Long Fifth grade Poems
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I was born on July 20, 1958.
Being one of seven children and having a mid-summer birthday, even as a young boy, it was
not uncommon for my birthdays to come and go without much fanfare.
In the winter of my Fifth Grade year at school, we had an assignment to write a short-story.
I was already in love with writing way back then. My short story was on a topic that was
very much in the news at that time and a very interesting and exciting theme for a young
boy. I wrote a short story about me being the youngest astronaut in the space program and
being selected to be the first astronaut to walk on the moon. I was aware at the time, that
the US and USSR were in a Cold War race to be the first country to achieve that lofty goal
and I knew it was bound to happen soon. To make my story even more special, I wrote that
this wonderful event would take place over the coming summer, on my birthday!
Well, lo and behold, as the winter turned to spring and spring turned into summer the Apollo
11 space mission launched from Cape Canaveral carrying three astronauts, two of whom
were targeted to walk on the moon.
As my 11th birthday approached, without any notice from anyone else, I watched in awe as
the Apollo 11 made its way to the moon. On July 20th, 1969, the lunar landing module,
Eagle, set down on the moon! I remember expectantly waiting for the astronauts to be given
permission to exit the Eagle and step foot on the moon’s surface as the hours of my birthday
ticked down.
It was about 10:00 pm eastern time when my parents finally sent us all to bed on the news
that Mission Control made the decision to wait until the next day to send Neil Armstrong out
of the lunar module. With tears in my eyes, I went to bed thinking that I missed my chance
to share my birthday with history and to have had my short story prognostication come true.
At a few minutes before 11:00 my parents woke all of us up to come watch as Neil
Armstrong could wait no longer and talked Mission Control into letting him walk on the moon
without further delay.
So, at about 11:00 pm, on my 11th birthday, the men from Apollo 11 walked on the moon for
the first time in history. One small step for man and one giant link to history for one small
boy in Charleston, West Virginia.
And, that is when 11 became my favorite number.
I faced alarming paradoxes
as I headed toward puberty.
First,
my King James Bible-belting parents,
extended family,
and all-hopelessly-WHITE farm community
taught me
God loves me
and all the children,
red and yellow,
and black almost as much as white.
That felt good
but then I learned God hates me
because I became queerly obsessed
with hot guys,
and not hot girls.
So, God restoratively created me
so He could retributively hate me.
That seemed like poor justice and peace planning to me,
and I was still in fifth grade.
Then I learned that God had given me two extraordinary gifts:
Possibly unmeasurable intelligence,
and so,
my grade-school principal warned
my evangelical farmer parents,
we were not to be surprised
if I was and saw this Earth
in a somewhat different way.
My second gift
was the envy of all good Bible-belting out and still-in teenagers.
I could sing with the angels.
So,
the God of Infinite Love
is my Creator
and I am His Frankenstein *****
with a mind and singing voice to soar,
full of Grace.
You and I might both be surprised
how long it took to figure out
Something is very wrong with this picture,
and I don't think it is just me.
It was merely everyone else I knew and trusted
in that Bible-belting time.
So I sang for them in full voice
but gave as little voice to my sexuality as possible.
I wrote papers and test responses
in full A+ voice
but told no one
I knew they were asking wrong questions
for me to answer with full-versed integrity,
Free to sing with David and Jonathon
free of magic superstitions
standing in for mythic polypathic wisdom
of Solomon
Not to divide innocent organic Promise
God has conjoined as Love
of and for children,
red and yellow,
black and white,
gay and lesbian,
bisexual and transgender
And, yes, even straight-faced
Bible-belted out and inward Hate,
Supremely Evangelical Christian Colonizing InBred Correctness,
while continuing to give birth
to hidden,
shamed and blamed ***** Grace
of a Loving God
polypathically immense,
deep and wide,
future through past
regeneratively just
and peaceful
and wickedly funny
Because if we cannot laugh at our egocentric stupidities,
then we must cry out for cosmic tragedy.
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.
Once long ago in the fifth grade I had a small vocabulary.
Maybe from the hill folk family where I grew up On Caytons' Hill. We were not hillbillys. There is a big difference. They now teach this stuff, in college courses, our Appalachian way.
My Dad had a sixth grade education, my Mom an eighth but they wanted more from me.
We didn't leave the farm, except for school, and Mom finally left a few years back, when my brother went bankrupt and lost it.
We didn't much socialize outside of our family.
Me and my brother would walk to the general store if, after our chores were done we were hired by another farmer, we got two dollars for a couple hours work.
We had all we needed. We had food and clothes and shelter and love though no one ever said the word.
We were taught to survive, but who could survive that boy in the 5th grade?
He mocked me, he made fun of my vocabulary, and laughed.
Then, the second stair from the top, he tripped me. He tripped me on those metal, asphalt stairs built in the 1800's and I rolled with it,
but it hurt me,
a joke.
Perhaps maybe I am the biggest joke around. Boy, I sure proved him wrong with all my eloquent wording and such
But when does it stop?
