Best Pre Teen Poems
There aren’t too many jobs that kids can do
when they are in their pre-teen years, but we
knew of a place to work where berries grew.
To pick them was a job of misery.
In June, my siblings and I went each day;
into a field with hats and pails we’d go!
On hands and knees, through dirt we’d crawl our way
while picking berries up and down each row.
I still recall the rock ‘n roll we played -
our only pleasure as we all perspired
in Iowa’s damp heat, away from shade.
When we were through at last, we felt so tired.
No smaller pay have I since ever got.
But how I loved the treats that money bought!
Going through some old things that just had to go,
I came upon something that nearly got tossed.
Memories came to me from long ago. . . .
I thrilled that my treasure was no longer lost.
Toys come and toys go. In the 60’s, one fad
was to own an odd doll not seen much today.
This doll had long hair and was scantily clad
but wasn’t a Barbie with which I would play!
Its body was squat and it had a pug nose.
I probably loved it because it looked droll.
Its hair could be orange, green, yellow or rose,
but if you don’t know yet, that doll was a troll!
How I wish I could dredge up some memory
to know what was happening inside my head
as a pre-teen with friends and what it might be
that we did with those dolls and what fun things we said!
The trolls that I owned must have been at least four -
both sexes so they'd make a small family -
their hair different hues, each a doll to adore.
But one day they no longer mattered to me. . .
I can’t say where all of my playthings got stashed.
When I left for college, they vanished from view.
But knowing my mom, they must have got trashed.
She doesn’t hang on much to things like I do.
Now four decades later, I looked at my prize,
bare naked and smudged but its hair still jet black.
It stared up at me with its cute amber eyes.
I couldn’t believe how I got that thing back!
It somehow had ended up in my new state.
Good luck for that troll, I throw few things away!
That doll would be learning soon of its new fate
and meet other troll dolls with whom it would stay.
Just like Peter Pan, I refuse to grow old,
and new trolls I’d bought with long bright spiky hair
when troll dolls again in the 90's were sold!
But I had to recall where I’d stored them….. oh, where??
(I found the dolls and added the old one to the new collection,
but my daughter's family moved in with me a few months ago.
My daughter is a clean freak like MY mom is (apparently it skips
a generation or something), and my daughter took my troll dolls
and put them out of sight somewhere so currently they are floating
around who knows where!
For Paula Swanson's "Yard Sale" Contest
The last time I had seen this particular cousin of mine, I was still in college and he had a head full of hair. In between, there had been three funerals, two weddings and four births in our Trojan royalty of a family. I had been a university graduate for a year, and the prospect for a job, a decent one at that, had started to grow dimmer by the day. He asked, “Will you tutor my daughter?” “Yes!” I said. And we set out immediately. He, on his bike and I, on my motorcycle following him. We took a right turn at the famous landmark of the statue of demoness Putana, sitting on the grass with her bosom out and legs spread forward. He introduced me to his wife and daughter. Telling them to stand side by side, he told me, “She's only eleven, but look at her! Already equal in length and width to her mother, who is no delicate petal herself. Do you think you can teach her GK?”
The universe wasn't made with dissent. Plus, the chicken samosas were really delicious. I tried on a grin while the overachieving pre-teen bustled around the room showing me her accolades for painting, singing, studying. As I left he pointed at a tree, “Do you know what tree is that?”
“Bael?” I answered thoughtfully.
“Apple. That's an apple tree.”
“Oh! Does it bear fruits?”
“Not in this climate!” He laughed out loud.
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Date: 30 / 11 / 2016
Contest: James Tate
Sponsor: Space Cadet
Forgotten field of forever - I knew you once . . .
in daffodil days when I wandered in wisteria ways.
Sprightly I skipped and rarely tripped.
Hope really did spring eternal then
in the spring of my strawberry youth.
Dahlia daydreams drifted often like dandelion fluff
through the corridors of my mind - a mind not yet tainted by
taxing times inevitably to come as faster and faster
I would speed along my path of life.
