Poetry 2019

Wings - Michael Moreno

Life flies upon the fickle wings of love

the longing heart beats a rhythmic song

set free from her cages the doleful dove

and forever her love stretches lifelong

Until the doomed wings of Icarus fly

away from the sea, away from the sun

if the feathers fall, then her heart does die

beneath the ocean, where tears ever run

The darling dove adores the bright day star

but she forever fears the blinding bright

yet she will never let the ocean scar

and swallow her wings in eternal night

The dove flies high above the salty spray

the golden grandeur of the sun’s new day

never leaving, ever longing, at bay

the Dove loves him, but never can she say  

Relationships Are Easy - Kyle Clarke

It’s all when you are in the car

And a song comes on the radio

That you hate, but she loves,

So you leave it on anyways

without a word

Summer Night - Mason Rush

Down Bel-Air,

setting sun

The summer breeze

rustles my hair

through my sunglasses

a pink sun glows

I breathe in

its warm breath

I turn my head.

Green light.

Honk.

Beep.

Go.

Silence - Cole Hendricks

I did it,

and my parents knew.

I slipped up the stairs

and into my bedroom

quiet as dust.

I even shut my door

without a squeak.

English Sonnet - Luke Shropshire

The sea is filled with many types of life

Sharks swim around the ocean floor at night.  

While fish cut through the water like a knife

The ocean stirs with movements out of sight.

The shiny coral at the sandy floor,  

Emits a bright amount of blinding light.

Amounts of fish do swim near churning shore

And swiftly disappear from seeking fight.

The crashing waves meet sandy barren earth

And morning dew does fill the gentle air.

But crashing ocean waves hide shallow surf

Of dancing fish that move along quite fair.

The distant sun peeks from vast shadow,

And turns the ocean tide into a glow.

Sonnet #6 - Oluwatoni Akintola

A deeply lucid dream.

She was not what she seemed.

She was an angel, I was a fiend.

My eyes dark brown, hers an orange sheen.

She calls to me and I pursue.

Sonnet (Kind Of) - Kaine Griffen

Hypogammaglobulinemia—

Leads to an increased risk of infection.

Aceruloplasminemia—

Manifests iron accumulation.

Semiautobiographical—

Partially writing your life in a book.

Heterophenomenological—

Dennett's approach to a third person look.

Antiauthoritarianism—

The hippies want equality of law.

Antidisestablishmentarianism—

The state hacks at the church with a buzzsaw.

When given a sonnet, sly like a fox,

I prefer to think outside of the box.

Eternal - Kyle Clarke

Then I remember that I am a grain of sand,

on a beach,

one day obsolete.

And then somehow

I feel worse

Technology - Dubem Nnake

Each man fixed his eyes before his phone

Trying to decipher the known and unknown

Technology seems to have undone so many

As I try to converse with my peers

My words and phrases slip through their ears

Technology seems to have undone so many

To read and to write

Requires efforts more than slight

Technology seems to have undone so many

Without it one cannot dream

Seemingly changing an entire routine

Technology seems to have undone so many

It effectively targets the lazy

Making directions more hazy

Technology seems to have undone so many

It’s temptation is insatiable

It’s effects are unfavorable

Technology seems to have undone so many

To Work or Not to Work? - Ben Ostrowski

To do my homework or not to do my homework—that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of potentially outrageous grading,

Or to take arms against a sea of stupid assignments

And, by opposing, end them. To slack off, to sleep—

And by a sleep I mean the full eight hours,

The heartbeat and natural dreams

That each student truly deserves

Each night; but use every student after his desert

And who should escape whipping? To bed, to go to sleep;

To sleep, and maybe get some rest

And actually be able to keep my eyes open

During third period tomorrow. Ay, there's the rub,

For in this homework of doom what dreams come?

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil

There remains no time to get a decent sleep

Especially considering the thousands of other things I could be doing,

And that must give us pause. Where's the respect?

For who would bear the whips and scorns of British Literature?

Although, I must say, Physics is worse.

The pangs of despised students, the lab reports,

The investigative tasks, the World History quiz,

The twenty-page memoir that I chose not to write,

The junior project reflection; or maybe not,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something in the work,

Like the fact that this line isn't in iambic pentameter,

My teacher might find, and in doing so

Take off a point, or two, or three, or fifty,

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is over with the fact that I can't write every line in iambic pentameter,

Soft you now, the fair grader, Teacher.