New Years' Eve Poem

Well, I've finished my US History homework at last. If you want to know about Andrew Jackson, you know what, Google it, because I'm sick of talking about his presidency.
I thought yesterday's post would be the last post of 2011- you know, summing up the year, strength in poetry, ending the year with a bang (well, as close to a 'bang' as poetry can get, ha ha), but now that we're in the last hours of the year (and that's in my time zone, mind you- in Greece it's 2012 right now) I want to post something that is really representative of this year.
So here's a poem that I'm calling '12.31.2011' and it's about... the year itself.

12.31.2011
 

Of all the things that came with me

You were only but one

I didn’t pack you in my suitcase

But you still saw the sun

You stood with me at the top of a mountain

And walked with me through the streets of Rome

You sat by me while I cried inside

Because I was leaving my home.

When I came back, I clung to you

In all my newfound despair

All the things that came with me

And breathed that beautiful air

I won’t let go of my journals

Or my memories in photo

But the year 2011

I will have to now let go.

You can tell I tried a little too hard with the rhyming. :) Shut up, I wrote it in like five seconds.

Anyway, I'm most definitely not posting anything tomorrow because I'm going to my aunt and uncle's for New Years Day. So here are my New Years Resolutions because I find my sense of humor amusing:

1. Lose weight. (Oh my God. Lose weight? What is this? I'm becoming a product of conformist society, I am.)

2. Stop saying stuff like 'product of conformist society'.

3. Finish editing The Eraser. (new title of The Word Story, if anyone who's familiar with my novels is reading this)

4. Finish writing The Gold Door.

5. Get straight As. Wait. I have straight As. Get straight A+s. There, better.

Five New Years' Resolutions is enough. Five is my favorite number now, anyway. Hold on, it's 5:55! Awesome. 

Happy New Year, everybody! Happy 2012! Let's see if we can make it past the Winter Solstice without dying horrible deaths! 

Vote for  me in the Probability of Miracles contest on Figment! My story is 'Gray Girl'!

-magic*esi

OK. The reason five is my favorite number is because I got a five on my AP Art History exam as a freshman last year!!!!!!!!!!

I couldn't hold that in any longer. :)

12.31.2011

A poem summing up my feelings about 2011

“When I came back, I clung to you

In all my newfound despair

All the things that came with me

And breathed that beautiful air.”

December 2011

End the Year With Strength and a Summary of My Best Poems

I know, it's been two whole days.
Anyway, today I'm going to post poems that represent two things:
a) emotional strength and power in poetry
and
b) my favorite poems of 2011!
I've already posted a few of each, and I'm going to save a couple for later occasions (Valentine's Day, for example; no love poems here. Also I've got a good 9/11 poem but I'm saving it for 9/11 obviously.) But my year has had three things in it: the majority of freshman year, the summer, and the beginning of sophomore year.
SO: I shall post one poem for each and then my two Strength poems, The Story of a Dying Soul and Bring Light to Me.

Favorite Poem of Freshman Year (not including ones I've already posted):

Pattern

There’s a pattern to this silence

First I’m the one who’s loud

Then there’s those fleeting shared moments

Where you never speak aloud

There’s a pattern to this laughter

First it’s shocking, cruel and cold

Then it turns into a smile

Which is just a laugh grown old

There’s a pattern to this feeling

First it’s hope that doesn’t stay

Then it’s cold, dark numbness

Which lasts day after day

There’s a pattern to this artwork

First Enlightenment proves I’m smart

Then Romanticism eclipses it

Since it knows too well the heart

There’s a pattern to this silence

In between the floating stairs

As the blue sky rises above me

To a place I now can bear.

Favorite Poem of the Summer (or describing it at least):

Italy

Please take me home.

Not here, amidst the wind-ruffled grass

And the sun setting in the picture-perfect

Summerblue sky

The herbs and flowers bending

Memories echoing around me.

This isn't where I truly belong.

Please take me home.

