Best Ninth Grade Poems
The scent of your soul
a caramalized breeze of fruit odours
reverbrating softly through my memory
Throwing me right back in ninth grade
where we sat side by side
Your right arm reaching slightly for my back
Your name resonates gently with my spirit
as thoughts of you dwell in my mind
Carrying me back to the shade
of purple grape orchids in evergreen woods
Our first kiss perched upon last autumn's twig
still lingers in early morn's bone-china cup
wafting its pungent aroma of dark roast coffee beans
and so the smell of rubber tyres against the wind
Such revoked moments of unknown danger and defiant fun
Other moments of beauty and snow angels
Of freedom and moonlights,sunrise and life
I can still recall the days,months,and years
till our footprints marked seperate paths
Ah,those days,those last hours,How can I forget?
Sweet as frosty vanilla and chocolate chips of an ice-cream parlour
Melting as spongy marshmallows and honey syrup
Fresh as the colour of every new dream which haunts me
llike an alluring glance of almond-shaped eyes
This afternoon,like other afternoons I walk to the library
which knows the musky sweat of your palm upon my own
That fragrance 's gone now,all that is left is the fading perfume
of forgotten petals between old books and dust
No one here except my silence ,and a rotten sliced apple
vacuum packed,lacking its cinnamon and even its spice.
Back home the mildewed strings of a guitar
await my fingertips to play once more
upon the worn out chords of my vacant heart
What will I play,what will I sing,a song which isn't ours?
Fermented wine I poured into a glass
Yearning to taste its purple grape for what it was
before all it was turned out bitter,acidic and sour
I wondered about where you might be,distant or not as far
Listening to my voice on once upon a record player
Or Wishing on a star ?
A repost (written : 10/15/2014
The scent of your soul
a caramelized breeze of fruit odours
reverberating softly through my memory
Throwing me right back into ninth grade
where we sat side by side
Your right arm reaching slightly for my back
Your name resonates gently with my spirit
as thoughts of you dwell in my mind
Carrying me back to the shade
of purple grape orchids in evergreen woods
Our first kiss perched upon last autumn's twig
still lingers in early morn's bone-china cup
wafting its pungent aroma of dark roast coffee beans
and so the smell of rubber tyres against the wind
Such revoked moments of unknown danger and defiant fun
Other moments,of beauty and snow angels
Of freedom and moonlights,sunrise and life
I can still recall the days,months,and years
till our footprints marked separate paths
Ah,those days,those last hours,How can I forget?
Sweet as frosty vanilla and chocolate chips of an ice cream parlour
Melting as spongy marshmallows and honey syrup
Fresh as the colour of your soul, which haunts me
like an alluring glance of almond-shaped eyes
This afternoon , like other afternoons I walk to the library
which knows the musky sweat of your palm upon my own
That fragrance 's gone now.All that is left is the fading perfume
of forgotten petals between old books and dust
No one here except my silence,and a rotten sliced apple
vacuum packed ,lacking its cinnamon and even its spice.
Back home,the mildewed strings of a guitar
await my fingertips to play once more
upon the worn out chords of my heart
What will I play,what will I sing ,a song which isn't ours ?
Fermented wine I poured into my glass
Yearning to taste its purple grape for what it was
before all it was turned bitter,acidic and sour
I wondered about where you might be ,distant or not as far
Listening to my voice on once upon a record player
Wishing on a star ?
Not for the contest
But thanks for the inspiration
Contest name-The Scent Of Your Soul
The scent of your soul
A caramelised breeze of fruit odours
reverberating softly through my memory
Throwing me right back in ninth grade
where we sat side by side
Your right arm reaching slightly for my back.
Thoughts of you dwell in my mind
and your name resonates gently with my spirit
carrying me back to the shade
of purple orchids in evergreen woods.
Our first kiss perched upon last autumn's twig
still lingers in early morn's bone-china cup
wafting its pungent aroma of dark roast coffee-beans
and so the smell of rubber tyres against the wind.
Such revoked moments of unknown danger
Of fearless dreams , and defiant fun.
