Juste une petite poeme

Je ne sais pas qui je suis,

Et ca ne me plaisir aucun,

Et quand je m'ai vu dans ses yeux,

J'ai vu seulement la lune.

What If?

If we always dreamt,
and yet never slept,
would we still believe
that are lives are not over yet?

If we all climbed mountains
up high into the sky,
would we still have reasons
to sit in the corner and cry?

What if we never thought,
and all of life was one dream?
Would we become quite lost,
like small goldfish in a large stream?

What if life was never-ending,
a maze with no escape,
would we become deformed,
victims of a god's mistake?

Introduction to English

The instructor said,

Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you---
Then, it will be true.

*

But it is not that easy.

I am thirteen, white, born in Sacramento.

I often worry about problems that are not mine nor mine to solve.

I schooled myself when I was younger by reading a great many classics-

Heidi, Call of the Wild, A Little Princess…

I went to a small school in the town that I grew up in

Good old Redwood City.

Then I kept changing schools;

Woodland, Springer, Loyola, Covington

And then to Castilleja.

I am the only person in my class who is constantly changing,

Neither here nor there.

The small flight of stairs from the green door lead down into the parking lot,

Where I hop in my car and drive to my home,

Passing a buzzing place full of life-Castro Street

Ending up at my quiet house on Whisman Avenue,

Where I end up sitting at my crate and barrel desk,

Where I type this page for you.

*

In truth, it is not easy for me to know the answers

At thirteen, my age.

But I do know that true friends last a lifetime,

and so do most differences between people.

And though you may be my teacher,

and I do learn much from you,

you do as well from me.

Even though you are older, and wiser,

and a little less bound.

Realization

The mountain pierces through the tall cloud’s shimmer

Shattering their tranquility

stirring up the clouds and brewing a storm.

See the marvelous coats of white as they snake their way down the mountain,

embracing their enemy. They circle it,

ensnaring it with words whispered lightly on a freezing morning

sending tendrils of smoke to the sky

where they gather forming one thing:

perhaps a consciousness or thought that then falls down like dust upon the heads of sleeping children,

who wake to find themselves in a land of clouds.

Eclipse

This is the hour of silence,

a dream of days and nights linked together

like the soft hands of a mother and child.

The sky, soft, melting into the lakes of dawn, and

the relaxed lakes floating to mingle with the sky.

An ant turns over a small pebble, then scurries away,

leaving the rock alone, foreshadowed by the large hill in its wake;

blotted out against the sparkling night sky.

Now is the hour when the children sleep

and the moment between dawn and day,

where even the brave rooster doesn’t dare to

crow.

Speechless

*Dedicated to my seventh grade English teacher, Mrs. Ware*

There will be a wordless day

when we may all wash off the dust and grime that has found its home inside of our very minds.

It will be like the meadows after a fresh rain,

wet and joyous,

ready to host new life.

The mountains, tall and strong, dominating the landscape,

shall bow to us for once,

and the trees will all sway in our presence.

We all hold storms within our gates, and vast oceans in our minds.

Release them and the world will breathe a new breath of life.

Until then, we will be forced to sit and wait under the dusty surface that is

normality.

The Perfect Loveliness of Leaving Childhood

The cocoon stands for all things;

Even those who have not yet shed their shell.

For everything emerges,

And then spreads its wings,

Surprising the world with their magnificence

And beauty.

I, myself, have told the last bud on the tree

That the latest bloomer is the most beautiful;

Like the last note in the opera-

It cannot die

As it is forever imprisoned in our minds,

Like the top jewel on the crown,

Or the best lick of frosting on a cake.

Childhood should be cherished,

From sitting, reading on the sunlit porch in the afternoon

To rampaging wildly about a lawn in a spontaneous

Summer vacation water fight.

Those days fly too fast;

Both for the mothers and the children.

For the children shed their silken innocence,

Leaving their parents crying over the glossy sheen,

Reminiscing over days when their child was still a child.

But if there was no adulthood,

There could be no “early years”

No ways in which to mature or grow.

