Tag: poetry

Sappho 31 Revived

scarlettoharaLeave a comment

(Yes, one of the reasons I want to learn Ancient Greek is to read Sappho in her original language. Yes, one of my goals in my life is to create a poetry collection building on all of her remaining fragments, with this being the first of its kind. I have priorities.

But since this is based on an original that has enchanted readers for literal millenia, check out a translation of Sappho 31 to fully see how I turn it inside out. The skeleton of my revival is mostly based on Anne Carson’s translations, but I definitely looked to others for inspiration.)

He seems to me a man who’d like to kill god
Whatever he is, sitting in front of you
Prowling to see any bent
To deconstruct who you are
But he’s sure he’ll sink into sweet legend


Your smile after is sweeter; but how is it
Even when he’s gone
My own tongue cracks. And every word’s drought. Fruitless.
Any peep from him puts the gall in my belly on wings
So when I look at you, even a moment
No speaking is left in me


If I see you next- a subtle fire will speed through my skin
He took my sight, he burst my ears
Already so your touch makes me seize and shake
Myself, or is that you?
But whatever I try to hold
I am still paler than grass, I am deaf from all of this buzzing
I am dead- or I seem to be at this rate


But what can be endured, can be recovered
As when I saw the sun-glades shimmer in human eyes
While speaking words stronger than bone, more resistant than sinew
Yet more sensitive than nerve and barer than skin
I remembered to see the poorer half that lives

PC:Google

Danville

scarlettoharaLeave a comment

(Normally when I write poems I imagine created scenarios like “What if a speaker leaves her kidnapper for the moon,” or “What if a speaker roasts a stealthing girl for completely unpersonal reasons.” This poem totally, definitely is the same.)

PC:Google

Do you remember the last time we walked
Through our high school on the hill
After hours and empty?
It always felt like a dream
Shadows creeping acutely far
Never before seen by student eyes
But think, so many lived here,
Someone every day was wandering
Stray people like stray animals
We had roads, just for ourselves


Do you remember how we might meet,
Or run into the other
Outside dorms
We exchanged words, treats, as acquaintances
And I cupped my hands to take a world’s granted abundance


I remember that pitch tar night
Or that overlight room
When I coughed
Out the most pointless goodbye in the world.
If I returned, would I find it
All the same, wax stuck
I seem to have a knack, in eternally returning


Or, like the footprints
Are they all gone?

Childhood

shallahan#1moochLeave a comment

i am overcome with missing people 

i miss my old self 

before life happened 

i miss my old friends 

i miss my old family

i miss the boys i used to love

i miss the smile on my innocent face 

but most of all i miss the feeling that came with that smile. 

i didn’t even know what was to come 

a ran around with bare feet, gapped teeth, and skinned knees 

but i never cared 

i never even noticed 

i miss those summers by the pool 

i miss the security of those hugs 

the way i melted into their arms 

i always wanted to grow up and i never understood why people said stay young 

but i get it now 

all i wish for is to go back 

back to the sun on my cheeks and the light in my eyes. 

Pc- my mom circa 2010

sleep

shallahan#1moochLeave a comment

sleep

a cool soft hug

a purple hue

a twinkling star and a full moon

an open door that closes as soon as I shut my eyes

claws and spiders creep through my dreams

I never liked the darkness

or the quiet, but my mind has always made up for that

internal scars and past memories haunt my dreams

a nightmare, but its not, because it was never a dream

it was always just my life.

I stare up at the glow of the stars on my ceiling each night

thoughts running through my head

I can’t decide if I want to laugh or cry

but I know I want to sleep

I’m so tired but my mind never wants to rest

there’s to much to think about in this crumbling world, in my crumbling head.

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The Moon’s a Fonder Friend to Me

scarlettoharaLeave a comment

Would I need to have you admit

It could have been anyone – anyone – else

To make peace with the growth you made for me

My mind remembered paths back then

But the moon was new as a maiden voyage and –

I never gave an ample thought 

To where your hand was taking me

A derelict shack with only ravenous eyes

They’d say I should’ve been anywhere else

But that desperation made me 

Wonder if you were broken like me

And then I did recognize the musk

There is that rusting and hopeless ennui

You said my best refuge was apathy

And in the end, “you let me be”

You boasted on the courage of my honey,

Of the loneliness piercing your mind.

Mouth slick, you said – I’m the last angel you’ll send away?

Because I let some layman hoard my empathy

Remain a porcelain face.

Be stabbed through a belly’s pit.

Fluttering lips taught your whispers over my cries

As you went on to embalm each part of me

One day I stopped with bearing all your doubt

I should’ve had anyone – anyone – else

Gnawed legs do fit gnawed light stumbling through the leaves

I yearn to crack at every stride – I get to choose

“You laid in the bed they made for you”

That’s the first worthy thing that’s been said in his world

Because you are a fonder “friend” to me

I love you more than he, the sun

Suffering each fiery beating he sends your way

And you haven’t a spark to respond

Yet look how you shine with the light you’re given

I follow behind – what else will I do?

Maybe I learn to thrive, from what you did

Would I love her soft glow with no ravenous glower

But the best lesson I learned from you

Is that I could have been anyone

Anyone else

“Moon Tree” by Bonnie Moreland/ CC0 1.0

(“My first kidnapping victim left me for the moon.”

“That’s rough, buddy.”)

License

kittenqueen3Leave a comment

I have been wanting my license since I before I can remember, and I was confident I was going to get it. I passed my permit test first try and I barely studied so I felt confident in the fact I could get my license. From both my friends and family I have received compliments for my good driving. I went to the DMV confident in my abilities but then I failed. I failed because I didn’t look over my shoulder when making a right turn into the DMV. I was, to say the least extremely upset when I failed because the driving instructor literally told me to make this right turn very suddenly and I was not prepared. When you fail your test you have to wait 15 days to wait before you can retake it. So I’m taking my test again on September 26 and I will definitely look over my shoulder this time.

