I'm joining! Cool idea, Leeli!

Joining!

Does sailing count as a warlike art?

Ah. I thought not. 

Hello friends and poets, today is Friday, thus the day we start. I wrote this to start us off:

Do you remember

The little red cottage

We used to rent

In the summer

By the lake?

Do you remember 

the way we would 

always run inside,

Excited,

Pulling our luggage behind us. 

We would

Always eat our cereal 

At the little breakfast table

by the window

And eat our dinner

(Pizza)

At the tall bar. 

We shared a bedroom

I would sleep on the twin

And you would sleep 

On the pullout. 

But no matter how hard we tried,

They would always

Roll away from each other

In the night.  

Do you remember 

How we would take our 

morning walks 

On the same path

Every day. 

We would climb up

On the playground

In the sand

By the beach

So early

That no one else was there. 

I had my fortress,

And you had yours. 

You

Never wanted

To climb up into

My tower. 

You thought

You would fall. 

But I, 

I thought I was

On top of the world. 

And then we would run

Down to the water

Get our toes wet. 

We would say,

“We'll only get in

Up to our ankles.”

But

No matter how hard we tried

We always ended up

Rolling up our pants

to the knee.

Do you remember

How we would 

Save up our money

All year

Just to spend it

At all our favorite shops

Downtown. 

We knew the shopkeepers

And they knew us

Because we 

Were their

Best customers. 

Do you remember

That day

Last summer

When the landlady

Walked into the 

Rental house.

She greeted us,

And smiled. 

And we talked awhile. 

But then she told us 

That she was thinking

Of selling the place. 

And she crushed 

My dreams 

With her words. 

Now, tomorrow, 

We are going to drive 

Up to the lake. 

We found a new house

To rent. 

But 

It won't be the same. 

I will always 

Remember

The little red cottage

We used to rent

Every summer

By the lake. 

@Leeli, yours is beautiful! I feel such a sense of melancholy from it.

Summer is the color of your voice, the voci bianche

Summer is the heat of the sun turning the sunflowers in their clockwork dances like your magnificence, your radiance, your gross incandescense, turns me in circles until I'm dizzy, spellbound by your wonder

Summer is the taste of watermelon melting under the tongue as your jokes, your laughter, your appetites fill me like a balloon and send me spiraling into the sky

Summer is the sight of young men in shorts playing tennis and being a metaphor for our own games and machinations, both evil and benign

Summer is the smell of hay and wildflowers springing up from the ground as if they have no fear of being mown down, no fear until the end approaches, just like you, courageous until the end.

Summer is a feeling of loss and although they say humans have five senses I feel this sense as sharp as any other. An omnipresent, acute sense following me home 

I'll join even though I'm leaving for camp in two days and won't be able to post for two weeks then. I will hopefully still write at camp though.

So, here's my poem:

It is hot

Very, very hot

I am almost reluctant to go to the pool

Why

Why can't I stay

In the cool air conditioning

Of our house

But I go

To the pool

And when I jump in

I forget home

I only feel

The cool touch of the water

Enveloping me

In its soft, blissful touch

I swim

I would stay in the pool all day if I could

But I can't 

Wow, Leeli! Your poem was really sad, and really good! I can almost see the cottage in my mind. Ruby, your poem was amazing!! Kitten, I wish I could stay in the pool all day, too. I love all of your poems! 

Here's something I wrote, it's supposed to be about my past summers, sort of? I'm not so great at staying on topic :( It's also pretty long, sorry. (I'm sorry if all the poems I write for this stink!)

t-shirts

summer, 2004

there are 100 pictures of me in my

dad's football t-shirts, wide-eyed and

innocent, not knowing that he

wanted a boy

two summers later with the same wide eyes seeing

things that would soon be forgotten

(isn't it strange what you remember?)

(always be careful what

you say around

kids) 

summer, 2007

i'm wearing a smock over my

t-shirt, painting my

room, painting the windows,

painting the people in my

coloring books,

painting

summer, 2008

my sister and i sit in the grass with

the same yellow t-shirt,

getting called by each other's names

we are so different but

our smiles are the same

summer, 2010

this photobook is filled with pictures of

me in old camp t-shirts and my

softball team with dirt on

our clothes and faces,

we didn't care about winning then

(it was so nice to not care)

summer, 2014

i returned to wearing loose football

t-shirts, this time because i wanted to,

i began to stop

taking pictures and

stop

smiling

summer, 2016

i am wearing a tie-dye t-shirt that i

made with my friend and no

longer are my shirts dark colors,

you can finally see the

light in my eyes

i'm still smiling a half-smile but

that's alright

summer, 2017 

i sit under a dusky sky with

glowsticks around my head and neck,

eyes wide and

smiling

i wear t-shirts that look like a pollock

painting and i wear colors all the

time

and i still cry sometimes but that's alright

that's

alright 

Seasonal~

in the spring we are born, 

in the summer we grow

in the fall we heal

in the winter we break

only to begin again  

@Bluebird, wow! I love the concept!

@Leeli, thank you so much! I love your poem too!

once upon a sunny day~ 

once upon a time, we were 

laughers we were dreamers

we were runners we were 

believers we were living and 

we loved it

once upon a time, we drank up

sunshine like gatorade, we ran

the beaches in the early mornings, 

because we all could do with more 

sunrises and warm air, 

once upon a time we swam under 

the cordoned off areas, feeling

rebellious and hearts pounding

we went back because we don't 

really want to know what's out there

once upon a time we remembered

and we wished for sunny days 

once more, once more 

I love everyone's poems! This is my second one, about warlike arts.

I'm learning to fence

Why?

I don't want to learn to fence

Neither does my brother, who's taking lessons too

My mom doesn't want me to

My dad doesn't want me to

No one I know wants me to

But I will

Because the government wants me to

They need more soldiers 

Or so they say 

I think they just want us tired

So that they can sneak in

And take our parents

You see, my dad disappeared two days ago

Leaving behind nothing

But a hastily scribbled note

'Don't trust'