Best Juvenilia Poems

Some children sat down on the floor.
They sat till their bottoms were sore.
“We could each take a chair,”
said one boy sitting there.
“So then what are we waiting for?”


For the Juvenilia Contest of Cecelia Hopkins-Drewer

Note: Around age 10 or 11, I had a teacher who taught...

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Why do pigeon always poo
On the car you’ve polished new
Why do they wait ‘til you’ve gone indoors
Before they mess up all your floors

Maybe it’s a good thing it’s just pigeon poo
A seagull has too much to do
That’s after they’ve taken the stand
To snatch your food...

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Juvenilia
Being Young
The whole world feels so whole
Having Fun
Like your never getting old

Then one day you think
About your familia
Oh!! With no ink
You painted your own JUVENILIA.

          By: Shantell Rakuasi...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems X

These are early poems written in my teens and twenties.

Regret
by Michael R. Burch

Regret,
a bitter
ache to bear...

once starlight
languished
in your hair...

a shining there
as brief
as rare.

Regret,
a pain
I chose to bear...

unleash
the torrent
of your hair...

and show me
once again—
how rare.

I wrote "Regret" around age 19 or 20; it...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems V

Poetry
by Michael R. Burch

Poetry, I found you
where at last they chained and bound you;
with devices all around you
to torture and confound you,
I found you—shivering, bare.

They had shorn your raven hair
and taken both your eyes
which, once cerulean as Gogh's skies,
had leapt at dawn...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems VI



An Illusion
by Michael R. Burch

The sky was as hushed as the breath of a bee
and the world was bathed in shades of palest gold
when I awoke.

She came to me with the sound of falling leaves
and the scent of new-mown grass;
I held out...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems IX

These are early poems of mine, written in my teens as a high school student and during my first two years of college.

Shock
by Michael R. Burch

It was early in the morning of the forming of my soul,
in the dawning of desire, with...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems VIII

These are early poems of mine, written in my teens as a high school and college student. 

Moon Lake
by Michael R. Burch

Starlit recorder of summer nights,
what magic spell bewitches you?
They say that all lovers love first in the dark . . .
Is...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems XII

Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Because you came to me with sweet compassion
and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I do not love you after any fashion,
but wildly, in despair.

Because you came to me in my black torment
and...

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Roses are red
Violets are blue
I wrote this poem
just for you

Do you want to go out with me
it's okay if you don't want to
this was a truth or dare
but I like you and that's the truth

If you do want to go with me
meet me at my...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems IV
I wrote this around age 17.



Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch

If God
is good
half the Bible
is libel.

I read the Bible from cover to cover at age eleven, ten chapters per day, at the suggestion of my parents. I came up with this epigram to...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems by Michael R. Burch



Smoke
by Michael R. Burch

The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;
farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell
rang bells within (the din was in) my mind, and I can't say
if what we had was...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems by Michael R. Burch



Desdemona
by Michael R. Burch

Though you possessed the moon and stars,
you are bound to fate and wed to chance.
Your lips deny they crave a kiss;
your feet deny they ache to dance.
Your heart imagines wild romance.

Though you cupped fire in your...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems by Michael R. Burch

In the Whispering Night
by Michael R. Burch

In the whispering night, when the stars bend low
till the hills ignite to a shining flame,
when a shower of meteors streaks the sky
while the lilies sigh in their beds, for shame,
we must steal...

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EARLY POEMS XXI - JUVENILIA

Dance With Me
by Michael R. Burch

(circa age 18)

Dance with me
to the fiddles’ plaintive harmonies.
Enchantingly,
each highstrung string,
each yearning key,
each a thread within the threnody,
bids us, "Waltz!"
then sets us free
to wander, dancing aimlessly.

Let us kiss
beneath the stars
as we slowly meet ...
we'll part
laughing gaily...

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