Grace

15

Needs no title

Summer means time
Summer… means freedom
Freedom from school at least
But I find myself entrapped in my own mind instead
Too much time
Too much time to think
As the tomorrows seem to stretch to the horizon
But the moment you glance away you’ve found that mythical line
The days trickle through my fingers like sand
Leisurely
Calm
But the instant I try to grab them
To hold them to me
They fly out of my grip like the hummingbirds
That I watch dance
As I sit idly
And think
About myself
The emptiness of my day
I am young but I feel so weary
My fingers tremble slightly on smudged keys
On worn strings
I’ve poured my heart into art
Is that why it feels so empty?
My teacher praises me with a ghost of a smile
My memories tread like ghosts
But the notes seem so much more tangible than my thoughts
And my mind goes from
Cool tranquil nothing
To
Panicked chaos in an instant
And it all
Comes back
To
Too
Much
Time
My fingers fly against the keyboard
Calming tapping out the disorder onto neat pixels on the screen
My eyes focus and unfocus
Vague and
Hopeless
I finish the poem
I’ll let it sit
My brain finds more useless thoughts
Is it really a poem?
(who knows)
Is it good?
(probably not)
Why did I do this?
(too much time)
It swirls
Time passes
My brain ticks
And my body follows its rhythm
I sit and stare as the world moves
At a different beat
And I sit
Syncopated

I submit the poem
Or I don’t
I’m only 15
What do I have to say?
I let down the last period
I lean back
In my shiny chair
I think
I sleep
And I wake up
With a little bit less
Of
Too
Much
Time

(I guess I do submit the poem)

Emma

16

Sun kissed

Sun beats down
hot and golden on my skin.
Bright Pink Sunglasses.
Faded cutoffs.
I spin.
Head back.
Arms out.
Looking at the shapes in the clouds.
Laughter bubbling like a fountain from my open mouth.
Summer.

Catherine

15

A Love Poem
from a flip-flop to a sock
by Catherine

They tell me we should not stand together,
They tell me you are a quiet sole,
That you tip-toe across the floor,
Your fabric too delicate to go outside,
Hiding in the sock drawer,
Folded into yourself.

They say they can see right through me,
That I am dirty and my heels is already worn,
That I run too fast and slap on the ground with sass,
And they are right.

They tell me you are for the winter and I the summer,
But together perhaps we can be for spring;
They tell me I will make you dirty,
But I am willing to let you make me clean;
They tell me our soles do not fit together,
But I can hold you in my t-strap.

I want to teach you to slap across the pavement,
I want you to run into the grass, your fabric dirty,
I want you to learn how to flip and flop.

Ryan

18

I saw you first when we were very young and both shared the sacred fruit of innocence growing within our outstretched arms reaching for the summer sun. The sun and rain gave withering life and stole my fruit when it was ripest and taught me how to lose, and taught you how to choose, and the two went hand in hand, but now when I look in the hazy mirror I see bleak and barren branches stripped of bark, myself a blot upon the land. And I awaited the axe. And even if it never came, I hunched and flinched and crept onward toward the sun, a moving bough in timeless trek, always coming back to you, even if I was unwanted. I stood on the porch in the winter rain and shouted your name and when you came to the door you had become what I could never be, and had what I had lost and never thought to see again, and I realized that the thief was not the sun nor the rain but you, the only one who shared that moment and the only one I would ever willingly give it to but it was different when it was stolen and taped and glued to your arms in mocking beauty but you were more horribly beautiful than I had ever remembered and so I reached for the axe I had always carried but never used and never knew was there and used it now to fell your trunk and hew from you what you had stolen from me, but not to take it back merely to plant it in the soil where you fell so you and I could grow a tree.

Zach

18

Citronella

I remember the Catskills as a rusty-red pickup truck roaring through Jeffersonville, a blonde girl perched on its running board. Her fingers clutching metal, screaming. She looked at me, I looked away -- there’s nothing Swayze about it.

At Peck’s, boys with hair like straw smiled at me down the produce aisle with no teeth, threw rocks at pigeons holding sermon outside around
the lamppost, kicked dust in each other’s faces. Watched them spear fish in the creek with sharpened sticks, but not for dinner, always white bread & cold cuts, the occasional dinosaur-shaped chicken nugget. Always cold.

