I have
Held out my hand
To so many others
When they call out for help

But who
Will reach out
And grab my hand
When I do the same?

I've told
So many people
That they can keep going
When everything gets hard

But who
Will tell me
That I can keep going
When the same happens to me?

When someone says,
"I feel ignored,"
I tell them
They're not

But what if
I feel ignored?
Will someone tell me
I'm not? 

This one is inspired by two recent Slam poems that I really loved.

13 steps to finding amelia kathryn 

i. find a distorted mirror, two blue china teacups, an uncracked geode and a vial of green lake water.

ii. break them all.

scatter the remnants over a strawberry patch but keep a piece of each

iii. follow the radioactive energy to the north

iv. wander through the old house,

notice how the dust in the air looks golden in the sunlight

amongst the terra cotta pots there will be a cat

hold her for a while and be cloaked in nostalgia

v. turn when you hear car keys or sandal buckles clicking

visit grandpa's grave and say everything she never got to

vi. don't wipe away your tears

vii. hide in a metro station bathroom for a while

viii. always look up, always. watch every sunrise,

call out at every flock of birds,

make up new constellations

ix. build a campfire and sit too close to it.

be prepared for the shivers that come after

x. believe in fate and goodness. notice details

xi. smile.

xii. head back south. find the green lake,

wade in up to your nose, throw the last

pieces of the things you broke and let them sink

xiii. look around. and she will be there. 

Top!

I haven't written any new poetry that's not for the Poetry Challenge in a while...maybe later I'll try writing something. I have plenty of random verses jotted down in my poetry notebook, so I guess I just need the motivation to put them together into something.

Also, September seems to have disappeared from the poetry world.

I love poetry, but I don't do it very often. However, in English class, we are studying Edgar Allan Poe, and got an assignment to write in his style. I love the poem I created! I feel I've never done any better one. So here it is-- "Thousand".

Thousand

'Twas a dark and stormy night

The sky, full of light

Like a thousand firebirds' flight

Illuminating the fair man's plight

The night, like a storm

Wraps around the fair man's form

Like a thousand insects' swarm

And yet this did not forewarn

Of the coming mist

Like a thousand gymnasts' twists

Curling, swirling through the midst

Of the waiting grist.*

The mist, it waits

For a sadistic twist of fate

To bring the man to its gates

Of a thousand fears and a thousand hates

The man stumbles in

To the mist, thinking that it must have been

A trick of light, those thousand scaly fins

That slithered by his armoured shin

But wait! Just wait-- 

There, in the mist, glimmering like a silver plate, 

A thousand scales are shining, oblate**

Attached to a fanged pate!***

The man screams, but it is over quick,

his armour naught but a hardened stick

In the maw of the beast, a thousand masticates****

And one quick lick.

The beast slithers back into its lair

Its lair of great despair

Full of lost souls, a five-hundred pair*****

Plus one foolish man, that was fair.

~~~ 

*Grist= grain waiting to be harvested.

**Oblate= basically oval-shaped.

***Pate= head.

****Masticates= teeth, basically. I took some creative liscenses here. It's technically pronounced "mat-ih-cAYtes", but to fit the rhyme scheme, it is now "mast-ih-cIHts".

*****Five-hundred pair= one thousand. Because a pair is two, and so two five-hundreds is a thousand.

~~~

Hope you enjoyed it! Any comments? Critique?

~Starseeker