Best Sweet Sixteen Poems
We are young
Love to sing the red maple’s sorrow
Love to ask why people are so busy
Love teasing merchants as they crazily whooped
Sometimes we see sparrow’s head overturned
We will laugh all day long
Life is dancing with the cloud and moon
Poetry is the vintage
Drunk together with sunset
The days passed, nonsense with reveries
The old prophet read my palm prints
He saw a great success in my future
But, what if it lost its tune, just like a song
No more applause and I will be totally alone
Sixteen candles on a cake,
A special wish still to make.
It seems like only yesterday,
You were but a child at play.
Now you stand almost grown,
The years ahead for you to own.
The sky's the limit for you, my dear,
So dream your dreams and don't you fear.
For now just bask in youthful glow,
Take a breath, make a wish, and blow.
3/9/21
Written for my granddaughter Hannah's 16th birthday.
How is it going?
I hope life is still as flowing
because it isn't right now.
At fourteen, you only get faults and fouls.
Will you look back at me today
and laugh in a despising way?
What will you do, who will you meet?
Are you still willing to help the beggars on the street?
Is your heart full of passion or has it turn cold?
Do you praise yourself or do you still scold?
Do you still see the world in blackish white or reddish blue?
Do you still want to bid your sadness adieu?
Are you alone right now, do you remember me?
If you don't, then please look at the willow tree.
You know which one, it's behind our lawn.
I carved my name on it before December's dawn.
If you look at the initials you might recall
the memories you had of me and him late that fall.
Maybe you aren't as innocent as you were any more
but that's okay because life wouldn't be such a bore.
Tell me about yourself, tell me what's going on.
I want to know if you still visit that lake of swans,
that wooden tree house and that fort made of vines.
I want to know everything, isn't anything fine?
In two years, you'll tell it all
but hey, no one's stopping me from breaking the walls.
I want to know my future, I want to know you
so I will be aware of what I'll shortly go through.
Hopefully I'll get a reply soon,
probably on my birthday, some time in June.
You'll write to me and solve the mystery
that once was hope, but built your history.
~17-12-2012
What a Sweet Sixteen;
I sit alone.
I stand alone.
I walk alone.
I eat alone.
I sing alone.
I read alone.
I write alone.
I AM alone.
Happy Birthday to me...
"Is it a girl? I think it's a girl!!...Doc?"
Flowers form'd blooms from sunny Easter skies
Let's call her Sophia Pascal Peacock
Our first baby born with baby blue eyes
You were two, I'd brag..."See what I'm seeing?"
Sighing, your mother would cringe and quiver
"Look! We've made the perfect human being,
She got all the best things we could give her!"
Wisdom, passion, love flows from your spirit
So alive with drive, caring and kind too
Accepting defeat? No, you won't hear it
So...you know...we can't be more proud of you
Birth day, we pray'd, thank'd God that He brought her
Now sweet sixteen, my beautiful daughter
Sweet Sixteen
By Franklin Price
12/31/2016
Sweet sixteen is moving on; tonight will be its last.
Tomorrow is another year, today will be the past.
A hundred years ago tonight, World War One was on at will.
Horses drawing caissons on mostly dirt roads still
Radios were barely blaring, no television yet,
No computers in our lives, of course no internet.
Operator assisted telephones, used by the upper sect.
Birds were the ones who tweeted, not the president elect
My how times have changed since then, is it really for the best?
A whole new set of challenges to put us to the test.
The world is now much smaller with Internet and instant news;
Provided by most anyone, some lies, some truthful views
ISIS recruiting wirelessly, from the lost and searching throng
Politicians with their pockets full, asking, “Whatever could be wrong?”
The last trains that are running are about to leave the track
No respect is left for anything, “Will we ever get it back?”
The world is now a different place, most accomplished by cell phone;
Conversation, text and tweet; seldom face to face alone
We meet with friends on Facebook or some other cyber way
The expense of transportation limits traveling today.
With sixteen coming to an end, as the clock strikes twelve tonight,
As the ball drops down in Times Square, pray that things will be alright.