Other moments of beauty and snow angels
Of freedom and moonlights ,sunrise and life.
I can still recall those weeks ,months ,years
till footprints marked separate paths
and our shared candles became the past.
Ah those lazy siestas, those days...those nights...
Sweet as frosty vanilla and chocolate chips of an ice -cream parlour
Melting as spongy marshmallows and honey syrup
Fresh as the linen of your shirt which haunts me
like an alluring glance of almond - shaped eyes.
This afternoon, like other afternoons, I walk to the library
that knows the musky sweat of your palm upon my own.
That fragrance 's gone now . All that is left is a fading perfume
of forgotten petals, between old books and dusty shelves.
Nobody here, except my silence and a rotten sliced apple ,
Vacuum- packed ,lacking both cinnamon and spice.
Back home, the mildewed strings of a guitar await my fingertips
to play once more ,upon the worn out chords of my heart
What willI play , What will I sing , a song that isn't ours ?
Fermented wine I pour into an empty glass
Yearning to taste the grape for what it was
before all it was turned bitter, acidic and sour.
Alone , I wonder where you might be
So far or not so distant ,listening to the mood in my voice
on once upon a record player, Wishing on a star ?
First grade, pelted with eggs
Second grade, broke both legs
Third grade, fell down the stairs
Fourth grade, clawed by a bear
Fifth grade, ran into a tree
Sixth grade, twisted a knee
Seventh grade, concussed my head
Eighth grade, fell out of bed
Ninth grade, had meningitis
Tenth grade, appendicitis
Eleventh grade, torn hamstring
Twelfth grade, acute bee sting...
So, to allay any fears from admission committees
I wrote the following college application ditty:
You may consider me somewhat injury-prone
But I have yet to break my first wishbone
And I give you my whole-hearted assurance
That I will use my parents' health insurance
For you, the first to teach me poetry,
I wrote a little poem at age nine.
I don't remember writing any more
till I had you for English in ninth grade.
One day when we were talking at your desk,
I saw a single laminated sheet.
I took a closer look and realized
the childish cursive on the page was mine.
You'd saved "My Winter Poem" all those years
and brought it as my gift. I almost cried.
I smile now as I vividly recall
this scene from over fifty years ago.
As teacher and librarian, you earned
the praise of all. We recognized your love
of students, language, books, and our small school.
We knew how much you wanted us to learn.
If I had never told you how I felt,
beyond that day when I was just a teen,
I'd be without excuse, but I did claim
the opportunities to give you praise.
In our last conversation at a school
reunion just a few short years ago,
I told you how I often think of you
when choosing just-right words for poetry.
I recently shared memories of you
with others who held you in high regard.
We wiped our tears and said our last good-byes
to one who taught much more than books and rules.
Sitting here not wanting to run
from eyes that shine like a copper sun.
All that you say and do seems right
Your happiness- it shines so bright.
You can feel it as do I.
Just as an ocean’s waves,
how we feel can only ebb and flow
but it never really goes-
completely away you soon must go.
We have eternity yes I know.
There doesn’t have to be any goodbyes you say
but in the end I keep telling myself this is the way.
The way for me to move on while we’re apart,
for me to remember all the help you’ve been,
as well as a wonderful friend.
But still a goodbye won’t heal my heart.
I know it’s silly but yes it’s true,
I can’t imagine a day of my life without you there,
Showing just how much you care.
Never caring what I look like or wear
Because to you I always looked beautiful.
But not just on the outside, you saw my soul
and knew how to make me whole
and then persued your goal.
That day in ninth grade is a day I’ll never forget.
It changed my life and has given me,
a chance to see how much I am loved
by a kind and gracious God from up above.
You changed my life and now don’t you see
Why it’s so hard for me?
Hard for me to let you go after all the time-
Time that we spent together
and that felt like it would go forever.
You said I meant so much to you
and you knew you just had to hand me that book.
then all it took was one look
for me to see all you believed was true!
Which is why now I will let you go trusting,
trusting that in time God will make everything fine.
That somehow, someday
You’ll be sent my way.