Another girl sits among marigolds in the adjoining lot but does not pluck them, not the way the boys do. Watching the road and its travelers, men with leather tongues who spit out of open car windows, clench teeth that are no longer there.

A girl who only knows love from magazines, who thinks she can fly away from this town of rusted red trucks and the men who drive them, takes my hand and goes over her bruises, the cartography
of her body. She tells me there must be a God because United Baptist was one of the only buildings in town to escape last year’s brushfire; I tell her
this is because the pastor is an arsonist who got bored with burning the crops of former parishioners. She doesn’t like that. I shrug and tell her she needs to learn to let go of these aches. She looks at me
and her eyes say that all she aches for are wings.

Amanda

17

Tangerine

I bite into a tangerine,
And as it squirts up at my face,
I wince vividly,
In delicious recoil.
You laugh,
Like maple syrup,
Warm- slowly rolling,
Dribbling out my ears.
I can feel their tips turn tomato red,
Under the sizzling sun,
Your fleshy cheeks-
A constellation of freckles,
Dimming and fading,
In a florid sky.
Cicada hum-
Dreary, humid lullaby-
I reach my sticky fingers out,
To the orange peels,
Lying in our clammy laps.
Your baby fat is melting away,
Dripping off the wicker chair,
In saccharine puddles beneath,
Your sherbet skin.
I knead the peels between my palms,
Considering the textures-
Of wrinkled, pruned finger-pads,
Against the taught, slick surface.
I upturn my hands in the broiling sun,
And watch them dry like clothes on the line-
While you grab a swim-towel off a chair,
And wipe yours clean and new.
Beaming a gapped-tooth smile,
You grip my wrist with your gentle fists,
Pulling me into the raw green,
Against a melding sunset sky.
Together we chase fluttering spurts of light-
Fireflies drifting through the dusk-
Capturing time itself,
In amber, jelly jars.

Sam

13

Shaping the Sand

In the old days we crafted sand castles

the sand being our canvas to construct like wonderful sculptors, a sea of limitless possibilities

our signs of pride to present the domination to other lands across the sandboxes and beaches

We all learned how to forge better structures from the silky sands the wind brought,

Over time as we grew we discovered the art of moat digging, creating pits to protect

the castles from our mortal enemy the crushing wave as it brought the water to shatter our efforts

The walls could at first only guard against small splashes with their brittle build,

but in time they were able to hold their own against larger walls of water that crashed upon them.

The pebbles became the banners of the formidable fortress

building walls and buffering defenses with wet sand compresses.

After many attempts of scouting the ideal location for such a castle

only the largest waves could present any threat to us.

Today even in poetry we craft our words up from the sand

dig a moat with even fresher figurative language

detail the turrets with similes and metaphors

and make them even stronger so that only the very best can challenge our words.

Samantha

15

Summer is Cool

Summer is when the swimming pool is full,
The sun is blazing and up all day long,
Students are out of school, how wonderful,
Children are playing while birds sing their song.
Parents are busy making summer plans,
While others are having to work instead.
Air conditioners break, they must use fans
People at the beach get sunburned bright red
Long nights for friends to hang out at the park,
Fourth of July fun and celebrations,
Beautiful fireworks explode in the dark.
Mosquitoes buzz ‘round and bite the nation.
Although summer is fun and really cool
Students can hardly wait to go back to school.

Jacarrea

16

I watched helplessly from the back of a car window,
as you were now behind me
The wind in my face, and the speed of the vehicle
did not seem to stop my tears from falling
I was not ready to believe that I had just lost you

I wasn't ready to believe that they had just took me away from you!
Such ignorance came from those who couldn't understand,
how much you meant to me
Dark clouds began to appear,
shortly as the sun began to fade away
I will forever remember you as blue sky's and rainbows
Friendship and love
Silence and harmony,
Until I one day lose my memory too

Never had I imagined that you would mean so much
A city girl who found her heart in a wilderness,
was never how I thought it would be
I didn't need magic, and I didn't need money
All I needed was an opened mind,
And you would make me a better person
I trusted that you knew how to change me,
and I knew I was ready to be changed

