Best Dorm Room Poems
I stare at my baby’s perfect bald head,
Watching her chest rise and fall,
Her precious lips poised for her next feeding.
I wonder if this is my last sleepless night spent drinking in her infantile perfection.
My little girl starts Kindergarten today,
Pretty plaid dress and sparkly shoes,
A backpack with her favorite princess on it.
I wonder if this is my last time knowing that she’ll miss me as much as I’ll miss her.
I just left my beautiful protege at college,
A new dorm room with movie posters
And everything important to her proudly displayed.
I wonder if this is the last time she’ll call our house her home.
The amazing woman I birthed is 23.
Cancer now consumes her body
And my time, driving to chemo, holding her hand, praying until my knees give out.
I wonder if this is the last treatment — the one that will end her pain.
I stare at my baby’s perfect bald head,
Reminded of when she was a newborn.
But this time I’m not feeling the joy, only fear.
I wonder if this will be the last time I hold this exceptional soul in my arms.
I stare at the lovely woman beneath my tree,
Her short, curly hair a welcome change,
Making her blue eyes sparkle even more than the Christmas lights.
And I am certain this will not be the last time I thank my God for a miracle.
To be on a positive note about VMI here is my VMI Poem.
Pat Boone was in the VMI movie. Sometimes when you
criticize something it may raise up your dander but
make you start educating yourself at the same time.
In uniform can always see
What always did satisfy me;
Keydets march with much pride
With a feeling of warmth inside.
We were all present in a parade;
Glad we received a passing grade
And another thing we must reveal;
VMI seems to have so much appeal.
In our dorm room we had to wait
Until we finally would graduate;
Friends and family had been there;
Saw VMI that is beyond compare
Kerry- 18 y/o male of mixed descent, sits at his desk in his dorm room and pens a letter to his dad.
Dear Mom, (Rips paper out of notebook and balls it up)
Kerry
Dear Dad,
Not to long ago you asked me why I no longer speak to you. I remember seeing you with this guy. I remember seeing him move his lips. I remember seeing you punch him in the chest. Then I heard what you told him. You called him scum and you spit in his face. I wanted so badly to know what this guy had said to make you disappear and have this stranger appear. What did this normal looking guy or……just human being say to you to turn you into a monster? Huh, Dad? I remember running into this guy and he remembered me. I asked him what went wrong! What did he say to you! He said: Dear Dad, I’m gay! And when I told you this, you called me scum and spit in my face. I don’t talk to you because all gay people are contagious and I’m afraid you will contract what I have. LOVE!
It seems at least one dorm room is the dwelling of a bum.
I visited my son and saw big piles of grungy clothes.
leftover fast food, open garbage--things a mother loathes!
Sloppy sons so seldom seek to scour sickening scum.
The actress Farrah Fawcett
In the Smithsonian, her swimsuit they just tossed it
Her poster was the very last sight
I saw in my college dorm room every night
Rooms
by Odin Roark
How prescient that first room
The one where under the bed
Proved private the light
Where flashlight and toy soldier
Became all that was needed
Came
The room with desk
Where locked door
Gave entrance to video games
While parents assumed study
Came
SATs where drawn curtains
No boom box
Only silence
And the study focus
Made the room
Came
The dorm room
With beer-can-crushing-to-the-head roommate
Making for final exam hell
Where stolen passions
With sorority queen fantasy
Made eating
A non sequitur
Came
The office walls
The room for fortune
Made eventually corrupt
With drawn curtains
Came
Marriage’s bed-room
That place where all became prescient again
Where a child would validate a wife’s existence
While with loving acceptance
A husband’s duty would be carried out
Came…
Came…
The rooms never stop
Some their final architecture
That of nursing home green
Other’s of palm-frond-shack freedom
Still others…
Soho 3-story condo prison
Rooms
Always unknown
Until they’re not
Forever a four-wall measure
The capsule
The coffin
Chosen destiny
One way
Or another
Villanelle for Valentine’s Day
Remember we danced to Charlie Parker on the dorm-room floor?
Our hearts were staccato and wouldn’t heed a rest,
And I read you a poem: tides crashing my love into your shore.