Favorite Poem of Sophomore Year:

Scribbles of Humanity

Doodles of awakenings

That cover up the pages

As if we know what it is like

To not be locked in cages

Drawings of true freedom

In the margins of our books

Scratched out because we are afraid

Of jailers’ second looks

Scribbles of humanity

They float across my brain

If only I’d release myself

I might not go insane....

AAAAAANNNNNDDDD (drumroll please, or 'flourish', meaning a fanfare of trumpets generally reserved for royalty; oh and speaking of that read Hamlet because I looooove that play) my two Strength poems:

The Story of a Dying Soul

I walked up, full of hope

Presenting my glowing eyes

And my wide smile

And my big dreams

And everything I had.

You beat me with your bloodied fists

Slashed at me with your heavy sword

Kicked me until my body made dents in the ground.

So I cried until every tear was released

And then I thought about what you wanted.

So I studied to the decimal point 

What you all thought was “correct”.

And I tinkered and toyed until I fit that perfect caricature.

You cut my skin and drank my blood

Laughed as I whimpered in that extreme pain

Left me sobbing on the ground.

So I staggered home and decided

Why should I care about you?

And I picked a different you to care about.

And I showed up, showing only myself

But a me that had been refined

And revised and perfected.

You burned me in your rotten yard

Stabbed me with knives as my flesh melted

Took my ashes and pummeled them dead.

But I reformed into a stronger self

And I said, “I shall care about no one again.”

And I worked only to satisfy my own ambition

Which shattered the limit of the sky.

Until I emerged, stronger and smarter and better than you all

And my broken body ran.

You found me without my presenting myself to you

You jeered in my face as you spat on my skin

You smothered me and then, for good measure, drowned me.

And you took my lifeless body and you beat it again.

And I resurrected myself

And I went somewhere you would never find me.

And for once,

there was a you who didn’t kill me.

There was a you who rejoiced in me,

Was dazzled by me,

Amazed by me

And shone to reflect my light.

But I was dragged back by my ears.

And yet I still ran!

I ran towards the sunrise!

I ran, in my body that you broke and you tore and you cut

And I ran faster than you all,

And I carried a load heavier than the world!

And I lifted it, higher than my shoulders!

And I sent out light so dazzling you ought to have fell

And prayed at my knees!

With the music emanating from my soul,

I shattered glass!

I WAS PERFECT!!!!!!

So, having no ammunition left

With which to kill me,

You chose instead to ignore me.

My words fell on deaf ears

My works fell on blind eyes

And you laughed, as I shrunk inside

Despite my strength.

Your ignorance slithered and slinked 

Like the forked tongue of a snake

Crawling around my beating heart

As I turned into ice.

And then I turned so cold I was numb

And then the numbness became blinding, excruciating pain

And I was strong and silent

And then I SCREAMED.

End the pain!

Please, please, please, end the pain!

Take me to paradise, please, bring me back there again!

But there is only one route to that paradise.

As you raise your mallets and your hammers 

Over my cardboard grave,

You casually ponder why I killed myself.

Bring Light to Me

Floating hopelessly in a dark sea

Wandering aimlessly in pitch-black woods

Brambles and thorns hitting me, tripping me

Because I cannot see a thing.

Pain stabs me daily as I try to walk on

And finally, I’m broken, on the ground

“Bring light to me,” I croak.

“Let me love.”

And there I am, in warmth and comfort

In that safe haven in the midst of the dark, unsafe woods

And the crackling fire

And the scent of cooking food

And the surrounding laughter

And I feel so warm...

And then I stumble and I’m back on the path.

That film of darkness enveloping me

I cry out, 

And no one hears me.

The darkness is eating me and laughing...

I am falling into inky blackness

Swamps of ooze are swallowing me whole

Gasping for air...

falling asleep...

Deep, deep sleep...

And that ethereal awakening

As the image, suddenly, sharpens.

I am where I always belonged.

Where the world is colorful,

bright, vibrant.

At last, I have found a place

A place I can call home

But my bliss is too brief.

I am yanked from my place of joy

Back to the blackness

And the shadows.

And I turn thin from lack of true sunlight

Because my soul feeds off joy,

And my soul is now far too thin.