Loud echoes, rumble in my ears like a thunderstorm,
and the misery flows from me like rain
Too young to realize that what is too good,
can easily be taken away
I sat back and wondered,
had this all of been a dream?
Because I couldn't believe that,
I had lost my paradise

Jacarrea

16

Days like this...
The last raindrop to fall from the sky
The first snowflake in a snowstorm
The tiniest ray of sun on a cloudy day
The biggest gust of wind in autumn
Days like this aren't just typical
It's the type of day,
That makes you feel relieved
A refreshing presence just washed your fears away
As if you were opening your eyes for the first time,
Things become clearer
more vivid then they were before
Suddenly all your questions are answered,
And you realized hope is not lost

Birds flying free
The sun setting in the east
The first leaf that falls from a tree
Days like this,
They tell you that things must change
You know how to be different
even when you don't want to be
It's a little reminder that when you feel alone
There is always something larger going on around you
Thriving, with or without you
Gaining its own independence
It inspires you, to look for your own
self-worth
It makes you believe you are capable
To do anything

Water soaks in the dried dirt
The compression comes out
A little seedling fights it's way to the surface
No softer then the skin of a baby
A flower emerges from the inside, and let's it's colors out
Finally being, what it has waited its whole life to become
It's days like this you don't notice
Everything's a blur, anything is done in seconds,
And even though the earth is slowly spinning
Your life is moving at a rapid pace,
You don't pause long enough
You don't appreciate every miracle for what it is
Because you never gave yourself the chance
To see it
It's days like this,
That you make the time
To look at what you have always missed
The joy in simple pleasure,
Not the cost of luxury
For those who know
How valuable life is,
Days like this,
Will tell you
It's priceless

Amy

15

Hazy Summer Days
The hazy heat waves
of summers end float
onto my porch,
but, as I sit minted
in my lawn chair,
I notice a certain stillness
of the way my dog's chest
rises and falls to the melody
of bees working in harmony
with their blooms,
almost as if to
mock the way
my mother runs her fingers
through my knotty hair
and I notice again
the stillness of this moment,
but now I also see
the ever forward motion
of time clawing at the bee,
bashing at my chair,
and I am reminded that
this moment
has already turned into
a new one where
there is no longer stillness.
But, I smile to myself,
silently building
the stone of that memory
into the castle of my mind.

Allison

17

Title- Hollow Cubes

Tell me,
was it the heat
of the sun?
That fueled your passion
to fill your words with
packets of raw sawdust.
Promise,
you said.
Small cubes pouring
from your lips
clattering to the ground
hollow, wooden sound
of emptiness.
Some are paisley
or polka-dotted,
but they are all the same.
Hollow, wooden, and brown.
Time has healed the wounds
of distance.
Nothing remains
but a scar.

Allison

Tsay

Title- Hollow Cubes

Tell me,
was it the heat
of the sun?
That fueled your passion
to fill your words with
packets of raw sawdust.
Promise,
you said.
Small cubes pouring
from your lips
clattering to the ground
hollow, wooden sound
of emptiness.
Some are paisley
or polka-dotted,
but they are all the same.
Hollow, wooden, and brown.
Time has healed the wounds
of distance.
Nothing remains
but a scar.

Saskia

16

Less a town and more a floodplain
grasses, sheds, telephone poles
mired in scratchy sea.
Air stale and punched
by a lawn mower turning
on and off droning,
edging the corners
of faded billboards,
stagnant dreams.

It’s worst to realize
America’s model,
its constant across fields and states.
Go West! shout printed colors whistling,
round faces in the dust aspire
this universe with no perspective
no one cares enough to change.

Samantha

17

Let’s

Let’s dance all night
play hopscotch in the rain
as you twirl me.
Spinning spinning
spinning back time.
Forever in a moment.

Let’s walk to nowhere.
A destination secret until we arrive and
stay
spending the days learning
all there is
about our newfound home.
Filling the holes in our knowledge with
make-believe.

Let’s stay inside
and watch Breaking Bad.
Neither of us paying much
attention
but rather listening to the clockwork
of each other’s breaths.

Let’s lie forever under stars
during summer’s warmth.
Taking turns reading from Bradbury and Frost.
Our voices melting into the
evening symphony
of crickets, cicadas, and
curiosity.

