None of the guys
ever asked me out
they teased me
or just froze me out
I wasn’t stuck up
I was shy
I came from China
that is why
I didn’t know the styles and trends
or even where I should begin
there wasn’t much that I could say
I never talked much anyway..
so I sat there
and read
I was an incredibly
epic fail
To all the guys
who called me names
that tagged my locker
and tried to shame me
I wasn’t snooty
I was shy
I’d just come from China
that’s the why
I didn’t know the styles and trends
that let a new girl fit in
I’d never even used the Internet
I was as lost-in sauce as a girl gets..
so I sat there
and read
Which eventually
got me into Yale.
.
.
Songs for this:
Conversation by X-Cetra
Simply Couldn't Care by Tracey Thorn
Human Behaviour by Björk
.
.
*A poem from 9th grade (2019)
** We’d moved back stateside from China so I could have a ‘normal’ high school.
*** I just added the last two lines
The V12 purred as the fireboat ran
easy outpaced the coastguard man
this time;
last time, bullets blazed
so what;
the price was raised
waiting on the rum line for a good tide
duty-free; it goes stateside.
They can’t catch us
we’re fast and sleek
who’s gonna bother at
30 bucks a week?
seven hundred k I made this year
1920, and running is the gear!
Claims bestilled north river long shores of yore,
inscribed quill while floored, dry well mirror cracked,
breathes clement time preclude stray minds the score,
crept halls, wings, flights of stares, hearts apart prepped,
Cobbled stones of years earned the weight wield turned,
Spring hast sprung that allay belongs the myth,
fog shrouds descend the lengths city lights burned,
themed century earned those writes be true cometh.
Dickens and Poe gave it a go, Stateside,
wherefore and whys -- writing -- forevermore,
Poe taxes implore, task pretense decide,
be the tale that wiped floors of blood and gore.
His parting, stretched wisdom sweetened his climb,
Sense tells in the home, was farthest to fine.
Opulent indulgence amenities
generously upload green thumb senses.
Greenhouse cautions region known as frost tease.
A pastime cores, aloof clock condenses,
held their grounds by abductions amateurs,
urged escape slips scaling agrees to muse,
as petalled lips voiced beauty needs no words,
collision scope of heaven's choice of hues,
evaporates the softening of air,
in wakes of entertaining choirs of awe,
from an arrested audience who dare,
beauty bows to its mentor ... dainty paw.
A princess Stateside pleasures her duty,
"*Oui, the winner, American Beauty."
*Oui, French translated as, Yes, and pronounced as "we"
She'd waited so long
Her love remained strong
Her man sent overseas
She stateside, ill-at-ease
The lives of so many claimed
or wounded or maimed
Now just three days to go
Her nerves on edge and it showed
Two nights without sleep
Tissue's tears in a heap
Then came the long-awaited call ~
He'd been the last man to fall
I was a picked on,
bullied, browbeaten, buffaloed boy
from Buffalo New York.
I grew up on Buffalo’s lower east side,
the ghetto by another name.
The Frederick Douglass towers.
Formerly the Talbert Mall
better known as the Jefferson projects.
The home turf to a gang
called the Pythons.
It was a place
where angels fear to tread.
I had so many bullies
it’s a wonder I didn't end up dead.
I had more bullies
than the law allowed.
I survived my childhood somehow.
I can count one hand
how many times
I was saved by gang members. (5)
I join a bigger gang
right after high school.
The United States Army,
and saw the world,
Germany, Turkey and Italy.
I met the man who would be
my Kung-Fu master,
three years later he had made me
a very dangerous man.
Back stateside I became
DJ Bobby K “The One to Know”
For a little over fourteen years,
I played the music
that made the difference.
All the while I heard the voices.
In the year 2,000
I took a course
in creative writing,
and Bobby K
“The Poor Man's Poet was born.”
Now when I go out to speak,
I mean to be heard,
giving voice to the spoken word.
It seems like it was yesterday
in backyard sandbox she had played;
granddaughter loved to have her way
with sand, her pail, scoop, shovel, spade.
She'd mold and build, with special care;
imagination took its form.
Sometimes she'd throw it up in air
to watch it fly like a sandstorm.
Fast forward now just twenty years:
our princess then, in her play sand,
now lives a life on new frontiers
soon headed for another land.
A first lieutenant based stateside,
her unit soon will be deployed
to mid-east base...Kuwait...supplied
with desert sand, so vast and void.
Her 'sandbox' then, to serve with troops,
logistics and supplies command,
where sand is pushed with 'dozer 'scoops'...
and windstorms fill the air with sand.
It seems like it was yesterday
in backyard sandbox, she had played.
As West Point grad, she makes her way
to serve our country, unafraid.
Sandra M. Haight
~2nd Place~
Premiere Contest: Sandbox
Sponsor: Anthony Slausen
Judged:10/18/2016
'You are' and 'We are' are not both the same,
In English we all play this dangerous game.
If I say you're lucky if you have some fun,
do I mean just 'you' or indeed everyone?
If I say we're lucky if we have some fun,
Is it 'me and companions' or again everyone?
This problem gets worse when we travel the globe,
and into the meaning of words we then probe.
In England if I filled my car up with gas
my friends would all tell me to close up my ass.
While Stateside no gas and my car wouldn't
run and you'd really be ill if it came out your bum.
……(and we'd really be ill if it came out our bum)
But even my bum I believe would be wrong
for in England a fanny is hid by a thong!
So if I say 'you', then I might just mean 'us',
or even mankind, so please don't make a fuss.
For I'm only an Englishman speaking my way,
not picking on you with the words that I say.
Ivor G Davies
To hovel me in your zareba is your intention
“For safety, to protect, truly for protection.”
Transparent lies I can clearly see through
And my resolve is a monolith to see my dream come true.
I will not cave, Complacency, not even to you.
Bribe me, offer small bounty, no good will it do.
For beyond you, I’ve an admirable dream or two.
And they will rise, be relevant and real, and profitable too.
In a time and a half, when this term ends,
I will be a nurse for a bit, and then it depends.
A small café, seating between twenty and ten,
I will run with, hopefully, a wife and a friend.
As the business rises and itself sustains
The hope is to gift my child café.
Then off will I be to try it again.
But stateside, no, rather northeastern Spain.
Those who oppose my dream, from me flee.
You may hovel in your zareba, but it shan’t hold me.
I declare, this is a plan, not a dream, and real it will be.
2-21-2014
we entered thee over crowded
chanook lined with duffle bags
and dusty jump boots I catered
to the rear windows focusing only
on the clearing the empty runway
invited solitude while the hearing
began in mid air returning to stateside
offered an abrupt glimpse of incoming
land while waving at the daunting sea
my heart beat drowned the sound
of unwanted chatter clinging solely
to the solid formation sweat covered
my neck my hands dripping wet as I realized
this was an unauthorized briefing
morbidly performed an yet galently
removed beyond such tyranny I'd discovered
espionage and treason apon the joining
of hands solemnly while prayers were covered
as we approached newness throughout
tangible lessons abroad