Best Boyhood Poems
Boys carry their snow sleds
up, up
to the highest peak
scaling risk
their voices pitched
chattering noise of expectation
frozen giddiness on snow packed hills
boys belly flop onto plastic sleighs
bubble-headed jauntiness launches them
lunging down, down
bewildering "swish" of speed
smashing white drifts
projectiles scattered
boys tossed in snowbanks like pizza dough spinning
baked together in joy
pushing the balance of extreme
runs repeated
brash, blunt, bold
epic span of freedom
ignoring downfalls from ill timed moves
in a lost sense of direction
gleefully tired
snow flecked
boys wheeze the icy air
make their way home
their talk clotted with bravado
beneath it, the unspoken promise to never tire
of boyhood
in twilight, the slopes gleam
gouged by sled marks
that clear a path for growth
targeted direction
and if boys fall from the path
are there souls
who'll notice?
when ruts threaten
when sleds teeter
in unruly spaces
Poem composed February 2, 2022
Some of those boyhood memories,
only so often come around,
so when they do, I set them free,
on paper I write them down,
When I was younger living at Blackiston Mill..
I had a rocking horse,
and I remember the day I took a spill,
as I hit the floor head first,
And I remember my pet squirrel,
and me learning how to roller skate,
the very first time I kissed a girl....
before I was old enough to date,
And I remember when mom and dad,
moved us to the city....
when I was just a lad....
listening to the songs of Conway Twitty,
Yes, he'll forever be missed by me,
and his songs still come to mind...
a great writer and singer of musical history,
One Great Legend of all times!
Many are the boyhood fantasies gazing into a cozy winter's blaze,
Or watching vagabond clouds scudding on lazy summer days,
Or in deep reverie with glazed eyes holding his fishing pole,
As he idles away a summer afternoon at his favorite fishing hole!
Building myriad model airplanes from tissue paper and balsa wood,
Dreaming of becoming the ace of aces, oh, if he only could!
Lying in bed hearing the plaintive whistle of the midnight freight;
Engineering that huffing, chuffing monster - wouldn't that be great!
Yearning desperately be a gallant soldier defending his nation.
Maybe even becoming a famous general receiving great adulation.
Perhaps a humble pastor ministering to his beloved flock,
Or a famous scientist finding cures for rare diseases to unlock!
Oh, to become a winning Indy five-hundred mile race driver,
Or explore the ocean depths as a daring deep-sea diver.
"Do you suppose", he muses, "that I could become a movie star,
Or strum my way to fame and fortune on the classical guitar?"
A notion is joining the circus to become a trainer of wild beasts.
Possibly a renowned chef preparing tasty delights for exotic feasts.
Ah, so many things he aspires as he ponders his many visions!
Dream on lad - you've plenty of time for weighing your decisions!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
(© All Rights Reserved)
An expansive view of tumbling sand and lasting memories
make seagulls swoop in broad paintbrush strokes
over brothers bonded by baseball and a broken home.
Within a sandcastle, two boys taste salt on their tongues,
a savory blend of pinky promises, dolphin sightings
and an acute ache for adventure.
Innocence crashes between truths untold and manhood. Whether a plethora
of clouds settle in their sight or brown eyes squint in midday sunlight,
their bare feet roam through foamy waters.
Down the beach, over conch shells and starfish, freedom thrills.
With curiosity and cartwheels, spry minds and lanky limbs,
youth salvages its adventurous spirit.
Four hands assemble a paper sailboat, not seaworthy, of course,
but fine for fistfuls of fantasy with a deck wide enough to hold their dreams.
Sandcastles and sailboats, cartwheels crashing in waves, daydreams falling
asleep under charmed stars, wide eyes seeking sand crabs -
these moments salvage each boy’s adventurous spirit in swept
paintbrush strokes and shadows of silver-lined clouds in the sand.
We categorize innocence, oceans, promises, adventure, dreams of boys
and paper sailboats. We try to soak up an expansive sea.
I hung a painting on my wall and tried to unalphabetize it all.
Life is messy and beautiful. Without the taste of salt on my tongue,
I could only live vicariously through the art.
Rhonda J Saunders, written 11/15/15
for Eve's Oil Painting's 1-2-3 Contest
Inspired by painting #1
LEAVING BOYHOOD BEHIND
White shirt 'n' school tie to blue-collar, dress-code is changing with age
From schooldays to pay-days, from homework to hard work
School bells and game playing to work's whistle and wage earning
With new mates, dirty jokes and smoking, oh where has my boyhood gone?
Seven-thirty start time to five-thirty finish, playtime is shortening with age
From footy-boots to work-boots, from school cap to flat-cap
Five hour days and school clock to nine hour days and time-clock
With clocking on, punch cards and overtime, oh where has my boyhood gone?