I'm "just me".. of all the things I could ever do and do with my best, is to show you what matters the most of course. It is proper manner.
Beautiful is beautiful.
There are beautiful cars, and limousines. There are beautiful skies and dreams, but I am not a beautiful lady. I wasn't meant to be, but actor Johnny D in Kentucky said that I was pretty. It kind of made me feel like the first time a boy called me that, and I didn't think so but I smiled anyway, because he was serious.
I got called gorgeous and enchanting, then I was drugged for sex at eighteen, and I guess I've always allowed those things at times.
I guess the best way how to relate to you now is to simply be myself.
Truthfully, you probably think this is crazy writing, but it's not. Crazy is as crazy does and I feel pretty fluff, like a cloud or something furry, ya know?
Once long ago in the fifth grade I had a small vocabulary.
Maybe from the hill folk family where I grew up On Caytons' Hill. We were not hillbillys. There is a big difference. They now teach this stuff, in college courses, our Appalachian way.
My Dad had a sixth grade education, my Mom an eighth but they wanted more from me.
We didn't leave the farm, except for school, and Mom finally left a few years back, when my brother went bankrupt and lost it.
We didn't much socialize outside of our family.
Me and my brother would walk to the general store if, after our chores were done we were hired by another farmer, we got two dollars for a couple hours work.
We had all we needed. We had food and clothes and shelter and love though no one ever said the word.
We were taught to survive, but who could survive that boy in the 5th grade?
He mocked me, he made fun of my vocabulary, and laughed.
Then, the second stair from the top, he tripped me. He tripped me on those metal, asphalt stairs built in the 1800's and I rolled with it,
but it hurt me,
a joke.
Perhaps maybe I am the biggest joke around. Boy, I sure proved him wrong with all my eloquent wording and such
But when does it stop?
I'm "just me".. of all the things I could ever do and do with my best, is to show you what matters the most of course. It is proper manner.
Beautiful is beautiful.
There are beautiful cars, and limousines. There are beautiful skies and dreams, but I am not a beautiful lady. I wasn't meant to be, but actor Johnny D in Kentucky said that I was pretty. It kind of made me feel like the first time a boy called me that, and I didn't think so but I smiled anyway, because he was serious.
I got called gorgeous and enchanting, then I was drugged for sex at eighteen, and I guess I've always allowed those things at times.
I guess the best way how to relate to you now is to simply be myself.
Truthfully, you probably think this is crazy writing, but it's not. Crazy is as crazy does and I feel pretty fluff, like a cloud or something furry, ya know?
NRIs (Non-reading incorrigibles) always start their public school careers not in August or September, but rather on November 16th, because November 15th is the day all schools get paid in full for the entire school year for each student who is enrolled that school whether they attend that school one more day or not. Thus, charter schools, which can kick them out, almost always kick them out on that day when they have reached a certain age - usually ten, and the school has reached a certain intolerance for them. I am sure they have the paperwork all ready to go the evening of November 14th.
One year we got six NRIs from the same charter school, in the same grade level, and five of their parents told us we should not put them in a class with each other. This was a bit of a problem as they were in fifth grade, and we only have two fifth grade classes. Unlike charter schools, public schools have to take everyone. I imagine you already knew that.
These NRIs might not have become NRIs if they had attended an accredited public school with standards and guidelines in the first place, but unfortunately, they did not. Worse, some of their parents were not aware that the reason they were NRIs, causing the problems they were causing was due to their abject frustration that they have not learned to read or write or do math or anything remotely school-like. If you are a child, stirring up trouble is a fantastic way to get out of class, so the students who can do things like math do not figure out that you cannot do them. I know this, being an experienced math-despiser, who always tried to get kicked out of math class.
Keep sending us your NRIs on November 16th, you charter schools, but I think it is a travesty, and I do not see how you sleep at night. Maybe paying schools a yearly allotment for each student on November 15th needs to be changed somehow? Paying schools their student allotments monthly instead of yearly on November 15th might eliminate this problem.
Edwin C Hofert
4-14-15
I was born in nineteen sixty the lion is my sign.
All my clothes were handed down there was nothing I called mine.
There were six of us called siblings we didn't turn out too bad.
Raised by a single mother, raised without a dad.
I used to love to be alone, I played all by myself.
Bottle caps and string for toys, just one book on my shelf.
One time sitting in my room there finally came the day.
My mother came to where I sat and sent me out to play.
Time went on the way it does I struggled to be cool.
I made friends all on my own and found my way to school.
Then came the day in the fifth grade I'd never be the same.
The teacher said to write a poem, a poet I became.
Times were hard and we were poor somehow we all got by.
Laughing when the laughter came and learning how to cry.
There were times throughout my life that there were things I'd lack.
The worst times of my life it seemed, poetry called me back.
Molested as a little boy there's things we can't control.
He might have stole my innocence but God still saved my soul.
Often in the dark of night, my prayers for childhood dreams.