“Cars Traffic” by Nabeel Syed/ CC0 1.0

Humanities

shallahan#1moochLeave a comment

Humanities is a freshman class at OVS taught by the wonderful terrifying Mr. Alvarez. I was the only student in the whole class to have all tens on all of my reading journals in both semesters. I had a love-hate relationship with that class, but now that I’m a Sophomore and I’m not in the class anymore I’ve started to miss it. Luckily I still get my weekly fill of Mr. Alvarez because I’ve joined journalism.  I like how we have jumped straight into writing, but i’ve never really done any writing like this so it’s a little confusing. So far journalism has been pretty good. Clearly I like the teacher, but I also like the students. I’m the only Sophomore in journalism which is a bit intimidating. So this is my first blog post and there is still so much I don’t know. I just turned in my first story and I’m already starting on my second. Hopefully I’m doing this right… 

Photo credit https://www.ovs.org/academics/high-school/high-school-faculty/

Falling Leaves

scarlettoharaLeave a comment

(I first wrote this when I was around 13 or 14. It’s a bit disorienting to think that I was of the mind to write something like this, but this oldie is still a goodie.)

These green leaves

In their impetuous youth

Would spend their year of life

On watching humans live

The lives they never could

It was a wonder seeing them

Them, showing off their longevity

To choose their ways, to choose their fates

To weave their strings of life themselves

When leaves are blown adrift in wind

It’s helpless to resist, they say

In spring they envy cherry blossoms too

Off white small petals that would die in weeks

But even if it sounds too crazy, know

That blossoms rave so bravely in death

That their plight’s much more celebrated, cared

And have the simple leaves been loved before?

For leaves, they’re doomed

For brevity

For nothing in

Their future but

Repeating their

Colossal faults

Till end 

Then they’re

Tumbling

Down to

Earth

Bobbing and weaving and dancing through the air

Trying to be flames

With their brittle, brown carcass

To shine before the end

To roots centuries old

Bony and formal and cold

That leaves had always flown above before

They were weaving for a new fate.

But now it lies dead.

All because of what they were.

Not even to see the crescendo of freeze.

“Leaves Fall” by Kelly Ishmael/ CC0 1.0

poetry rambling

poofypuffyLeave a comment

In English, we have a “March Madness” poetry bracket. I like that we are reading poetry instead of writing essays. Writing essays is fine too, but reading poetry is more enjoyable. After reading so many poems in one sitting, I’ve found a greater appreciation for poetry, because the range of poetry styles and topics is so diverse. I submitted “The Rose Family” by Robert Frost because I thought it was really cute. Another poem I really like is “My November Guest” by Robert Frost, even though I didn’t like it at first because it seemed like any other poem. Once I found an analysis of the meaning, however, I felt more appreciation for it. However, there were some other poems I also really liked. I liked reading “This is Just To Say”  by William Carlos Williams, although I’m not sure how exactly poems like that qualify as poems. I don’t like descriptive poems about landscapes and things, because they feel so dry and meaningless. I like the poems that don’t make any sense because they seem more profound that way. For example, I have no idea what “They Shut Me Up in Prose” by Emily Dickinson means, but it is really enjoyable to read, and I bet it will be even better when I understand it. Also, “Masks” by Shel Silverstein is really cute and it has a good message behind it. Shel Silverstein writes a lot of nonsensical, funny poems, but there are some really good, more heartfelt poems buried among the fun ones. Even some of his silly poems, like “The Generals,” potentially have a more serious message behind them. I find it really impressive how authors of poetry and other writing have such a capacity for evoking emotion and experiences.

Picture Credit: Department of English

A short story about waiting for the bus

poofypuffyLeave a comment

Once upon a time, there was a man named Bill. He sat at the bus stop, and it was raining. He held of bouquet. It was a bouquet of roses. They were very pretty at one point, but he had been sitting and waiting at the bus stop for a while, and they were wilting. It was wet and cold outside, but he knew that it would be better when he got on the bus. He wore a dress shirt and pants that were not warm enough to shield him from the cold, wet, weather. Bill shivered. 

He stared out at the supermarket across the street. It would be dry and warm in the supermarket, but he was waiting for the bus. 

Bill looked out at the damp scenery, doing and thinking nothing. He was simply waiting in a cold, trance-like stupor. 

A woman walked along the sidewalk, holding an umbrella. She was walking her dog, and the dog was wearing a little raincoat. As she approached the bus stop, she could see a man sitting on the bench. She wondered if he was waiting for the bus, and she wondered if he knew that the bus had been decommissioned earlier that month. The woman hesitated. Should she tell him that the bus would not come? He looked quite still and content, waiting, and she did not want to intrude. And perhaps the bus was back in order. She was afraid to interrupt his day and afraid to be wrong, so she walked past the bus stop and said nothing.

Bill waited for the bus, but the bus never came. It continued to rain for years, and for years, the bus never came. Bill sat a the bus stop, waiting for the bus. Every year that passed watered the seedling of despair that Bill nurtured in him. His bouquet of roses died, and his clothes faded. With this despair, Bill clung to the hope that the bus was almost here and that when the bus came, it would restore the delicate life in his bouquet and the robust color of his clothes, and everything would be right again. Sometimes he thought he heard the hiss of an engine or the grumble of the wheels, but it was an illusion brought on by the rain.

Eventually, Bill grew old and died at the bus stop, waiting in the rain. 

Photo by Jana Shnipelson