Here are the demons jeering again-

“This is your home now.”

If I had only not let myself be flown back to this place of utter misery

But here I am.

And the worst part of waking up

Is seeing everyone still sleeping around you.

In this high-school hell, I am surrounded by sleepwalking zombies

Who delight in their Alice-of-Wonderland dreams

Just confused girls and boys 

Trying to pretend they understand the twisted rules of their world

How is it only I see truth!

They walk while asleep, but never hit a wall.

And I am pushed still by thorns in my dark woods

I do not have a path, for the path was beaten for Everyone Else

And I am not part of Everyone Else.

And at last I howl to the night.

“Bring light to me!” I scream. “Let me go home!”

Now I am the watchman

Who sits on the dock and waits for the sunrise.

I feel I am at the brink of dawn

I see the smallest glimmers of light on the water

As though the sun is creeping around the horizon

And there is a pen, next to me on the wooden dock

Dropped by one of those who walk by day

They who cling so tight to worthless gold and diamonds

And drop the world’s most precious item.

“Bring light to me,” I whisper to the sea.

“Let me write.”

So? What'd you think? A bit too violent with The Story of a Dying Soul maybe? Eh, it's ARTISTICALLY violent. :) The last one might be my favorite of all of them. I entered it in some thingy on Wattpad, but I never checked to see what happened. Scribbles of Humanity miiight be going into my school's lit mag, and as for the other two: Italy is, yes, about Italy, and that is what 'home' refers to if you were wondering. See my last post. And Pattern is about, well… I'll make you wait to find out, my dear nonexistent readers. Wait until Valentine's Day 2012. If we shall live so long! Ha ha.

Do any of you actually expect the apocalypse next year?

Anyway, I'd have done this tomorrow but I have vowed to all that is holy that I will finish my damn US History homework tomorrow, and curse my soul if I let anything interrupt me. Seriously. And I have so much editing to do.

So… Happy 2012 in two days, everybody!

From your dear little poet,

magic*esi

Vois sur ton chemin… Look down your path

Gamins oubliés egarés… Forgotten children astray

Donne leur la main… Lend them your hand

Pour les mener… To lead them

Vers d'autres lendemains… To better futures

Sens la coeur de la nuit… Sense in the heart of the night

L'onde d'espoir… The wave of hope

L'ardeur de la vie… The fervor of life

Sentier de gloire… The sense of glory

-FROM LES CHORISTES THE BEST MOVIE EVER WATCH IT NOW :)

OK, bye for real now.

Pattern

A poem about feelings taking on a pattern

“There’s a pattern to this feeling

First it’s hope that doesn’t stay

Then it’s cold, dark numbness

Which lasts day after day.”

April 2011

Italy

A short poem about how I miss home (it is in its entirety here.)

“Please take me home.

Not here, amidst the wind-ruffled grass

And the sun setting in the picture-perfect

Summerblue sky

The herbs and flowers bending

Memories echoing around me.

This isn’t where I truly belong.

Please take me home.”

August 2011

Scribbles of Humanity

A poem about the locked feeling of puberty.

“Scribbles of humanity

They float across my brain

If only I’d release myself

I might not go insane...”

October 2011

The Story of a Dying Soul

A poem about a brilliant person who was broken by bullies. 

“And yet I still ran!

I ran towards the sunrise!

I ran, in my body that you broke and you tore and you cut

And I ran faster than you all,

And I carried a load heavier than the world! 

And I lifted it, higher than my shoulders! 

And I sent out light so dazzling you ought to have fell

And prayed at my knees!

With the music emanating from my soul,

I shattered glass!

I WAS PERFECT!!!!!!!”

November 2011

Bring Light to Me

A poem about the ways my world has been lit.

“Now I am the watchman

Who sits on the dock and waits for the sunrise.

I feel I am at the brink of dawn

I see the smallest glimmers of light on the water

As though the sun is creeping around the horizon

And there is a pen, next to me on the wooden dock

Dropped by one of those who walk by day

They who cling so tight to worthless gold and diamonds

And drop the world’s most precious item.”