Like a gamboling lamb, fresh, frisky and free-spirited,
I faced my own little fun and frivolous world.
Hardly was I heedful of the woes of those
forced to fight in foreign fields across the ocean,
in a nation where peace was hardly known.
In killing fields the most innocent of citizens
were pawns of a futile war. Such things did not enter
my pre-teen mind. I was but a child.
Sachet sweet were my springs
and sassy sassafras my summers.
In back-to-school autumnal afternoons
I fled home to fields of happy play,
never with a thought given to the heartache of mothers
whose soldier sons were lost to bullets or bombs.
I sleepwalked cluelessly through a decade of war
far removed from me as I played games of pretend
with equally clueless friends.
Blissfully we skipped our ropes and chattered merrily
like monkeys in the school yard.
So innocent was I then that barely can I bring back
those sun-filled daffodil days to my recollection.
In too short time, my grand little dreams of long ago
wafted upward to a cumulus of forgetfulness.
No more do I lay myself down in grass
to look up at diamond-studded skies
or drift into slumber with visions of the visages
of my juvenile crushes while cheesy 60’s love songs
linger softly on my radio. Those faraway times are
as forgotten as the lives that vanished in Nam.
They can only belong to the forgotten field of forever.
Day one out of the womb – had a full crop of hair,
black like my daddy’s (it later went more fair).
Early childhood – Mom kept my brown hair short
because I’d twist it into knots. What a silly sport.
Peanut butter and some gum in my hair might stick.
Never a long hair style could I ever pick.
Pre-teen years – at last I saw my dark hair grow.
Pony tails and pig tails were ways my hair might show.
Junior High, late 60’s, hair piled high like a hive.
A wonder that no bumble bees were seen in there alive.
My hair was also parted always on one side.
I’d wear curlers in a store. Did I have no pride?
High school days – hair longer. In boring math at school,
I sat there pulling off split ends. Must have looked a fool!
College days – used a cheap product from the store.
“Sun-In” gave me reddish-blonde. I used it four times more.
The 80’s – got a perm. The curls were tight. Had oodles.
Now I can have sympathy for cockapoos and poodles.
90’s – used extensions. A lot of folks I fooled.
Strawberry blonde seemed to be the color then that ruled.
New century. New color. My hair was very blonde.
There were two guys in a tram in Rio that I conned.
My friend who looked American knew every word they stated.
About my natural color those guys in Portugese debated.
They finally decided my blonde was natural.
I got a kick out of those young fellows’ folderol.
Later on, my hair got over-bleached. I showered, and
lots of strands of it crumbled right into my hand.
After that, while growing out dark roots about two years,
I wore a wig until uncolored hair went past my ears.
A co-worker , not knowing I wore a wig at school,
told me that my hair had never looked so cool!
By 2010, my hair was in a rut.
Only one side of it grew, so I’d always get it cut.
Turned 60 and got cancer. Ate better to be stronger.
Miraculously my hair AND nails grew a whole lot longer.
Since then till now, my daughter’s been my dear beautician.
She keeps the gray away and my hair in good condition.
Were my hair not dyed, salt and pepper it would be.
I love my gold-like hair, thick, and long and wavy.
Some people think a woman of my age should wear a shorter “do.”
Decades it took to get this look, so NO (and I’ll keep my cute bangs too!)
As a child I would never have abandoned
my family, my friends, or my dolls.
As a pre-teen the dolls were put away with reluctance,
because I never wanted them to feel abandoned.
As a teenager I realized I had to abandon
some friends, in order to save myself.
It was not easy, but it was either them or me,
and people become sad when they abandon themselves.
As a woman in love, and a young mother,
I decided to abandon all things that did not aid in my goals.
I abandoned people, places, and things right and left,
in order to be the happiest me I could be.
I am an expert at abandoning things now. I abandon everything
and everyone who takes away from me.
Because I never want to abandon myself.