Drowning in the drunkenness and in my mothers screams.
There's really not much more to say some things we cannot plan.
Time went by the way it does and I became a man.
Haunted by the memories I admit there's tears I cried.
Told my father died when young then I found out she lied.
Again my world came crashing down I crumbled to my knee.
Once again I found my voice inside my poetry.
Better for the life I lived not in the normal fashion.
Somehow I learned empathy, somehow I learned compassion.
Learning through my darkest days there's battles we can't win.
But you can never lose the war if once more you rise again.
So I'm standing once again through times as dark as night.
Helping, healing others in the healing words I write.
Edwin C Hofert
Tough skinned -strong, take it and dish it out.
Thin skinned - overly sensitive.
Skin of our teeth -
struggle for life, survival.
Skin defines and designs us,
the skin we’re in, through pain, color issues, death and life.
Skin-If skin could talk.
Fascinating story.
Not just color of skin but skin which is our body fabric, the material that wraps our
soul and our innermost parts silky, splashed with water, warmth, cologne, love
and labor-skin.
yes john heck this is prose but...the skin I'm in Part One
Touch comes through skin and touch informs us of so much. The way people
touch us tells us if they are comfortable with us and with themselves.
It can be hostile, strident touch; rough, accusatory, disciplining, invasive or it can
be sensual, exciting, invigorating, accepting, encouraging, loving, comforting.
Skin Talk
too frequent breakouts, rashes, allergies, sores, impetigo, suffered
embarrassment, pain and shame. Scars! Coco butter for every nick and scrape.
But my black knees and those scars embarrassing in
swimsuits or shorts
legs were scarred with black spots.
Marvin Taylor called me leopard legs in fifth grade and fifty years later,
I remember the sting, shame and pain of it.
Campaigned against my scarred legs with scrubs and other potions until the
spots began to fade and a sense of perspective...
skin challenges, burns, rapid tissue growth that should disfigure -yet the
elephant man walks with dignity and grace in his could be monster face
severe acne in the face, severe psoriasis and yet their character and ways of
dealing with these problems determine their real image, reflection and persona
life is a gift that can not be determined by black spots on legs.
To Mom Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Francine Roberts
At birth the cord was severed, though our hearts stayed connected,
I’ve seen more beauty in your heart the more I have reflected.
You quilted a Peter Rabbit blanket to keep me warm after birth,
swaddled me with adoration, for I gave you much self worth.
Toddler days came, and Kindergarten days were swiftly gone,
remember the first time I sang my abc’s? It was always my favorite song!
About the time I was in fifth grade you taught me to be a young lady,
for I am your fourth child and will always be your sweet baby.
By the time I was a teen you had taught me my good manners,
the older I became you had faith in me that I’d keep good standards.
Off to college I flew and you allowed me to spread my wings,
I never forgot how you taught me to sway on the playground swings.
You sent me off to be married with a twinkled tear in your eye,
the hardest thing you had to do, was to your daughter, say goodbye.
During my mid-twenties I welcomed a baby girl just like you had before,
I learned how to be a good mother from you, all the love I had in store.
So today here you are, a wonderful gramma to your grandchildren,
just like you were with all of your wonderful grown-up children.
Your warmth and tenderness have become my greatest qualities,
I can only pray my daughter too, will grow up to follow me.
I thank the Lord for your wisdom and faith in my decisions,
may I keep being the woman I am learning from your precision.
Your footsteps I have ensued will always be my greatest treasure,
thank you for filling up my cup and showing me life’s pleasures.
Date Written: April 23, 2016
ANSWERING AN ABSTRACT
do you trust the world not to fall on you?
i’m standing on the world, i have to trust
myself not to drop. i’m an implosion of doom
enjoying expressions like good grief, my structure
is closer to collapsing because the bolts unloosen,
thinking my thoughts are unique, sounding
like a dead man, the one who invented
the atomic bomb to protect the world from Nazis
and orange mist, didn’t work of course
nobody laughs at my jokes, wife thinks
my ***** is small and wants a threesome
with the neighbor who steals my newspaper,
the sun is dying, learned about it in fifth grade
along with putting a condom on and long division,
a little too late if you ask me, and everybody
dislikes the idea i might want to pray or learn
Korean, my life is a parachute that won’t open
i’m going down and not on my wife
people call me crude, saying my behavior
is for shock value, i like sitting naked
in my living room with the windows open
clothes are itchy, socks have a tendency
to make my feet smell automatically,
cleanliness is next to godliness and i
need all the god i can muster, why i
sing hymns because i hear they like music
up there more than talking, conversations
in chitchat sounds like static in an oyster,
can’t know for sure i recognize the world
have to assume i don’t, ignorant of the cosmos
and my own capacity for greatness, clouds
could be my thoughts, trees could be my limps
sun could be my soul, and even if the world
falls i’d have to go with it, and how’d i know
i was dropping when i would give up the ghost
before we land at the end of time because we are
booming through the millenniums and it takes
a long time to get to a floor so bottomless.