Seventeen will be another year, let's work together for the best.
Work with those who work with us, contend with all the rest.
Happy New Year to you; whether a stranger or a friend.
Strive with me to make you, the latter, by the end.
In the Year of seventeen, be the best that you can be.
Offer a friendly hand to all, it will be better, you will see.
its all okay,
its not so bad,
just take a breath,
for life be glad,
another boy,
will come along,
another heart,
will sing your song,
i know he's cute,
you sigh and cry,
but take a moment,
to wonder why,
could it be,
youre just sixteen,
your heart is still,
just between,
bursting out,
and growing strong,
though at sixteen,
you think,
im wrong.
Sweet Sixteen
by Franklin Price
1/1/2016
Sweet sixteen is finally here
and sixteen minutes in
If I waited to write longer
Would be too sleepy to begin
It's eight sixteen I went to bed
At the ending of verse one
Watching the bright ball drop
Was tiring but fun
My wife said if you stay up
You're as crazy as a loon
You can finish in the morning
If you awaken before noon
As you see it's not near noon yet
And I really must confess
Did not mean to write about myself
But New Year's greetings to address
Happy New Year to you
To your friends and family
Hope this year is awesome
Hope it's the best that it can be
May your road in life be paved and smooth
May peace and love abound
And at the end of sweet sixteen
May we all still be around
The age we call it age of teens
develops body beautiful and slim
something happens like a wandering cloud
friends are many roaming around
its an age takes silly decisions
mind want to ask infinite questions
no one can say where one go
time can find what to show
its a great play one see in genes
the age we call sweet sixteen
You were seventeen
I was fifteen
There were two
Then there was one
The One who is left
Mom immersed in what-ifs
Sits at the kitchen counter
Death supersedes life
My here and now disappears
Into your not-to-be future
Dad in pained denial
Runs another thousand miles
Returns with his pretender
Found in Butte Montana
Who stays awhile
Every night
Alone
Insulated by bedroom walls
The pain -- rebuffed all day
Roils up
And I understand forever
Mortality is real
The empty spaces
Tell me
Just how gone you are
But I am still here
How am I to fix this?
How am I to feel this?
How am I to be?
The One who is left
Sixteen, and sweet,
Danced with two left feet,
Wallflower somedays
Till she finds better ways
To be accepted in the crowd,
With those with mouths loud
Little knowing how cute,
She'd be with even one boot,
The mirror reflects self consciousness,
Can make a lovely one feel not so
Till over and over she's told,
She'll never hear it enough,
She just don't believe all that stuff...
Yeah, sixteen is hard...
Not adult, not a kid....
On her jar of self doubts,
There's no lid....
She see's in a mirror,
A monster of uncertainty,
Someone must give her..
The reality that she is
A flower in bloom
Most fair in the world
She must lose that deep gloom
Winter's cold here and gone, yet her warm heart always remembered.
On angel wings swiftly flown, gifted sixteen years gladly surrendered.
for Barbara Jean
26 Oct 1969 - 11 May 1986
She's sixteen years old
and clawing at the door,
"Help, I can't get out of myself."
Sweet Sixteen
Time to decide
Make up your mind
No time to ponder
The end is coming nearer
Graduation creeps closer
My time is almost over
The years pass like days
They pass and fade
The future becomes bolder
No way to escape
Stuck to the path like tape
So many questions I want to ask
The future like a light in the eye
I can’t look away
Must stare straight ahead
I want to run
But the wheel has been spun
And there’s noting I can do
Except follow the line
At sweet sixteen, I had a job at a supermarket
Worked after school until nine
my boyfriend worked at a competing grocery
at a quarter until nine he came over and sacked
to get me out of there sooner
People said "Joe, aren't you at the wrong store?"
This was a small town.
On weekends I babysat.
Back in the day we were paid $1.25 at the grocery store.
Babysitting paid a quarter an hour for six children.
I was not getting rich, but I was getting experience
and money for college.