And hopefully if and when he does,
I will be worthy of someone as wonderful and kind as you.
I don’t know what else to say but forever and always
I love you.
I truly do.
Form:
Some thing tells me that you lie
I feel the lie when you tell me
That you love me and miss me
Do you really feel my love?
Sometimes I want to cry
Other times I want to scream
To think that you made me into a man
You’re the first that I ever loved and the last
You’re the one that stays in my mind
Like tattoos on skin is the image in my heart
You were the one I truly wanted
My only desire was to make you happy
In my arms and under the moon
You took my innocence and my light
I sometimes think that if you took
Our relationship seriously and with no lies
Symbolically you took my virginity away
In the way that I no longer feel what I felt
When I first laid eyes on you in the ninth grade
The skips of heart beats when I talked to you
The nervous chill when we looked at each other
I doubt that you were a virgin and lets not
Touch that subject because you were far from it
Your kind is never rare a player is what you’re called
I’m 20 years old single with a lot of company
My heart is recovering slowly
Only another love will do the finishing touch
They say that men do not cry
Men are dogs and we play with love
They never say when woman hurt the heart
What’s the point being muscular and romantic?
If the heart will be damaged from lies
I gained wait in seven months not because of you
I think that a girl should love a guy just how he is
Love his kindness, romance, sarcasm, and poetry
A blow of betrayal is the deepest wound for men
I learned the hard way that innocence will always lose
You started the heat in my body
With you is when I learned about dating
And the flaws of love
Here and now no one will ever play me
I don’t wish you harm
Because I love you like the world does
But what comes around goes around
It is as simple as that
I sigh as the rich man cries...
"I have too much stuff!"
but yet he still buys
I cry as I hear the poor man say...
"I am hungry"
but yet buys cigarettes every day
I moan when a teen does say...
"I can't get a job"
but yet he stopped school in the ninth grade
I grind my teeth when I hear a farmer say...
"I need money"
but yet he is to lazy to harvest his grain
I feel no pity for ones like these, for they bring it upon themselves to live in misery.
Her name was Lisa and she was a blonde-haired girl, but her friends called her Starry because she was so into astronomy! She built her own telescope at 12, a humble 6 inch reflector. But she did spend hours grinding the mirror to perfection!
She scoffed at classmates who couldn't even remember the names of all nine planets. Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were her distant friends.
hours in the cold
watching red Mars until dew
fogged the telescope
She checked book after book on astronomy out from the high school library. Unfortunately, by the ninth grade she grew less interested in the stars and more interested in boys.
Eventually, she just took college astronomy electives and finished college with honors, but with dreams forgotten. Yet, I always remember her and her stars...
lifetime
as an English teacher
doodling stars on essays
Published - Cattails - Winter 2016
We hardly remember the truth
Victims of the Great Forgetting
We hardly recognize that history is popular culture
A screenplay of the past written by the victor
Just look at Thomas Jefferson
Author of the Declaration of Independence
With his quill scribing the words, "All men are created equal."
We hardly think of him slinking back to his slave plantation
Grabbing one of his African slave mistresses
and having his way with her
His love puppet
Of which he had a harem
My ninth grade teacher (whom had tenure)
whispered from the side of his face
The only thing Columbus discovered
Was those people he called Indians
Which we now call Native Americans
were savages in the sack
And the only thing he brought back
from the New World was syphilis
We hardly look at the big picture
which is that we are destroying ourselves
We cannot continue to keep living
the way we are living
And not expect civilization to collapse
We are so short sighted
We hardly see history repeating itself
We are Rome
And quite sadly Nixon is our Nero
Hardly a hero
It won't be long before
The clock strikes zero
By: Joseph DeMarco
This is a part 2 poem. A continuation from a poem called
The Day The Running Stopped. A Bio.
The tennis racket crashed down upon him
A boy just two years old
His Grandfather came in and saved him
Before life became dark and cold.
The monster came again in third grade
Beaten for a failing grade at school
To young to even know what failing was
But now labeled as failure and a fool.
Another failure came in ninth grade
Though he tested with high IQ
But he had a belittled and tragic life at home
There was no motivation to pursue.
