For your fifth poem, you have a few different options (or you can combine these approaches in your own way):
- Write an ekphrastic poem (in other words, a poem inspired by a work of art, like Ferlinghetti’s “Don’t Let that Horse…”).
- Write a poem with a specific object as its source of inspiration (as in Elizabeth’s Bishop’s “The Fish”).
- Write a poem using key words from another text to motivate your writing process (as in Solmaz Sharif’s use of the US Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms in her poem “Look”).
Your poem is due by 6pm on Friday 03/08. It should be at least 12 lines.
Do NOT stay voiceless
Remain unheard
Do NOT remain unseen
Be present
Do NOT go quiet
Or put up without a fight
Do NOT stay invisible
Remain seen
Be STRONG and remain a conqueror
Not a coward
Love THE skin you are in
Do not hide it
Do NOT let the upheavals of life bring you down
Let it uplift you.
Into NEW chapters.
Remain FEARLESS and triumphant
Not fearful
Always DEFEND your cause and
Defend Yourself
Be TRUE to You
And no one else
Do Not go quiet
Or stay silent
Victory’s FOOT remains on the neck
Of defeat.
The Hyena
One day I found a dog
Or a cat?
A fox? A leopard?
Uhhh. What is that?
I went on safari and honestly I’m at a loss.
What are you?
The creature is big, but not huge
Small, but not tiny.
About a couple of feet tall.
In my jeep, I took a pic
The beast stared at me and gave me a toothy grin
Sharp, scary canines popped.
Like a strand of snow capped mountains
The creature gave a cackle.
A laugh that sounded terrifying
Sounded like my grandma after she won a bingo game.
Not sure how I feel about that.
Yeesh…
It’s pretty cool looking though!
Like dog from one of those rugged car chase movies.
It’s awesome.
It has a mane and a coat of spots that seem to disappear in the underbrush.
Like a phantom
Only more brown and loud.
Woah there’s a bunch now.
What are they doing?
As cool as these creatures are, they probably aren’t friendly
I should go….
*cackle*
YOU are the desirable one.
They should make more students like YOU.
They consider you RESPONSIBLE.
Your Homework is done on time, you STAY out of trouble.
Being the HUMBLE person that you are it made you uncomfortable being placed on a pedestal.
Wasn’t to BIG or small, wasn’t to short or TALL.
Then you THINK to yourself and ask WHAT do I do that has people praising me.
I JUST do.
What I am TOLD.
Samantha Aversano
The UNIVERSE told me to…
It was a mistake, take PITY on me, please
If I had KNOWN what I was doing I would have stopped sooner
It was an honest mistake.
Don’t turn your HEADS on us God.
Aren’t we taught to forgive our brethren?
Are we not brethren?
You put me in this UNIVERSE and told us to listen
Yet you refuse to help us, PITY us.
Listen to me beg! Don’t leave us out here.
You must have KNOWN this was going to happen!
We’re left here now, to bow our HEADS in shame.
We will not get into the HOLY land.
Choices of Love
By Alisha Matthews
Love is EXQUISTE,
it is kind, and reoccurring.
It puts the contents of your heart under DIRECT ILLUMINATION,
like a fountain under the moon light.
LOYAL like a Patriot up for the fight.
Or
It’s a SHADOW.
An indirect form of TORTURE,
that can hit you—at any moment—coming at 180mph. BAM!
Like a GUN-TYPE WEAPON,
that you weren’t prepared for.
You can only hope your wearing a
Bulletproof vest!
Lets Share A Drink
Can’t let you get chipped or shattered
As we teeter through the hall
Sighing in ecstasy for what’s to come
You smell divine as always
Raspberry, black cherry, or lemon lavender
Stirr the life you’ve been given
Tapping tunes of merriment on your hollow body
You can’t complain
Or say that you love me as much as I love you
Or better yet just love what we get to do
Sharing deep warm breaths and…slurps
Your contents lull into calmness,
And as long as I have you, everything makes sense
Paradise
An aquatic wonderland for fish to swim
Plants galore,
So many places to hide away.
Water cleaned through the filter,
Sponges catch any debris.
A large piece of wood serves as a home,
For may creatures who desire shelter.
Tiny shrimp clean the plants,
keeping them prim and proper.
Snails cling to the walls to clean off the glass,
Sliding along the rocks for an algae snack.
A safe haven for all aquatic life forms,
For them to eat, sleep, and enjoy their lives.
Meine Katze
She yawns and stretches her legs,
so that she takes up more of your bed than you do.
She slips a reassuring paw over your wrist, when she sees you shed a tear.
She sneaks up behind you, and chews your hair like a bale of straw
just to catch your attention.
She is soft as a cloud,
But mean as the gash in your knee after a bicycle accident.
Saccharine as flaky, sticky baklava,
But tough as the leather boots your grandma bought you last winter.
She is fiery, and menacing.
She is sweet and syrupy sugar.
She is meine Katze.
sketchbook
a line here
a line there
an idea over there
an idea over here
color splatters the page
from an ugly, scarred black
to the purest and holy of whites
the deepest of blues
the fiercest of reds
and maybe just a little purple and green
mixed in between
it’s freedom and security
hidden in divine blood
its rules and desires
all destroyed by the hunt
in the pursuit of creation
memories and events
recorded and brought down
all to a single moment
madame x
when i’m tired you see it in my ears.
the same shade of peach red as yours,
but not so much as in the hands impatiently clutching your dress folds
and in skewed search for purchase on the table side.
i have the same trouble holding a pose through a class,
or the second viewing of a film.
i’ll stare off and narrow my eyes
it couldn’t possibly take that long for a firm grasp of the figure
or the henna in the hair
he’ll have to remember the mismatch of the eyebrow
the halo sputtering out into a last gasp tiara
will he need to?
it may just be about the skin, like it was for your grandfather
they must have told you
to smile countless times
by the time you did with
such a faint, feigned smile
it’s exhausting just looking at it
nevertheless I must know
who you smiled for
did this person steal it
did he force it out of you
did you smile because you felt the need to
or were you wishing for it to be over
so that he will let you be
because right now you’re still trapped
behind glass frames and fame
your gaze lifeless
your smile frozen
fooling many but me
Find yourself.
There are people who die repeating the same day all their existence.
Move on.
We need to open our wings and fly high above the clouds before we wake up
And realize we don’t have them anymore.
Don’t be a prisoner of our own mind.
Loneliness can be a cage, torturing four walls that consequently will fell upon us.
However, it can be the real and pure alternative to find ourselves.
Don’t let strangers invoke monsters into our souls,
Or we are going to be riding on Leviathan,
Going into the deep, hypothermic oceans of hell.
Don’t let our most inner fears invade our body and mind,
Or we will find ourselves forever living as immobile trees that others will cut for their own benefit.
“stop staring at me.”
He wanted to scream.
feeling judged so He moved,
but her gaze followed it seem
“she seems so calm & cool” He thought
when He noticed her bronze hair
and the faint smile,
He couldn’t help but stare.
“Lisa!” came a shout.
a man with moustache & beard came out.
and that was His memory
of the day at the valley.
– Mursal Sediqi