October 2011

Announcement: Poetry Contest!

 NOTE: I've got several entries in contests on Figment. If you see this, could you please read and possibly heart:
Gray Girl for the Probability of Miracles contest (yes, including a poem previously posted on here)
and
The Teardrop Goddess for the Seventeen Fiction contest
Thanks!

Hey, nonexistent readers! In an effort to include other people's poetry, not just mine, on this blog (it sounds crazy, I know, but I'm not the only good poet in the world) I'm holding a poetry contest. There's going to be a new page set up to hold the contest, so go there for more details, but the basic gist of it is: Write a poem about winter, I don't care how long (I mean, I'm not expecting The Odyssey here) and it's due January 20th, 2011. Get working! The prizes are all very writerly. I'd give out cookies but look, this is the Internet. There's only so much I can do.

I haven't got any poems for you today... well, actually, I do. I've just been looking in this little 'add location' thingy, and I first cruised through my hometown on satellite, and then I went to Rome. I had to click out of it though.
Farewell is like being ripped from home, no matter how long or how sweet. I wish I could write more in prose so you would understand, dear nonexistent readers, but I can't do it without crying, so here's poetry to explain it for you:

Farewells
I left my heart behind
In that sad beautiful seaport
And the dusty mountains in the background
Clouds rising like smoke
The pale blue sky above
And the sun lowering, lowering into the sea

I left my soul behind
On that cold grey train platform
With the flurry of rain like silver snowflakes
And the silent white sky above
Holding my suitcase and waiting
And the train rumbling, rumbling closer to us

I left my thoughts behind
In that horrible bustling airport
Waiting in line in the early morning
Sitting with my head lowered in plastic chairs
Boarding the plane
And the plane flying, flying further from home.


Hope you liked it. And go enter the poetry contest!
From,
magic*esi

HAPPY NATIONAL FRUITCAKE DAY!

Well, since I missed Christmas, I thought I'd celebrate National Fruitcake Day with everybody. I just looked that up on some 'holiday every day of the year' site.
I'm typing on my sister's laptop and there's no delete key so it's hell to do this. I mean, there IS a delete key but you have to slam it three times to make it work. And I have typo OCD so it's not fun.
Anyway. Since I missed Christmas and the day after, I've got two new poems. One called 'Angel', which sounds like it's in the Christmas spirit but it's not, I assure you; just more depressing stuff. Then one called 'Gray Girl' which I wrote as a bit of a haunting nursery rhyme. Both written yesterday in the car ride to my grandma's house for Chanukah Night Seven.

Angel
White
Pure white
Like an angel

Summer angel
Spread her wings
Wear white
Walk in summer heat
Break summer heat
With clear white wings
And fly
And brush the edge of heaven

Stand at the corner
And watch you go
As I wait, wait, wait
Open expanse of
Only sky, sky, sky

Autumn angel
With gauze white wings
And cotton white dress
Angel flew too close to the sun
And fell to earth
With white wings burnt

Let ashes fall
Return to your ground
In this place there is only dark
And the only light
Burns when you touch

Winter angel
Sits in cold
With blackened wings against blackened sky
No stars
Except silver snowflakes

White snow
Falls in swirls to earth
And covers wings
New wings
Reborn wings
O newly white
She'll sit and wait, wait, wait
For the time when she can return
Her wings will wait
And she shall not fall again
You know better now, my angel.

Like an angel
Pure white
White

Gray Girl
Gray girl gray girl
Walking through her gray world
Picking up pieces of
Broken little dreams

Find me find me
Take me there and bind me
Just don't forget that
I am stronger than I seem.

Take me take me
You cannot forsake me
I will never find a way
To get out of your world

But yet here, yet here
Don't place any bets here
Gray Girl may have unknown tricks
Hidden up her sleeve…


So there you have it- two wintry creepy poems about mysterious fantasy creatures. I hope you enjoyed them.
Happy Last Night of Chanukah, everybody!
I'll be sure to write more soon!
-magic*esi

Angel

A metaphorical poem about a girl who no longer wants to feel 

“Let ashes fall

Return to your ground

In this place there is only dark

And the only light

Burns when you touch.”

