Of Sonnets and Such Poetic Nonsense (Gold Key, 2018 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards)

the lit homework is to write a sonnet

for the person sitting next to you

but I don’t know what to write about

the only thing that comes to mind

is ‘oozing volcanoes of acne’

and ‘veined forests creeping up

spindly arms’ but none of them,

or so I’m told, are actually poetic

I don’t take the assignment seriously

enough, apparently, so they say

the counselor asks if I have anything

to tell but I don’t because my head

is swimming in third person narrative

and it has no room for such absurd

insistence on convention because

I think in poetry and that’s more

than enough for me to handle

I’m sure the poetry god understands

what all you mere mortals can’t

it’s a different language to each

and every one so no one will

dictate what I write or if I should

care for grammar or punctuation

and I’ll put ‘acne volcanoes’ and

‘veined forests’ and other unpoems

if I feel like it, thank you very much

so here goes my second attempt

forgive my stream of consciousness

from spiky head to sneakered toe

from the oozing volcanoes of acne

on your face when you yell let’s go

but fall and bruise one knobbly knee

to the veined forests creeping up

spindly arms and i like it too much when

you put them around me as if saying sup

the way leaves curl on themselves again

i love how you can’t stop moving in a whir

distorted yous in my dreams bestir

the view from Thursday (Silver Key, 2018 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards)

i like where i am now

where memories bleed

into dreams and dreams

blow into memories

lying on the bench

by the giggling fountain

watching you above me

having you so close

makes it all the more

magical, i can almost

see the sparks you and

the sun shower me with

i hold my soda tight

wishing i could expel

all reality, freeze it

here, right now, forever

with or without a filter

desire wraps itself around

every pore of my being

holds my windpipe tight

where logic doesn’t exist

there is only you and i

Kumquat Days

It was just you ‘n me

And a kumquat tree

All joking diffidence

Gangly introversion

Both such fresh green

Under the rusty sunset

I’d forgotten about us

Till your name came up

Awakened a longing

Curled dormant in me

For light happy chatter

On just-trimmed lawns

Little moments once in

A lifetime like an eclipse

It comes and it goes

Oh take me back

To simpler days when

It was just you ‘n me

And a kumquat tree