside
You hold for her, for any of them
It's like I'm not good enough
To ever be thought of that way
Like I have nothing special inside
And nothing interesting to offer.
You confide in me your secrets
And call on me to keep you company
But when it comes time to turn heads
You look away from me
And chase impossibility
Leaving me alone once again.
-Raissa Kalishevich
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Unobtainable Clouds

Why are you threatened
by the possibility of my success?
I finally begin to soar
and you clip my wings.
I'm finally floating
and you push me back under.
I'm finally happy
and you beat me down.
Why do you refuse me the chance
to feel really alive?
Is it only in my misery
that you can be content?
Only in smashing my hopes
that you grasp power?
Only in depriving me of love
that you find joy?
Tell me why,
when I finally learn to fly,
you shoot me down.
-Amanda Cobb
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Skinhead

Idiot
Your dumb, seething anger
Has boiled uncontrollably
And singed the hair
From your stupid head.
Your existence is frightening:
That god and evolution
Could stoop so low.
We were all born from the mud,
But you, you have yet to change,
Stumbling along blindly,
An unpredictable thunderstorm
That has to kill to get its lightning.
-Shaun Hayes
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Tarnished

Once I was unbreakable,
carelessly roaming
without thought or concern,
dare I say free,
in my imagination.

Once I was able to read the stars
as they burned their way
across my sky,
leaving me a message
in my mind.

Once I was unstoppable,
as I chose my path
and took my steps,
running to the finish line
in my dreams,

Once I was vivacious,
bubbling with joy,
never allowing the blues
to have to much power
in my life.

And now,

I am tarnished.
-Jackie Curtis
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Hold Her High- Questions From a Hero's Grave

Oh say does that star spangled banner yet stand
Over a free and civilized land?
Does it still stand for justice for one and for all,
Or have they forgotten why heroes did fall?
Oh say does that star spangled banner still wave
Over a nation which hasn’t a slave?
Do they still look upon her with tears in their eyes
Or have they forgotten those first battle cries?
Oh say can you tell me what the colors now mean?
Do they give her the honor that’s due to a queen?
Do they stand up and cheer her when she’s carried by
And what are their feelings when they see her fly?

Oh say does that star spangled banner yet stand
Over the nation the way it was planned?
Can you still see her flying wherever you go?
When the children look to her do their faces glow?
Oh say does that star spangled banner still wave
Over the heroes who lie in the grave?
And do they remember what she has withstood
In protecting our nation so free and so good?
Oh say can you tell me if you still hold her high?
Is she still the most beautiful flag in the sky?
Does she fly like an eagle and soar high above
As a symbol of liberty, freedom, and love?
-Brian Francis
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The Bird

I woke early one morning,
The earth lay cool and still
When suddenly a tiny bird
Perched on my window sill,

He sang a song so lovely
So carefree and so gay,
That slowly all my troubles
Began to slip away.

He sang of far off places
Of laughter and of fun,
It seemed his very trilling,
brought up the morning sun.

I stirred beneath the covers
Crept slowly out of bed,
Then gently shut the window
And crushed his little head.

I'm not a morning person.
-unknown
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Life

Doubt surrounds every move I make with you.
Every twist and turn we create
seems to break more and more of the eggshells
I force myself to walk on.
Oh, but don't think for one second that I don't like it.
I love the way my feet get cut by the shards.
I love the way you look at me as you put on the bandages.
No, they're never too tight.
No, I wouldn't tell you if they were.
With the doubt, our third party, comes fear.
Fear of the future,
fear of the past becoming the future,
fear of whether what I'm saying is right or wrong,
structured or chaotic, good or bad.
They, whoever they are,
say "you take the good with the bad,"
so does it even matter? Does anything?
Suddenly you move.
Your feet are bleeding,
do you walk on eggshells too?
I look back at my own shards, not shards;
but are they flowers or serpents?
Either way, no matter how hard I try
to sweep them aside,
they don't budge.
As a final act of desperation,
I throw myself down upon them,
be they shards, flowers, or snakes.

Wish me luck...
-Asriel Malloy
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Who Am I

Look into my eyes
See what you want to see
Think what you want to think
But is that who I am?

Look into my heart
Take what you want
Leave what you don’t need
But is that the best of me?

Look into my soul
Find what you think I am
Omit what you feel I’m not
But is that what makes me who I am?

Look into my eyes
See into my heart
Delve into my soul
But look more than once

Parts of me are bad
Some of me is good
Does that make me a murderer?
Am I a saint?

I can say what’s on my mind
I can be what I am
I can feel what I think
But I can’t make you like me
-John Sinclair
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Where Is My Glory

I marched, I served.
I fought bravely,
I killed brave men.
I watched brave men die around me.
I hungered and thirsted an end,
perhaps a short trip home,
but it did not come.