Sitting with the lads and a big mug of tea, some things taste different with age
From cream soda to warm beer, from tu'penny mix to filter-tips
Learning piecework rates and new skills, paying union subs and betting slips
***-packet backs, sledge-hammers and betting, oh where has my boyhood gone?
Working with Paddy in the oven's fiery heat, this is much too hot at any age
From cold iron bar to white hot, from straight angle-bar to boiler-flange
From the furnace to the big rolls and bend it, working fast before
Lift it out, knock it flat and weld it, oh where has my boyhood gone
In the Boiler-shop to learn fabrication, things mustn't drop apart with age
From marking out to Oxy-gas cutting from riveting to electric arc welding
Not much in the way of protection with no heath 'n' safety laws here
With air-hammers, no ear-plugs or goggles, oh where has my hearing gone?
Moving big metal sheets down the plate-shop, I must be getting stronger with age
From plate stack to marking out table from load stable to not very safe
Two tons of metal on the pulley, the chain slips and it's down with a bang
Metal crashing, men jumping and cursing, oh where has my life nearly gone
Day-release Thursday at college, lessons still needed with age
From going to Derby and back again, from going by bus to car driving
The Lacarno dance-hall at lunch-time, try chatting up girls for some fun
A quick jive, some posing and a coffee, oh where has my boyhood gone
Dating girls at the week-end and hoping, urges get stronger with age
From meeting up early to dancing, from front seat to back seat for fun
Babysitting her niece on a Tuesdays this gives us some time on our own
Snogging, heavy petting and much further... boyhood gone
My eyes groaned , morning arrived, I realized,
Then a moment of dire shook my entire stiff body.
Did that night really happen? Did that happen to me?
Was that a “gift” from my uncle Toddy?
I was high, couldn’t move, when he raised my back up and then
… oh no, I had to go spew.
I couldn’t think, couldn’t feel, my body was numb,
No one knew what I knew what I went through?
Then, it never happened, not to me, I was in control,
I was only crying from watching movie features.
I had to get busy, that was it, at fifteen, study at school,
I’d concentrate on each of my teachers.
Since then I can’t play footy, sleeping’s a memory,
I don’t talk to family about sexual assault.
I hate being in crowds, don’t touch me, I don’t go out,
And, yes, this is all my own stupid fault.
Now my beautifully effective tool dealing with nightmares
Is to drink and smoke and inject.
I think I’m coping alone in my head really well,
But my wife says I’m emotionally wrecked.
Waterfalls here and there sprout (A)
From the bottom of the mountain (B)
Monkeys and apes are gamboling (C)
Comfortably, somewhere on the leafy soil (D)
On trees top, snacking from the wild fruit (A)
Gathered, seemed as they had a summit (A)
Somewhere wavering on the tree (E)
I were alone blatantly beside the pond (F)
On the body of the botched trunk (G)
Which were beside the spring water (H)
That flew rhythmically in the middle of the forestry (E)
Wending, looking good bye me and the place peacefully ( E)
The nugget, pebble, and the sand was seen ( I)
In the pure water lazed beneath the bottom ( J)
Little fishes were swimming dreading nothing a hook (K)
And I were not a cruel boy to show them a slash of bread (L)
To trick and eat them for my hunger and fun ( I)
Nature was delicious by itself why i did them stun (I)
I had no girlfriend but I were loved a blossomed lass (M)
She was my high school grade mate, so beautiful (N)
A shy, not seen when she talk and play (O)
With boys like me and teenagers (P)
A virgin of the south Ethiopian of that epoch’s class (M)
I were dreaming here beyond my memory mass (M)
Alemseged’s Alphabetical Rhyming Scheme style
Oh, my boyhood love had an agony of sagacity (Q)
Wishing greedily day and night losing many sleeps (R)
Being frail to say I love you snatched the aplomb (S)
Observing in heart and mind surrendered without fighting (T)
A different perspective on a dimension of beauty (Q)
A yearning of having her, an itching of victory (Q)
My childhood village, the forest, the mount, the cliff (U)
The two lakes, Abaya and Chammo, God’s bridge ( V)
They couldn’t told me how to get the bloomed aroma (W)
They couldn’t helped me how to say I love you (X)
But they whispered the song through wind that riff (U)
By Knowing my secrets, searched from my heart’s shelf (U)
Where are you now the un kissed flower of the ere (Y)
The bud and bold, the desired scent as the Mexican dahlia (Z)
I think now, the time is go on you were my potent age flare (Y)
You are my boyhood nostalgia, as of a shadow of acacia (Z)
May 29,2021
KP hill commune
4 seasons promenade play
wonderland of friends
I wanted to be a cowboy
So I put on a hat
Yet I never learned to ride a horse
I wanted to be a policeman
So I strapped on a toy gun
Yet I was to young to drive a car
I wanted to be a fireman
I put on a yellow coat