December 2011

Gray Girl

A haunting nursery rhyme about revenge and escape

“Gray girl gray girl

Walking through her gray world

Picking up pieces of 

Broken little dreams”

December 2011

Slash at the Sky & My State of Being

I feel icky today, the first day of winter break and Christmas Eve. Of course, I don't celebrate Christmas, so today just means sitting at home and feeling sick to my stomach for some unfathomable reason and not writing and having nothing to do.
I ought to get off the computer and read The Son of Neptune. I can't even listen to music because my dad is here listening to some movie about space at brain damage volume. Infuriating. But I'm not going to say a word because I don't want him to be more mad at me than he already is. (He hates me because I read while I eat and leave pens in the backseat).

So I'm going to post two poems about frustration, about anger, about not being able to express myself in any form but flowing, unattached words.
The first one is called 'Slash at the Sky', and I wrote it in ninth grade, in April or something, after a day at school which I hated. Here we go:

I can still remember this morning
With the blue sky shining even brighter than the sun
I could feel the ground, but I was one, myself,
As I walked along it.

I can still remember last spring
With the blue sky radiant over the fields
I would run every morning amidst the dewdrops
I thought I understood it.

A word of advice my future self will surely not heed:
Love is but a notion.

It feels like you slashed at the sky
And revealed that it was only a painting after all
The torn canvas fell, revealing the black wall
Which really, I always knew was there.

The demon standing behind it (her face)
Jeers at me and says,
“Hey, remember how you tried to conceal your laugh?
You shouldn’t have laughed at all.
You don’t deserve happiness. (you’re not pretty enough)”

So I fell to the ground (I can’t take it anymore)
And begged my reason to return
And tell me what I thought I knew
I thought I could handle this.
I thought this was just a joke, just a game, just a notion
But evidently, it was even more than an emotion.
(passion. is it passion? or merely overwhelming lust?)

I beg the earth to swallow me up (doesn’t matter how smart I am)
So that I will never dare to hope again
Or to see more than what there is in you (spit out that word- your name!)
I want to be one with the trees
with the earth
with the rain
Lying across the ground, finally, again, just like last summer
My violent, shaking sobs fall silent.

A word of advice my past self did not heed:
Love is not just a notion-
But far too powerful for you to handle.

The second one is called "My State of Being", which I wrote about a week or so ago.

An empty glass plate
That’s all I am.
I’m sitting in the dim living room
Where it’s very quiet.
My family’s left
I mean- the family has left.
I’m just a dark shadow
That lives in their house-
Now.
I’m sitting very still
Very quiet
And it’s very calm.
And tears of raindrops
Are running down the glass plate window
Silently.

I’m sitting in my desk in this classroom.
The desk, I mean-
I’m just there because of some
Fluke, some fluke in the order of things.
I can’t show any emotion
Any deep, dark, passion.
So I just display that
Empty glass plate
And hope that no one sees me.
I need to remain invisible.

At nights, I cry
I shudder in sobs.
But that’s when I’m under lock and key.
I can afford to be true to myself
Then.
In the harsh, grating daylight
I can’t afford to be anything
But motionless.

It’s been a long time since
I’ve known happiness.
Happiness got left behind
I need to go back for it.
It’s been a long time since
I’ve had a genuine friend
A genuine smile.
Any emotion except
The boiling cold darkness.

The happiest I can have here
Is a sort of grey stability.
You, and writing, and art
Used to stir me
Into passion.
Now all you are
Is something to hold on to.
Something to balance me.

It’s only a few short years,
I think,
Until I can leave this purgatory nightmare.
Let the rain wash away my tears,
Until then.
Let the darkness hold me close,
Until then.
Because I cannot even hope to dream
Until then.

Well, hope you enjoy the depressing poems, just in time for the holidays! If you want to read something cheerful and wintry, read my last post- "Winter Poems". Four lovely poems about the season.
I'll post something new soon.
-magic*esi

Slash at the Sky

A poem about anger, frustration, and inability to deal with love

“A word of advice my past self did not heed:

Love is not just a notion-

But far too powerful for you to handle.”