Let’s be together
until time falls apart
and slips between our fingers.
The two of us unafraid to be
free.
Each day a new chapter.

But it’s tricky to write
when I haven’t
found
you.

Nate

17

The cool grass as a carefree seat,
Fireflies and our four bare feet,
The August breeze whispers secrets, hot and sweet,
To join the swish of our steady steps over cracked concrete,

So swing your rose hips and I'll let you honeysuckle these tulips,

But no matter what they refuse to confess,
Through gentle pleading and hair-raising stress,
Neither one trusts so they have no success,
She laughs with her blonde hair and in her red dress,
He weaves webs of words, augmenting this wonderful mess,

So they continue dancing to the sound of the Latin drummer,
Because he wants her heartbeat - even if only for a summer.

Bradley

16

A Summer Hot With Compromise

In the hot summer of 1787, a constitutional convention was called,
All states sent delegates, except Rhode Island, for they were appalled.

For representation in congress would be changed,
And losing their power to large states they thought would be arranged.

Independence Hall, Philadelphia was where fifty-five delegates sat down.
In hope that a solution could possibly be found.

The room was filled with men of property and wealth;
The large meeting was decided to be conducted in stealth.

The boarded-up windows trapped in all the heat;
With Summer in swing, wigs and suits no longer looked neat.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were away overseas,
While others, like Patrick Henry, refused to be nominees.

George Washington was unanimously voted president of the convention;
His attitude and demeanor commanded everyone’s attention.

Edmund Randolph, the first speaker, proposed a new Plan,
“The Virginia Plan!” He called it, and to explain he began.

The Virginia Plan would have a government that branch into three,
The first was legislature, which made laws for the people, who would remain free.

The second, the executive, ensured the laws be carried out
Elected by college, the president would lead with most clout.

The third was judiciary, would interpret the laws,
And scrutinize them to their most minute flaws.

The plan would have two houses, a Senate and a House of Representation,
Both were to be represented by population.

This led the small states to head the debate,
Because having less votes, they fear their voice would abate.

And then one day, William Patterson introduced something new,
The delegate introduced a plan to shake small states out of their blues.

“Only one house!” was called for in the Plan of New Jersey,
and at this point, the delegates could not afford to be choosey.

The new Jersey plan gave one vote per state,
Keeping all states equal no matter the birth rate.

The plan also gave the states much more power.
The federalist delegates took to this sour.

Heated debates followed for the fifty-five sweaty men,
Hoping to leave the swamp of Philadelphia, Penn.

On June 19, The Virginia plan won the vote,
but unfortunately for everyone this was not a high note.

Arguing and bickering, there was much to be heard.
But from a special committee, a compromise was conferred.

The Great Compromise, satisfied both sides,
Equal representation in the senate would appeal the small states divides.

But population in the house would make large states satisfied.
Everyone was happy on June 16, 1789 when the constitution was ratified.

Jonathan

13

Behind me,
the summer sun rises,
scorching everything and everything in its path.
As I walk, I see a mass of clouds,
so cold and dark that they overwhelm every living thing with their mere presence.
I can only watch as these two great beings prepare to do battle.
The sun, or the clouds?
Light, or darkness?
Which will win?
Even the sky seems divided on that matter.

As the battle begins, and then rages on,
I watch as the people shelter themselves from the battle above.
Winds whip around the area as trees are uprooted. Houses tear from their foundations as the world enters a state of chaos.

And then night comes.

The blackness of which extinguishes the sun and renders darkness inevitable.
Has darkness won? Yes.

But hope is not lost,
as the mourners play a melody
while the thirteenth moon quietly rises illuminated by the stars above.

Emma

16

Juillet

Sunset on the water.
Rough familiar planks beneath my feet.
Flying like a heron down the wooden dock,
Soaring through the air--
Splash.
Slowly sinking,
into the deep dark coolness.
A secret world.
My secret world.
Kingdoms of fish and smiling mermaids.
A shaft of light filters through the blackness,
lighting my way to the soft carpet below.
My toes dig in, relishing the silky sand
before blasting off to the surface
like a rocket to the moon.
Rejoining the world with a kiss of cool air on my cheeks,
I grasp the ladder and leap again.
Cannonball.