Yet I could not walk in the boots
Each one a dream
A young boy's fantasy
Yet none of them ended up being me
(an All Poetry feat to walk in
the poetic feet of Robert Frost)
Bucolic New England, circa
Early twentieth century New England
awash with dynamic harmonic leisureliness,
when much of North America favored rustic
visual whirled wide webbed watercolor
waiting afield at dusk, the thrum
of nature all abuzz didst feed thine
dizzily green jovial mien
unlike mean Gary Lewis
veritable innocence and naiveté
rollicked with mine lanky frame
relishing ambling into my own quietude
an infinite breadth, length and scope
of infrequently trammeled near virgin
woodland paths grown over with brambles
nonetheless a faintly trussed harbinger
marked by weatherbeaten
for sale signposts
with here and there an abandoned plow
long since given over
to rust when the pasture
seasons elapsed since
farmer(s) left unharvested
fecund fields absent
the cloven hoof,
and deprived enrichment
manure, sans ungulates
ceased sufficing healthy
free ranging bovines,
where etudes punctuated
the terribly gross fresh air,
now no longer audibly quickening,
snapchatting, nor twittering
with the last word of a bluebird
deathly silence now 'cept
the wind in the willows
whispering woebegone laments
tree tops pining to cradle
idle youthful dreamers
boughs devoid of
psalm quivering romantic songstress
clattering debris merely
delivering echoed whooshing refrains
continually disintegrating among
in a disused graveyard
prescient ken aches with nostalgia
hallucinogenic nightmare slams
irrevocably shut the door in the dark
closed for good upon the onset,
wrought genocide against
the vanishing Red man,
a ghostly scarification meaningless ritual
wrested, removed, and highjacked
from indigenous peoples
without rhyme, nor reason
as fraternities no
longer pledge allegiance.
written a long time ago
Aghast
Sans shutting the dresser fast
Lest drawing to cloths to the past.
Akin to dredging up sedimentary muck
That metaphors me whence getting stuck
During adolescence – which lasted decades
each 'n to barreling driverless
heading toward
a garbage disposal dump peed truck
when me entire being felt utter yuck
Holograms of former life inhabit
childhood each dresser drawer
Which furniture about five feet from top to floor
Encapsulates invisible fractals
of me and contrived lore
Iron nick lee, the latter increases
as sands of time increase more
Find mine gaze drawn to hash marks
(from Matthews’) fingers did score
Within the veneer epitomizing strife that tore
And rent psyche asunder
exemplifying unseen civil war
That raged within façade of placidity
Hosting mailer daemons in this yahoo –
nobody could see
Re:
Clawing to cleave copper handles of me
Synonymous with malevolent genie
Hell bent of wreaking havoc
and thus clamored to break free
From shuttered jumbled wardrobe
stale garments some mold e
bereft of taking a tumble
in washer and dryer to air
Perspiration from boyhood pores,
with a skinny body when bare
As would be immediately clear
By many I did fear
Whose gaze akin to a scorching glare
Exhuming a suffer 'n soul silent leer,
especially when viewer near
Gaze glued at tchotchkes
like skeletal frame, with palm sized rear
Analogous to that boudoir – over there
Where housed baggy garments,
yes even under wear
Ill fitting hardly worn hand me downs
a haunting clasp from yesteryear!
A mind like an overcrowded nation
plagued by emotional congestion,
caused by the misguided traffic light of attraction,
just to nurture an unrealistic mission
with senses blinded by an adolescent vision
to peel more, the already growing lesion.
Causing a yearning of her attention
even if it’s just a fraction.
But this is simply experience’s portion
which will be passed by the wheels of life’s motion.
Love and lust rubbing the same lotion
confusion then becomes
a very tender but heavy laden emotion.
I'm a little silly boy hanging in the tub
Scrub, scrub, scrub got to wash away all the ketchup from when my dad becomes the hulk.
Mom came in and saw the ketchup water turning red she she said I hope this isn't my baby boys final waterbed.
Then laughed and left.
My mama mrs. G is silly and playful but she didn't make no tea.
I got a little tired and fell asleep, the water filled my lungs and I couldn't make peep.
then my momma came in and said guess I was right . LOL XD. little did she know I was very thirsty. Slurp Slurp Slurp.
There is a poignancy in boyhood...
The high voice, and ineptitude,
The yearning to be free of mother's strings;
The awkwardness of age fifteen, to wit
A boyish sullenness.
There are some things lost when manhood gained -
And mothers cry on thinking.
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3/10/2015
Featured poem of the week commencing 8/13/2017
He was born young, I mean really young
His hair was curly, fluffy and beige
His skin, for milk and fire a bridge
His eyes, orbs of fiery passion
Favoured was he by Aphrodite and Adonis
He is he that is moulded by time and endless time of daydream.
Bite Size Poem no48