Gentle jazz carried us, on currents, across the floor,
Your laugh against my cheek from my whispered jest
When we danced to Charlie Parker on the dorm-room floor.
My heart was bass booms, it was something you could not ignore.
It beat with a mallet, a roller falling against your breast,
And I read you a poem: tides crashing my love into your shore.
You heard mine, your heart always singing to implore,
My rhythm was awful, steps stuttered, it was not my best
When we danced to Charlie Parker on the dorm-room floor.
Finally I began to dance, to float, knowing it was your
Heart that I heard, singing over tides’ waves’ crest,
So I read you a poem: tides crashing my love into your shore.
Our dance was a music, a tide we could not ignore,
On my shoulder, my heart, you took your rest,
As we danced to Charlie Parker on the dorm-room floor.
And I read you a poem: tides crashing my love into your shore.
Boyd and I graduated from high school
Then college roommates; we thought that was cool
Texas A and M became our new home
Bunk beds in a dorm room without any phone
It’s a military college, of course
You’re either in the Army or Air Force
And there’s a rivalry between the two
And things just might get out-of-hand, it’s true
At times, it was fun to sing songs at night
I played the uke; Boyd sang harmony tight
We acquired that Homer & Jethro sound
When singing their songs, we acted like clowns
We started writing new lyrics to songs
Making a point with words that were wrong
On day Boyd said, “I got a great idea”
A song to give the Air Force diarrhea
We worked it hard and finally got a wrap
The song “Hey Joe” changed into “Hey Aircrap”
The lyrics turned out great and was quite a slam
When our seniors heard it, they said, “Hot Damn!”
“At three AM, come ready and in-form!”
“To broadcast that song to the Air Force dorms”
We practiced the song and we were all set
Boyd said I think we’re as good we’ll get
A PA system aimed at the angle
To hit their dorms across the Quadrangle
Two speakers so big they could raise the dead
Cranked it all up till it was in the red
They said, “Charlie and Boyd, you’re on the air”
“Just give sing it into the microphone there”
We “let it rip” and everything worked fine
Woke everyone, just like they had in mind
Lights were being turned on in every dorm
Out all the doors from the dorms they stormed
With trash cans full of water; quite a sight!
An Army versus Air Force water fight!
Watched from our window and didn’t get wet
We started something that we may regret
Then we entered the Aggie Talent show
Singing Homer and Jethro stuff, you know
When we started our performance on stage
Half the audience was screaming with rage
They were yelling, “We want the Aircrap song”
We caved in and sang it and that was wrong
The words of the song were really too strong
For a Talent Show they didn’t belong
You know, I think we could have been winner
A reprimand instead for the sinner
Still these are highlights of my freshman year
I’d do it all over, let’s make that clear
And Boyd, the best roomie without a doubt
Wanted him to know, so I wrote this out
Texas A and M when I was in school
You could only survive, if you were cool
Things are so different from when I went there
I have some examples I’d like to share
An all military college back then
Nothing but males were allowed to attend
You’re called a “Fish” throughout you’re freshman year
Or a “Frog” if at mid-term you appear
A “Fish” has only one privilege per man
To get away with anything he can
If an upper classman treats a Fish wrong
“Get-even” time may occur before long
A “drown-out” is a favored revenge ploy
But it takes two when it’s time to deploy
One with the waste basket full of water
One to slam /jam the door at the slaughter
A “drown out” with plain water’s not so bad
There’re other things that can make you so sad
Like corn flakes soaked till they get gooey smelly
Or slaughter house blood coagulated like jelly
Another “get-even” I can recall
Affected everyone down that hall
Three Thanksgiving turkeys in a dorm room
Four days later, a rotten stinky tomb
There are so many stories I could tell
Some are so bad that they wouldn’t read well
Most of the years at college were a ball
But my “Fish” year was the best of them all
With precious children you’ve been blessed.
You’ve guided them with loving care.
While helping them become their best,
your standards have been high, but fair.
You’ve breathed their names in every prayer.
Your eighteen-year-old, college-bound,
is packed; a distant dorm room waits.
She says she’s ready, but you’ve found
you’re NOT. Emotion permeates
your being; your resolve, abates.
Now like a fledgling on the wing,
she’ll take her flight and find her way.