Written July 15, 2018
Entered: Contest Abandon 2
Sponsored by Brenda Chiri
Age is over rated
I went from cute and cuddly
To terribly two
In the flip of a calendar
From being inquisitive
To being nosey
From pre-teen
To A TEENAGER
Meandered
Through the military
Into construction
And against the Vegas spread
Married
And became a father
AGE
That sly bastard
Has made me
A grandfather
And a great grandfather
I have taught them all
To spit, to curse,
To love
Even the seemingly
Un-lovable
Age has slowed me down
Stolen my fastball
It has not been able
To wither my wit
Stifle my laughter
Or contain my enthusiasm
I still laugh
Too loud and too often
Too frequently at the “wrong” things
The children and grandchildren
Share their “Papa stories”
Most include mud puddles
A few scars from the jungle bars
H U G E….ice cream sundaes
Getting hit by a baseball
He threw to show you
It wouldn’t hurt that much
To get hit by the pitch
I may be getting “old”
But age had better be ready
When I round third
Headed for home
He’d better be holding the ball
With both hands
Cuz there will be
A collision
Before I’m
Called… “OUT”
Cruise ships appear over the horizon
As white
As the crest of tidal waves
Surging to harbor
No I said
To hell with cruise ships
To ride inside a machine
My wife and I
Prefer
To sit beside
The purr of ocean with opened books
Sun on our shoulders all day
A mom in a string bikini
Wrestling her morning pre-teen by his neck
With applied sunscreen
At low tide
I walk half a mile out to sea
On my knees
My wife watches me
A Royal Tern with a black tuft atop his head
Pesters a female until she is exhausted
Or that annoyed
She looks him in the eye
Then lifts her legs
And flies
As fast as her wings will carry her
Straight out to sea
And as far as I can see
She never turns around or looks back
But he pursues
Blind to her wake
He will follow
Over metal ships and the flesh of the horizon
Over the humpbacks of the spouting waves
He will follow her to where the sun and moon
Are born each day
He will follow
To that round shore of the tired spent and nests
Until she rests
And turns to him
Come my love come with me
Let us be one with the sea.
I lived out loud, so they must have seen,
But they don’t know me, no one does.
The few I let in, must not have been
The ones I really needed,
I discarded them as lessons learned
– to burn lest I get burned.
My too-long life’s sad error was
Thinking that age would narrow the scope,
When looking back through dwindled hope,
I ken the opposite was truth.
Through backwards time I haven’t changed
But relationships quite early on
Seem somehow more significant,
Like my earliest encounters went.
How well he knew my own true self
The 2nd grade bully who tried for tears
But got instead a verbal slam.
‘Cuz bully power runs on fears
And injustice made me mad not scared,
It sucked the air from his balloon
And left me stronger in my room.
The fifth-grade kid who rode the bus
In Special Ed. for poverty.
A family of 10 in a two room shack
Just two stops from our farm
He always sat alone – even when by journey’s end
Some bench seats had three kids in them
The teasing, taunting pre-teen kids
Would often say ‘He smells.” (he did)
His clothes were rarely clean
His body often lacked hygiene.
I’ll never know what made me ask to sit
That first time while those kids looked on,
But he said “Sure.” And moved his books.
And we were friends a full school year
Until I moved, but once while in the recess yard
Another bully taunted me – for playing with the ‘retard’
Notwithstanding his ignorance,
The gross misdiagnosis (and lacking sensitivity)
I won again the verbal spar,
and his bruised ego demanded physicality,
So to the ground he pushed me.
Two hands, my butt and feet upon the ground
I sat in puzzled wonderment as my new friend took two steps up
And pushed the bully to the ground eliciting calls for teacher’s help
The duty teacher saw this last act
And grabbed my friend each hand to arm
Roughly shaking, while proclaiming,
Misbehavior yields punishment… and off to the principal’s office he went.
But I jumped up before he left,
Confronted the teacher with her unjust act,
And instead of justice I too went.
My life is filled with things like this.
Mostly short encounters and randomness,
But those are the ones who knew me best.
