Student Poems

Poetry is generally defined as rhythmical expression.  The ability of the poet to design her own course of rhythm along with the significance of  the poet’s emotional revelation fuels unique verse.  Every poem of merit ever written incorporates three devices that the writer is conscious of:  sound, form, and figurative.   These devices rarely succeed in isolation, but in unison, they work to help the poet find a path of expression.

 

Pane/Pain

He pricked a tack under his thick skin.

He pushed it and he held it there.

It brought him feeling where none had been.

 

His life was monotone: no yang, no yin.

He didn’t feel; he didn’t care.

He pricked a tack under his thick skin.

 

Where before it had ceased to move, his world began to spin.

He raised his eyes; he became aware.

It brought him feeling where none had been.

 

Across his mind began to spread a grin.

He rose up; he floated with his newly found hot air.

He pricked a tack under his thick skin.

 

They saw but did not see, his friends and his kin.

Why he pressed until the flesh was bare.

It brought him feeling where none had been.

 

To the pressures of his peers should he give in?

In this contested action does he err?|

He pricked a tack under his thick skin.

 

He fingered the round, red head of the pin.

He flaunted the world’s stiff glare.

He pricked a tack under his thick skin.

It brought him feeling where none had been.

 

Scarlett (sonnet) 

Through the window filters dawn’s golden light

Her fingers play with the soft, lonely blankets

Remembering how she used to share the night

They shared secrets and kisses and tea and the comforting scent of her jacket

 

For hours they cuddle in her living room chair

Talking about the universe, watching as her lips move as she describes everything

And all she wants to do is run her fingers through her hair

But time is a withering string

 

She waits for her at the bottom of the stairs

Worrying the hem of her jacket, biting her lips

She wipes away her persistent tears

She wants to place her hands on her hips

 

And tell her she loves her

But everything’s gone, and life was a blur

BY:  Delaney Holbrook
30 May 2018

Every night

When the demons dig their claws into my skin

When they pull their daggers down my body

Leaving behind lacerations

Blood and scars

Lace and gold

One, two, three, four

 

And when the ghosts emerge

From the dense morning fog

Will you pull me back

From their beckoning fingers

Their outstretched hands

Will you rescue me

From their echoing cries

Oh, bitter Scarlett nights

 

When the air is cold

And dense in the summertime

And I’ve locked myself in the bathroom stall

Hardly breathing

Silently screaming

Please rescue me

Oh, bitter Scarlett days

 

When all that’s left for me

Is the knowledge of my own existing conscience

And the knives in my lungs

And the pins in my brain

Are all that’s letting me know that I’m still alive

When feeling the shards of glass

Is better than feeling nothing at all

At least I’m alive

Through bitter, Scarlett tears

 

Restless (Ballade poem)

 

Sleeping it seemed unconcerned,

lingering breath crept over me.

The monster being had returned,

My wretched insecurity.

Disregarding my helpless plea,

It took my neck into it’s hand.

The grip was tightened, hard and beastly,

I was under its command.

 

Sometimes, so I came to learn,

The monster being let me be.

Not something you could really earn,

But something you just had to see.

So most nights it came to me,

It’s laughter like a sick command.

And so it became eventually,

A monster I could stand.  

 

I felt that some things were unlearned,

I just wanted to be free.

But the monster being still returned,

My wretched insecurity.

However, as said previously,

It was a monster I could stand.

And so it ate away at me,

My purpose sitting in its hand.

 

One night I thought to some degree,

How was this something I could stand?

And then I realized it was me.

I was the monster in command.

 

BY:  Violet Frizzle
22 May 2018


3-2=1

I just got two,

And now you want to leave?

You simply leave me here to grieve.

You depart, and now I am alone,

Just so you can hear professors drone?

1 + 2 is 3

But that is not true, now that you leave me,

All the way down to Tennessee?

It simply cannot be.

3 – 1 is 2

No, that’s not right.

3 – 2 equals 1,

And that is all that is left of us.

BY: Raven Mascal
May 29, 2018

 


 

She’s Right There

 

She is right there just out of reach

Like a flower there she sits

Tantalizing my eyes each

Tearing my poor heart to bits

 

While the gap may be quite little

It’s still a formidable breach

It makes my soul weak and brittle

Seeing her there just out of reach

BY:  Braeden Trefethen
22 May 2018

 

Girl Gaze
By:  Leila Bannon 

 

My kind old friend, how I miss spending each 

And every day basking in the gleaming 

Sun. Oh, I mourn the never ending beach 

Days. Our salty hair matched the beaming

Smiles across our youthful faces. I miss 

The feeling of sweet breeze whisking past us,

As we bike through the coast, a true bliss. 

These memories drift back as I discuss

Losing you with the girl gazing back at 

Me through the mirror. I’m not sure its you

I miss, but our memories.  Sure as that

old tree where we met I know what is true

you are the place I return to today

waiting impatiently, oh come what may.