Long Mattioli Poems

Here are tribute poems for exceptional children and teachers who should be alive today:

Emilie Parker,
the horror grows starker
as we see your sweet image
and cringe at the carnage;
but dear, how you mesmerize
with those vivid blue eyes
and...

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The brevity of life astounds me
As I question everything with a burning need
Must it all be ordinary, so dull and transient?
What is missing, what am I trying to feed?
And as I work through my day,...

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I grew up
as the day disappeared into the black of night
As love became a senseless fight
I grew up
and left my innocence behind
In a pink-lined box
where a tiny ballerina twirled
to a little girls song
While my dreams...

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Row me out Captain
to our secret room
Steal me far from shore
Let me sit tight against you
Bathe with me in this gold-flecked light forevermore
I’ll trail my fingers through the warm silk of the water beneath
While we...

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The wind leans in 
against my walls
Tempestuous,
in a melancholy fever
It’s reckless moaning calls 
to every sinew
binding me in place
Howling to unleash me
from this empty time
this vacant space
Ripe with the frenzied ghosts 
of worthless things
And the...

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** This poem is in memory of James Mattioli, one of the children who died in the Sandy Hook Shooting. James loved math, sports, singing at the top of his lungs, and cuddling with his...

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I've lain beneath the trees as they wept
Spread-eagled on beds of wild sage
Surrounded by the brave soldiers
of fallen leaves turned crimson and gold
I've breathed in love on a sweet scented 
summers day
And exhaled my soul...

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Cracked crevasses
miles deep
Explode in thundering booms
as they spread
into hollow and empty rooms
Replacing the chambers 
of a bursting heart
with desolate echoing caverns
Splitting what remains apart
unraveling the fabric of our life at the seams
We are carved by...

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My bed is Kansas
Endless, barren windswept plains
Of empty sheets
Stretching to a distant horizon
It could be the flats of Nebraska 
On a starless night
Lonely
Bleak
So far, I can’t reach
And I’m storm chasing
Longing for a wild tumbleweed
to get...

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