Youth Poems
Terug naar waar het voor mij begon(Kloppenbergweg 3 Oost-Maarland)
by Mario Odekerken
Ik keer terug naar Kloppenbergweg nummer drie,
waar mijn eerste stappen
nog tussen de stenen lijken te liggen,
in Oost-Maarland,
waar de dagen langzaam begonnen,
en de wereld nog klein genoeg was
om te begrijpen.
Daar woonde mijn jeugd
in elke hoek van de straat,
......
Words Die
by C Duggan
Words die when there is nobody to speak them,
Lips no longer mouth the syllables of free thought,
speech,
human emotion.
How far will censorship go?
Take away our words,
stories,
histories.
Generations are blind to the real connection,
craving sustenance,
......
Last Tuesday
by Kara Prince
I have survived 5 active shooter situations.
At work this morning, my pepper spray was confiscated due to heightened security following yet another hospital shooting, but the security guard told me “a pretty student” like me should keep some in my car anyway.
It didn’t do me much good in the Fall of my senior year.
Even my dad told me to pick up some pepper spray on my way home because he’s nervous about the girls' trip I have coming up.
I wanted to tell him it's just a camping trip, but that doesn’t matter. Walmart keeps pepper spray in the back of the store with hunting and fishing equipment.
I got groped on aisle L20.
In other news, I turn 22 next month.
My Name Is Horace
by Randy Johnson
In 1987, he starred in a movie that was called 'The Monster Squad'.
At a very young age, he died and went to Heaven to be with God.
Two other movies that he starred in were 'Home Free' and 'Dance 'Til Dawn'.
When he died of Pneumonia in 1987, it was hard to believe that he was gone.
He abandoned his acting career to study law before dying at the age of 22.
To die at such a young age is unfair and ridiculous, and that certainly is true.
[Dedicated to Brent Chalem (1975-1997) who died on December 9, 1997.]
14 cigarettes
by Bogdan Dragos
This girl smoked 14 cigarettes in
a span of one and a half hours
"Yeah, but they're slim," she says
"But they're still fourteen."
"Yeah, but so am I," she says.
"But... you look at least eighteen..."
......
Terug naar waar het voor mij begon(Kloppenbergweg 3 Oost-Maarland)
by Mario Odekerken
Ik keer terug naar Kloppenbergweg nummer drie,
waar mijn eerste stappen
nog tussen de stenen lijken te liggen,
in Oost-Maarland,
waar de dagen langzaam begonnen,
en de wereld nog klein genoeg was
om te begrijpen.
Daar woonde mijn jeugd
in elke hoek van de straat,
......
Seeking
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
Sea wanders 'neath pink skies,
so green, like restless young.
Scarlet birds are flying
somewhere near orange sun,
soon itself to turn mauve.
Such is way of the world.
Seems purple stars search, too.
I’m Getting Too Old For This Shit
by Kara PrinceHiding under the neon lights, the curly-haired boy asked me if I was using a fake, too. “Sorry,” I mumbled, confused why thoughts of his mother now consumed me. At work, my coworkers found out I will be 22 soon. I see their image of me once blurry as I had engineered through vague comments and outright lies sharpen into focus on the form of an ingenue. My round, cherubic face pinkens as I want to remind them I have been here 8 years, but only a child would validate their own professional identity. The woman with hands like unmade sheets tells me that my generation can't seem to wake up early enough for birding, that we don’t value life’s natural gifts. I wonder if she heard me on the phone later, counseling a grieving daughter while my friends had to awkwardly pause the collective girlhood memory we had been forming that Saturday morning. My mother asked me what I wanted for my birthday this year. I think of the massage I’ve been meaning to get for the past 3 years, and the visit to a podiatrist I have considered, but she always thinks I am joking, so I smile and say nothing. When my alarm goes off at five in the morning, and I roll from my floor mattress, I regret witholding from my mother. I like starting my day before the sun, acknowledging the scattered headlights of others just as weary when I see the flock of starlings. I am reminded now of the first time I bathed a cold human form, how I reminded myself that this was a woman who lived and loved, not a task to be charted, and how the starlings had gathered by her window as if to accompany her that evening. I want to go back and tell the rugae-skinned woman that my generation saw birds at all hours, but a need for vindication seems childish.
Continue readingLast Tuesday
by Kara Prince
I have survived 5 active shooter situations.
At work this morning, my pepper spray was confiscated due to heightened security following yet another hospital shooting, but the security guard told me “a pretty student” like me should keep some in my car anyway.
It didn’t do me much good in the Fall of my senior year.
Even my dad told me to pick up some pepper spray on my way home because he’s nervous about the girls' trip I have coming up.
I wanted to tell him it's just a camping trip, but that doesn’t matter. Walmart keeps pepper spray in the back of the store with hunting and fishing equipment.
I got groped on aisle L20.
In other news, I turn 22 next month.
First Kiss
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
Danielle and Kevin were childhood sweethearts, as love sometimes goes.
Kevin carried all her books to school, when sun rays fell, on orange rose.
They often studied together after school, like eclipsing spheres, sharing;
When sun and moon swap notes in passing, and diamond ring is glaring.
They already had sweet, wildest dreams, like being somebody successful.
Fragrant days flew by in tandem, like time's spring green house, ancestral.
They had each won spelling bees, with the stories in the local newspaper;
......
