A year of schoolwork: poems I submitted for a grade - 1. Seasons

Spring

Columbine (Ballad)

First there was the constant itching.

Then came the awful squirm.

Something shifting under the skin,

his palm a writhing worm.

So nails dug into flesh like hoes

carve furrows into dirt

and from the gash flowed vital blood,

like rain that floods the earth.

He drowns in it, or so it feels

when everything goes black.

For frightfully, a growing thing

comes crawling from the crack.

When he awakes the wound has gone

sewn shut by twisting roots.

All that remains to show the truth

a tiny pale green shoot.

He tries to hide his new companion

with gloves and careful smiles.

Daily he finds it grows and grows

as if to thwart his guile.

So then he thinks “I’ll cut it out,

violent abdication.”

The blade sinks deep into his skin,

agony/salvation.

Too late, it seems, for when he pulls

his flesh back in a flap

he finds beneath that vines now curl

‘round bones with blood now sap.

He vomits when they start to move

snaking ‘round his innards

a wicked mind all their own slides

up and ever inwards.

His body now is not his own,

it belongs to the vine

And from his palm it’s flower spreads

A purple columbine.

Summer

Anything’s a poem: An Essay Outline

“Summersong”

by the Decemberists

presents it’s audience with an

idealized summer as a metaphor for

Thesis: (and criticism of)

the way that romantic relationships

can be idealized and undermined

by that idealization.

It repeatedly juxtaposes beautiful,

perfect imagery against a dark,

Support: crawling underbelly and utilizes alliteration

to lull the audience into a passive state;

to brush these darker moments under the rug.

“Waylay, the din of the day

Boats bobbing in the blue of the bay

In deep, far beneath

all the dead sailors slowly slipping to sleep”

Examples: and

“Been saved, the warmer the waves

I felt us slip into a watery grave”

are both examples of this literary tool in

action.

As you can see, “Summersong”

is an excellent example of poetic technique

Conclusion: highlighting theme and clarifying

the message of the broader work.

The song is one not of the glory of summer

but of the folly of artificial glorification.

Fall

Serial Killer (Sestina)

I want you to love me

like a serial killer

Drill a hole

in my head,

make me wish

I was dead.

Taste my flesh, dead,

red, raw, gushing your

nails like knives, wishing

to carve virgin skin - fresh kill

into fresh filets, fish dripping headless

and blue - eyes like holes

waiting to be filled, holes

gaping, wide and wet and dead.

I’ll give you head,

one more for the freezer, my

tongue frostbitten, cold teeth killing

tastebuds across skin like a wish

but I don’t know what I’m wishing

for, so just treat me like the hole

that I am. Come to me, killer

and fuck me till I’m dead,

till all I can feel is an open wound, your

friction the only thing in my head.

Give me the gift of no heading

no future-tense pathetic wishing

clean me out, clean me off till my

bleach-white skull all lined with holes

is thoughtless and shuffling, living dead

sounds like heaven when your head’s a killer.

And when you’re done, my killer,

and I’m lying on a kitchen floor headless

and dripping, just me and the dead

flies, eggs already hatching under my skin, wish

me luck before you toss me in my shallow hole.

I’ll need it when I’m finally without you.

With nothing left between me and my head.

Just this dirt-filled hole and the other dead,

all wishing they too had the love of a serial killer.

Winter

The Giving Tree in White

Winter came to him like a mother.

Branches withered, their fruit long rotten,

snow dressed the giving tree

in white.

And his hands ached

From clutching

From clutching

From clutching too hard

She always looked so stern

arms akimbo, looking down at him,

a whisper of a smile, disapproving.

He had no reason to be afraid.

She taught him well

or as well as she could,

stern words and calm correction -

he had no reason to be afraid.

The line soon grew worn from careful toeing

eyes always down so not to trip and fall to either side

and her praise was warm and kind, almost like love.

He knew he had no reason to be afraid.

But still his knuckles were white

from clutching

from clutching

from clutching too hard.

Love sat wide and heavy

a yoke on narrow shoulders

and he, always unsure

exactly what it was carved to carry.

So he dragged it on the ground

always looking for a worthy burden,

something heavy enough to deserve him

but not so heavy it would snap.

She told him once

“Life’s not so serious

as you make it out to be boy

lighten up a little.

Anybody with eyes can see

you’re clutching

you’re clutching

you’re clutching too hard”

But words like that they don’t set in

when your palms are lined in half-moon scars

so he lived his life on a tightrope

strung across the void between stars

She asked him once

“What’d I ever do to make you feel

like nobody could ever want you,

not even yourself?”

But that answer wouldn’t come

until there was no voice left asking it,

pale marble sits heavy and quiet

under the apple boughs.

Hands gripping branches soaring

once clutching,

not clutching,

but spreading in the wind.

Spring came to him like a mother

stealing his nights and selling them to the sun

and flowers dressed the giving tree

in white.