At sixteen depression captured his inner soul
He grabbed the shotgun to make it go away
But the monster burst in before the trigger clicked
And then there was more hell to pay.
He took drugs to escape the cold reality
To calm the nightmares that visited every night
And no matter how far in his mind he ran away
He could never find the light.
He ran back into his grandfather's arms
To the man who saved him as a child
He helped him cry his pain away
His loving touch so gentle and mild.
He found God one night when he had given up
For God never once gave up on him
He finally found purpose at 27 yrs old
When gods light made him alive again.
Twilight, with its soft light,
Its faint quiet shadows,
Falling on the hillsides,
The mountains, the meadows,
Brings to me such deep thoughts,
Such philosophic notions,
That I sometimes imagine
At daylight's cessation
What I would see
If I saw with God’s eye.
See all the atoms
And see all the stars,
See all the peasants
And see all the Tsars.
See all the peoples
Who live on the Earth.
See their life as remembered
From their moment of birth;
All the small memories
That make up their past:
Their teacher at her desk
In ninth-grade French class;
The sun on the leaves
That they saw as a child;
The wind in the trees;
That day a son smiled.
Memories no one but they
Can ever experience,
As we’re locked inside skulls
And mostly oblivious
To the vast inner lives
Of each one around us.
So as day draws to night
And the sunlight fades,
As I drift through my daydream
And wander through glades,
I imagine my life
Multiplied by the billions
If I could see even dimly
By a god’s holy vision,
And then by more billions
By all those who’ve died;
The immense web of memories
That surround us but reside
Always and forever
Just out of reach.
Her name was Lisa and she was a blonde-haired girl, but her friends called her Starry because she was so into astronomy! She built her own telescope
at 12, an humble 6 inch reflector. But she did spend hours grinding the mirror to perfection!
She scoffed at classmates who couldn't even remember the names of all nine planets. Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were her distant friends.
hours in the cold
watching red mars until dew
fogged the telescope
Her fourth grade teacher, knowing of her interest in astronomy took her to the high school library which had more astronomy books. She checked book after book out. Unfortunately, by the ninth grade she grew less interested in the stars and more interested in boys.
Eventually, she took college astronomy electives and finished college with honors, but with dreams forgotten. Yet, I always remember her and her stars. . .
lifetime
as an English teacher
doodling stars on essays
Published Cattails - Winter 2016
Bury Me Standing
(Finally found the poems I wrote when was 14.)
Britt Bailey was Kentucky born,
Left that state with wrath and scorn
Then he took to politics it's told
With a gun was brash and bold.
Britt and his rival had feuded so
For their guns they both did go
Britt shot man died and ran away
Rode to Texas and there did stay.
John Austin gave to Britt some land
Thinking that Britt was a gentleman
Family came and they settled down
He built the biggest ranch around.
For Judge, Britt had decided to run
Austin's learned by him what was done
And away they tried to take his land
Britt formed a group to take a stand.
Britt bravely made vow and this did say,
"On day when I die I will never lay;"
John shot Britt who had grasped a tree
Slowly died standing there would he.
So buried standing he still must be
Green light in shadow you can see
And often ground rumbles for a spell
Britt's been target practicing in hell.
James Thomas Horn, Retired Veteran
I was 14 in the ninth grade when I
wrote this a year before my dad died.
She often spoke of her past and the mistake she had made
The shadow that it cast in allowing herself to so be swayed
She had lamented it so often as even the tears still flowed
In telling those young women, it was reality that showed
That was the easy part, standing up there telling her story
In just speaking from her heart for the sake of God's Glory
But when she was alone they were the toughest times of all
Even in His Light Shone she couldn't forgive her own fall
There again in front of a crowd the tears welling in her eyes
Her voice echoing so loud in now so clearly seeing those lies
Seeing all those young faces and all that might have been
For in Gods Grace perhaps another might avoid such a sin
So there again she'd stand this time it was the ninth grade
Working with God's Hand helping the one who had strayed
As they stood to leave out with a new thought on their mind
But at least where was once doubt the truth they can now find