Embrace once more. Release; don’t cling!
Your love and pride in her convey.
Then—you must let her walk away!
November 23, 2021
entered in the "W" New Poem Poetry Contest placed 3rd
Sponsor: Constance LaFrance
With breathless zeal I did the deed
In this, Pandora’s dorm-room bed,
Self-gloating how I did succeed
At wheedling such a pert coed,
A playground chum, for years I’ve known
This blithe tomboy with pigtailed locks
Whose beauty, swiftly, has so grown
That I unsealed Pandora’s box.
Oh! Involute our lives will twine,
Amity quashed, once more, by tryst
And all because this lust of mine
Considers women millstone grist.
So now, too soon, does deep regret,
Companion constant in my life,
Deride this fling I did beget,
It chides me for this latest strife,
With dread it fills me that, this morn,
I must snuggle with face contrite,
While she extolls a love just born:
I see no hope to flee this plight!
December 8, 2016
Three Choices Plus Two … Poetry Contest
Sara Kendrick, Sponsor
Fifteen-two hands high, half a ton
of black horse – she bore me
through dry arroyos and over alfalfa fields
in bloom. But how could I carry her
to college? There’s no place in a dorm-room
for a Morgan-Quarter mare.
I dropped her – reins and all – into
the hands of a stranger.
Forty-eight years later, I find
I’m still carrying her
in my mind.
Dad and Scott carry the refrigerator into his dorm room
where mom makes the bed, smoothing the sheets
and folding hospital corners with motherly precision.
Corey and I sit on the bean bag chair contemplating
potential line width and dimensions
of releasing boredom and staying out of the way.
Dad has tears in his eyes and Corey whispers-
"that refrigerator must be heavy."
I watch as Scott hugs mom, then dad;
I listen as he tells Corey to practice his soccer skills,
"maybe then you'll beat me next time we play."
Corey heard "maybe then you'll beat me"
while the words that stick with me are
"next time we play."
Scott held me long and tight
like he wanted to tuck this moment away,
or maybe he wanted me to tuck it away.
To a fourteen year old with a high school career
of invincibility to be felt, four years is infinity.
A boy whoops and pumps his fist from down the hall
as we look and see him waving out a window
to his parents driving away.
Scott lets me go and gives a sheepish shrug of apology
for his hall mate because we both know,
he feels the same way.
I hold Corey's hand as we walk to the car
because that is what I need to be these next four years.
In the passenger seat my mom holds a box of tissues,
and in the rear-view mirror I can see dad's red eyes.
I put my arm around the back of Corey's seat
and whisper in his ear.
And now it's me.
I'm gone but I'm not whooping
like the boy on Scott's hall when his parents rolled out,
what noise did he make after a day on his own,
after a week, a month, a year?
I'm on my third year and I'd still take a ride
in my parent's Volkswagon anytime I could,
just to walk through my house barefoot
When Corey looks at me I hope he knows I still think
about that day we became Scott's pen pal
and each others siblings.
It wasn't about Scott leaving home,
but holding onto the four years that me and Corey
still had...
so what is it now?
I saw her to her dorm room, and asked if I might have the pleasure of
her company later for dinner. She coyly accepted my invitation.. One hour
later I picked her up. She looked enchanting... We drove out to Woodstock,
home to Blenheim Palace, the ancestral seat of the Churchill family.
There we enjoyed a casual meal, laughing again over the misadventures
of the afternoon. As the sun was beginning to set I led her outside the
restaurant and down the lane to the corner. I told her to keep her eyes closed.
When she opened them she saw a vista she would never forget;
the palace, high on a hill, a fairy-tale vision, with pastureland sloping down
to a lake in the foreground dotted with swans, all bathed in the glow of
the setting sun. She stood there, speechless for a moment. I squeezed
her hand and we gazed into each other's eyes. Not a word was spoken.
We were both grateful for the day we had spent together.
It was just the two of us. Time had stopped, and only that moment mattered.
Baby's off to college
E-mailed pic of groovy dorm room
Where she'll absorb trite and knowledge
Rib-kickin' as if she were still in my womb
Mom-love surely heart-gut balmed unto the tomb.