April 2011

My State of Being

A poem about the way I feel sometimes.

“It’s only a few short years,

I think,

Until I can leave this purgatory nightmare.

Let the rain wash away my tears,

Until then.

Let the darkness hold me close, 

Until then.

Because I cannot even hope to dream

Until then.”

December 2011

Winter Poems

Well, I said I'd post some poems about winter, and I've got three. School ended today, by the way. Fourth night of Chanukah and Christmas Eve-Eve. I have been basking in laziness for the last six hours.

On to the poems. They're about winter, but they don't really fit winter properly, except for the tanka (a Japanese poem sort of like a haiku). But they're the best I could dig up, all right?

The first one's a tanka (a haiku with two extra lines) that I wrote the summer after sixth grade, about snow:

Wild Snowstorm

White dots cluster sky

Ground dotted with wet snow spots

Wind reaches high point

Bigger snow whirls in the air

Sky grows dark as storm begins.

Nice, right? The next one is from ninth grade... I wrote this in February or something, so it's not really appropriate to the dead of winter in December, but look. It's the best I could find.

The Last Day of Winter

In the early morning hours

I looked outside my window

And the soft white sky called to me,

“Don’t forget.”

The snow began to fall

Spiraling to earth

And I feared this year’s season

Close to death.

Its last softly murmured song

Is a lullaby to earth

Snowflakes falling as I

Take a breath.

In the early morning hours

I opened up my window

To breathe in the cold, sharp

Winter air.

It was the last day of the season

The last day of the winter

So cherish it as snow falls in

Your hair.

The last one is from the summer after ninth grade. I wrote this, I believe on the last day of school, actually. It's a bit depressing but I think it captures the essence of winter a little better.

Winter

Oh, how I long for liberating winter!
That I should not stay in this hellish paradise
That the world calls ‘summer’.
Oh, how I dream of star-dropped snowflakes
Oh, how I wish for a world with silken, leaden clouds
Grey and as close above as the hair on my head
Oh, how I wish that the only green were the pine
The evergreen, the everlasting tree of life…
Oh, how I wish my nights were lit by candles, and by silver stars,
Glowing in darkened nights.
I am no longer drawn by the flashing light of fireflies
I am no longer drawn by the yellow hue of a late sunset
Still water cannot draw me from my lonely fortress
Oh, how I long for the dark, for the cold, for the winter.

Mwahahaaaaa, darkness. And I actually just remembered, I don't just have three poems. I wrote a poem two days ago called 'Inky Winter'. I was at a Chanukah party with a notebook, so. Yeah.

This one's a bit contemporary and confusing, but I hope you like it anyway.

Inky Winter

Descending into winter, dark

Blue ink black ink paper stars

Flicker candlelit night brings

Wicks and ashes, other things

Snow is white and gray and silver

Skies are white and nights are silver

Stars so small to a sky so big

And the stars of ink are not paper thin

Just don't stand so far away.

Walk along a paper road

Dance along with ink filled toes

Leave a trail of letters and words and

No one can follow your way.

Sun lights up the winter hill

At the start of a new day.

So, I have given you four LOVELY winter poems to brighten up your season. I hope you have enjoyed them, nonexistent readers. 

This is really much better than a jump drive for saving my work. I mean, I can save my novels and whatnot on a cold, hard USB drive, but poetry is better suited to a lovely little blog. Especially with the blue heading (is it blue? I forget) and a background of chairs and whatnot and a little thing at the top that says, "If you wish to see me, stop at the window" and whatever else I wrote there.

Happy Holidays, everybody! Write your own poetry, if you are reading this!

From, magic*esi!

Tanka Collection

A series of Japanese poems about nature

“Sunlight spots dancing

Golden-brown leaves floating down

Chestnut colored trees

Sit in the quiet forest.

Smoky burning smells linger.”

July 2008

(note: this is not the one included in this post, but the one in this post is good too)

The Last Day of Winter

A poem about feeling winter slip away

“Its last softly murmured song

Is a lullaby to earth

Snowflakes falling as I

Take a breath.”