From finding the first job,

To the lovely first boyfriend,

To the fun college adventure,

To the beautiful wedding,

And the first small child,

Where the process starts over again,

Re-cultivating the innocence,

Love,

And growth…

All invested in a single caterpillar that must emerge,

And a blossom that must bloom.

Reactions

If I were able to instill upon you

the vividness of my mind

the rushing river of my creativity, carving out canyons,

I would have already taken you there.

Where the skies are kind and the seas as soft as the

Cacti who house the gentle blossoms that

float on the sweet night air as it whispers past them,

pulling my essence along with it through the vast sky.

I promise that I would have brought you.

But you were not ready,

and I could not wait.

Mr. Butterfly

THE BUTTERFLY

You think you know the butterfly, you might even like it best.

But the butterfly I’m speaking of is a buzzing little pest.

The flying pest buzzes at me, that’s what bothers me the most.

The only thing it’s good for is spreading on my toast.

Emily Dickenson

Yellow Beaks

I’ve never seen the jungle,

nor visited the zoo,

and yet I know of toucans,

and what they have to do.

I’ve never been exploring,

nor watched a stampede,

yet know I the circle of life,

and to where it must lead.

Emily Dickenson

I’ve Never Seen The Sea

I never saw a lake,

nor visited the sea,

and yet know I what a boat is,

and what a trout must be.

I’ve never been a-sailing,

nor caught my own little fish,

and yet I know how it must taste,

as if I’ve had a dish.

My Door

Pulling aside a curtain of misty twilight,

I pull on a silver door above me, and a silken ladder drops, raining down like colorful tears from heaven.

Stepping lightly, fearing that at any moment, I would be dropped into the now seemingly never-ending black oblivion,

I finally reach the top, then walk silently through a grey mist,

and across a white prism.

Unexpectedly, I have the sudden urge to run,

and,

as I gather speed, the white begins to blur into colors,

the colors into shapes,

and the shapes into beings.

Abruptly, my foot lands down on grey stone,

the surprise of gravity bringing me tumbling to the ground.

Gathering myself, I run to the waist high stone wall,

and look down.

My stomach lurches,

bleak cliffs fall into

the foamy inferno of the sea.

There is no sand,

only rock,

then ocean,

as far as the eye can see.

Ted Kooser

Reader Selected

Having just come from a lady’s etiquette class,

I am not pretty,

red from dancing, the nape of my neck still damp with sweat.

Walking up to the counter of the isolated bookstore,

I point to your book behind the counter

in the middle of a purple twilight.

I’m still in my tea-length dress and white gloves,

spanking clean as it always is

when I’ve just had it cleaned at Lucia’s.

Opening your book gingerly,

I lean against the counter and flip through your book,

then, after collecting a pile of other books,

I walk slowly to the front of the room

and approach the register,

only to find that I have no money with me.

Billy Collins

Introduction To Writing

I ask them to take my stories,

to treat them like a freshly painted canvas,

and to study their many layers of differently colored paint,

or take them and organize them in a little book

like newly bought stamps.

I say turn the poem inside out,

to better see what its trying to say.

I want them to plant seeds in my stories,

and watch how they all grow differently,

turning into many different flowers.

But all they want to do is unravel its very meaning,

bleeding to death,

trying to understand their own crimes.

They start to slowly demean it

to realize what it truly means.

William Carlos Williams

Between

Between two walls,

and in the dark,

a brand new life

may take

its start.

William Carlos Williams

Silence

Down by the border, where usually the sound of gunfire is always heard,

a little girl named Mary is waving a simple flag saying:

Peace

And guess what?

Silence.

William Carlos Williams

New Green Life

In the authors cold workshop,

in the back of the yard-

where no new stories will grow,

a shimmer of light, a glimmer of green,

a new story’s start can now be seen.

Grow Tree, Fly Bird, Buzz Bee!

Rosemary Explosions

Growing ‘Round Old Wheels,

The Rosemary Explosions Entices

Flying Little Yellow

Bugs: Inquisitive Rambunctious Devils,

Buzzing under Zealous Zeppelins.

Being Equally Expeditious.