(Subjective Poem)
New Years comes around way to soon each year.
There is so much to do and never enough time.
I usually don’t make resolutions because –
I NEVER have been able to keep them.
I wish for many improvements in my life.
For starters I want to start working in the yard again.
But that is not all. The usual things come to mind like:
Eat healthier; lose weight, which I have given up on,
And get back to the basic things that I love doing,
such as: writing poetry, painting pictures,
playing with Photoshop, taking more photographs,
and enjoying my senior life even with 4 children to raise.
There are some resolutions that I really should work on,
such as: Potty training the toddler and baby –
Being consistent at following through
with consequences , even when I am tired,
when the teen and pre-teen skip tidying,
say naughty words, pick on each other,
or try to get out of chores.
But I have decided, instead to make
New Year’s Resolutions
That I know I can keep. (Is that cheating?)
I resolve to:
1. Never climb down in the huge sinkhole again.
2. Stay off of the children’s twisted slide.
3. I won’t speed down the hill on the John Deer mower.
(I’m not sure I can keep that one. Lol)
4. I won’t climb trees without a ladder.
5. I won’t watch any X-rated movie except:
The Passion of Christ, Shindler’s List,
And the Pirate Movie with Gena Davis,
6. I will not eat hominy.
That’s about it! Happy New Year! (This was fun.)
12/26/2016
SMILE
There was a pretty girl who never did smile;
Her annoying braces were hidden for a while.
When she was a pre-teen,
Her pale legs were never seen.
In adolescence, she hid all her glasses.
Unable to see well, did poorly in classes.
As an adult she refused to walk very far,
If she were to fall, there might be a scar.
At retirement age people would say,
“Give us the secret of looking your way.”
She proudly said, “As to wrinkles there’s not a trace;
Since I never smiled there’s not a line on my face.”
B. Campbell
My Favorite Pet
I was a lanky pre-teen
with course, thick blond hair
on that hot summer day
when mom, sister and I
rode in our station wagon of gray
to see our potentially new Collie pup
A mere 4 months old
love pouring out of her eyes
as she ran up
A thick, shiny fur coat
and 4 toothpick legs
Like a connection I never felt before
in so many ways
For 7 wonderful years, Shelby brought light
to my darkest of days
took "me" for long walks
slurping cooked noodles the craze
all the neighbors knew Shelby
on Mulberry Lane
Towards the end of Shelby's days
her light started to dim
I knew the end was near
as tears poured from my red. swollen rims
16 years later...the course, thick hair and lankiness gone
her unconditional love lives in me
and I no longer feel alone.
Pick A Pet Contest - sponsored by Francine Roberts 7/5/2011
It is skimpy
But not indecent
It looks fabulous on a pre-teen
But do not get any ideas
Because that would be creepy
Old women look better in a one piece
And if they are wide they sometimes do better with a skirt
Bikinis are not for everyone
But when I see a yellow polka dotted one,
Look out.
My singing voice comes out
And I am no Brian Hyland
A baby in a dream recognized by a smile
A kids playground at square inch
A pre-teen ac-knowledge with knowledge of what's to come
A teen wonders inside his circle most trustful desires
An adult to reach a full potential in a concrete world
An old man nor bitter nor exhausted of a beautiful existence and afterlife.......
When I was eight years old, Nancy a stringy-haired blond, chose me to be her playmate. She idolized horses and always played "horsey" with me. Since I didn't know a horse from a dog in those days, the game was mostly Nancy acting like a horse and me standing around like "a bump on a log," and watching her prance around. She knew all the horse sounds too and what they meant: the neighing, nickering, snorting and sighing.
recess
kids swing laughing at us
bell rinngs
She was a gifted artist recognized for her drawings and one of her horse portraits won a regional contest! She also wrote poetry about horses--strikingly good for a pre-teen I never forgot her even though our friendship waned as we got older. I would write her a sonnet years later. . .
well endowed
older teen boys chased her
for a feel