February 2011

Winter

A poem about how I prefer winter to summer.

“Oh, how I dream of star-dropped snowflakes

Oh, how I wish for a world with silken, leaden clouds

Grey and as close above as the hair on my head

Oh, how I wish that the only green were the pine

The evergreen, the everlasting tree of life...”

June 2011

Inky Winter

An abstract poem about writing and poetry in winter

“Walk along a paper road

Dance along with ink filled toes

Leave a trail of letters and words and

No one can follow your way.”

December 2011

The Butterfly/ La Farfalla

This was written in May of 2011, when I was in ninth grade. It's very hopeful and uplifting to me... it represents, to me, a light that is no longer in the distance but approaching with rapid speed. I was looking for a poem to capture my emotion lately, which is that of hope. Yes, I am feeling hope lately, which is odd, because my high school graduation is years away at the moment. :) It's ever so strange...
Maybe it's that I'm still listening to that lovely song from Les Choristes...
Anyway, I shall post the poem (it has two titles, one in Italian, because I didn't feel that 'The Butterfly' encompassed it well enough) and then some book recommendations:

If you ever thought to look at her, you’d never see her smile
She’s hiding all the laughter that’s been in her for a while
Why is that she has to hide her happiness with tears?
Why is that she has to hide her courage with false fears?
The road she’s walking down makes her want to run with joy
But she keeps her face downcast, each smile quick destroyed
Please let the world tell this young girl they want to see her eyes
They want to hear her laughter, she doesn’t need to hide
The dark corner was her shelter for those cold and brutal years
But the world is now waiting for her with open eyes and ears
I wish she wasn’t scared to run; I wish that she would fly
Because the girl described here is none other than I.

Is it good? It's a little childish sounding, I know, but I like it.
Anyway... I feel I've been reading quite a few excellent books lately. So I am going to make several recommendations here, which you are free to ignore, and a little description of each.

1. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland by Catherynne M. Valente- Actually, read my review on Figment. And VOTE for it if you can.
2. The Thirteen Princess by Diane Something (I can't be bothered to go get the book and look it up)- a spinoff of the Twelve Dancing Princesses. Just an absolutely wonderful world to escape into.
3. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith- I CANNOT RECOMMEND A BOOK MORE, except, well, a lot of books, but it's got a romance and I actually LIKED it, which is saying something for me. The narrator is so fantastic. It's set in the 1930s in this crumbling castle where this girl is living with her somewhat eccentric (but totally realistic) family. It is perfect. READ IT.

Well, I'm off to go work on my Procrastination Story instead of the Keoluvent Trilogy. I am already, within days of so painstakingly making my editing/writing schedule for the next three years, completely annihilating it. I vow to edit over winter break!
One last thing, because I may not update for a while (that'll be a tragedy for my legions of fans, right?): Happy Chanukah for those of you who are Jewish, Merry Christmas In a Few Days for those of you who are Christian, Happy Other-Holidays-that-I-don't-think-are-in-the-next-few-days-or-if-there-are-sorry to those of you who celebrate those, and Happy Winter! Winter is lovely. I think I'll post a post full of my wintry poems sometime soon.
Anywho. More some other time.

The Butterfly/ La Farfalla

A poem about a girl who is afraid to express herself

“If you ever thought to look at her, you’d never see her smile

She’s hiding all the laughter that’s been in her for a while.”

June 2011

Letters and Numbers

Letters and Numbers

A poem about what to make of love and self-esteem.

“Wash away my past, oh silver rain,

From my bare-branched trees and

My dirt-smeared roads.

Wash away my troubles and my sins and my leaves

Take the dark in my soul down the gutter with you

And leave me, waiting for snow, all new.”