We were ordered to attack again -
we had no cover.
Many fell forever,
some fell for protection.

Waist high fire from across the field
forced the living to crawl like worms
and dig like moles
for protection from the rain
of hellish lead.
Dig we did with what we had -
bayonets, spoons, shards of metal.

Moaning and screaming all about -
for each that stopped,
another started.
Some managed to dig their grave,
while some managed to save themselves
We wallowed in the mud and the blood for days
then orders came
to retreat.

Back past our fallen brothers
who died by the thousands there,
then on again towards Richmond.
When will somebody care?

The talk says the Rebs are worn out,
that they might be ready to quit.
Tell it please to those Rebs at Cold Harbor,
for they have heard none of it.
- Robert George McKeag
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Liberty and Death

They celebrate the day
of independence,
crying 'Give me liberty
or give me death!'
as in the old days,
not realizing that the 2
came hand-in-hand once.
They celebrate,
fireworks replacing the bombs in the air
and sparklers instead of musket fuses.
Yet little do they recall
that behind the legends
of heroism and valor,
the story on the battlefield
was of mud and blood,
not gold and glory.
Common men fought -
killed and were killed -
fell in pain
in the graves they dug themselves.
They went barefoot,
marching endlessly, not riding,
cold in winter and starving,
and yet they fought on.
These are the true heroes,
the ones who willingly died in mass
to ensure the freedom of the loved ones
that many would never see again.

We celebrate this day
of independence,
the day that the blood shed,
tears cried,
and lives given by those before us
proved not in vain,
for we are free.
-Amanda Cobb
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The Other One

The curtain opens and I step on stage
They all assume I'm having fun.
As I stare out into a sea of faces
I become the other one.
My eyes are bright in these flashing lights
And my face is painted just so.
My smile is perfect in just the right places
And my tears, so real no one knows.

One day though, this will all be over
And then I can finally let go.
They'll figure out I can't act or sing
And that will be the end of my show.
But until that day, I'm having my fun
About this stage, I don't give a damn.
For when I step up into those lights,
The other one is who I am.

She's the one with elegance and charm,
She's the one who's always poised.
She's the smart and witty one;
The perfect lines perfectly voiced.
And even though she's just a girl
On stage she appears mature.
And in real life she may be that old,
But heaven knows, never that sure.

But standing tall up here on this stage,
These flashing lights, they hypnotize me.
Like a butterfly from a cocoon
The girl inside of me is set free.
This hell is my life and I love it so
But they are wrong, it isn't fun.
I leave when I step on the stage,
It’s not me, it’s the other one.

The curtain opens and I step on stage
They all assume I'm having fun.
As I stare into a sea of faces,
I become that other one.
- Rebecca Rea
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On Death, Without Exaggeration

It can't take a joke,
find a star, make a bridge.
It knows nothing about weaving, mining, farming,
building ships, or baking cakes.

In our planning for tomorrow,
it has the final word,
which is always beside the point.

It can't even get the things done
that are part of its trade:
dig a grave,
make a coffin,
clean up after itself.

Preoccupied with killing,
it does the job awkwardly,
without system or skill.
As though each of us were its first kill.

Oh, it has its triumphs,
but look at its countless defeats,
missed blows,
and repeat attempts!

Sometimes it isn't strong enough
to swat a fly from the air.
Many are the caterpillars
that have out-crawled it.

All those bulbs, pods,
tentacles, fins, tracheae,
nuptial plumage, and winter fur
show that it has fallen behind
with its halfhearted work.

Ill will won't help
and even our lending a hand with wars and coups d'etat
is so far not enough.

Hearts beat inside eggs.
Babies' skeletons grow.
Seeds, hard at work, sprout their first tiny pair of leaves
and sometimes even tall trees fall away.

Whoever claims that it's omnipotent
is himself living proof
that it's not.

There's no life
that couldn't be immortal
if only for a moment.

Death
always arrives by that very moment too late.

In vain it tugs at the knob
of the invisible door.
As far as you've come
can't be undone.
- Wislawa Szymborska
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Away

Take from me my arms
And I will learn to rely
On my legs.
Take from me my eyes
And I will learn
To not fear the dark.
Take from me something more abstract
Such as my youth
And I will counter that with something
Even more abstract -
I will deny it,
To you or anybody else
Or even
Myself.

Take away my voice, and I will write much more.
Take away my music, I will create great drama.
Take away my dollar, I will work to find another.
Take away my ability to adapt,
And finally, you have taken me...
- Robert George McKeag
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