December 2011

Before I post the poem, I want to make note of the fact that I am listening to a French song. I feel very classy. In French class, we're watching an absolutely wonderful movie called Les Choristes, or "The Choir" in English, about a French juvenile detention center where the new prefect makes the students take an interest in music. Oh, it sounds cheesy, but I promise you, it's amazing. Everyone in my class is hooked.
An excerpt from my journal about the song I'm listening to (which is from the movie- it's called Caresse sur l'ocean): "I felt my soul rising, listening to it, and it played in my head as I walked away. I can't catch it again now, it's gone, like that melody of indigo sunset I heard two summers ago... Never haunting, only lifting, though I can't recall a note..."
All right, enough about music. (Though poetry is only music captured on paper before it can escape.) I wrote this poem about a week or so ago- more than a week, two weeks as of tomorrow. I thought it was true for sure, final, when I wrote it, but every day I call it into question. Are letters and numbers so different, after all? Why does it matter, at any rate?
Here's the poem (at last- I do talk on rather a lot):

Still yet it’s you I see
Reflected in these cold, cold raindrops.
These silvery sheets
That lit up my sky in the December city
But bear down in a haze now
Dancing on the bare branches.

Letters and numbers
Do not go together
Just as light and dark
Always fight with each other
Blue sky and dark earth
They will meet never
And art and science
Are too distant brothers.

Oh, it was poetic
But that was all it was-
The ramblings of a poet.
It was lovely while it lasted
But the leaves are falling now
I cannot love you anymore.

You are the final stubborn leaf
On the black, bare-branched tree of my past
Detach yourself, I beg of you,
No, truly, this
I beg of myself.
That leaf is but your love and yours alone, dear writer
He never had any.

And letters and numbers
Untangle themselves
From their dark and stirring symphonies
To walk down the rainy sidewalk
Wherein is reflected the bright white sky.

I stand and watch the rain
Against our nearly bare earth
It rains in December, you see, before
The world dies and is reborn.
Our earth is nearly bare, but now
The rain must clean it free of leaves
Before that blanket of snow heralds in the new birth.

Wash away my past, oh silver rain,
From my bare-branched trees and
My dirt-smeared roads.
Wash away my troubles and my sins and my leaves
Take the dark in my soul down the gutter with you
And leave me, waiting for snow, all new.

Letters and numbers must take different paths,
you see.
Take yours and leave my light-filled sidewalk to me.

A leaf detaches from a branch
And spirals down to the path of running rain.


Well, tell me what you think! I'll post another poem soon!
-magic*esi

About

If you read my over pretentious profile, you'll know more about me. But for now, all you need to know is that I'm a teenage writer who mostly focuses on fiction novels (currently on the third one in my series, the Keoluvent Trilogy) but I also write poetry. This blog is for my poetry and occasionally actual posts. I've already got a goodly collection of it so I'll post new ones and also old ones when I feel like it.

I don't particularly want anyone in my real life to read these. A lot of them are personal.
So I guess this will be one of these blogs that I imagine everyone in the world will secretly read, but will mostly be lost in the enormous shards of cityscape of the Internet.

Yes... So that's it.

EXCEPT for (this is an edit from like a month after I started this):
I have a new addition to make this poetry blog more accessible to the busy Internet reader! Don't feel like reading through all the crap I put around a poem? Too lazy to read an entire poem only to find you hate it? A new feature, called the 'Poem Summary', will be at the end of every post. Scroll to the bottom to find out whether you would like the poem or not.
It would look something like this:

Letters and Numbers

A poem about what to make of love and self-esteem.

“Wash away my past, oh silver rain,

From my bare-branched trees and

My dirt-smeared roads.

Wash away my troubles and my sins and my leaves

Take the dark in my soul down the gutter with you

And leave me, waiting for snow, all new.”

December 2011

Title, one-sentence description, excerpt, approximate date. AND the date will also be color coded. Here's the color code:

Love Poems

Poems about Europe

Nature Poems

Depression/ Life Sentiment Poems

Descriptive/Whimsical Poems

Art Poems

Manifesto Poems

Other

This seems super ridiculously complex, but you'll get used to it. I hope.

Anyway. I'm listening to 'Eleanor Rigby' right now on repeat. I adore that song right now. And always, yeah.

Okay! Enjoy my poetry!

-magic*esi