Old enough
to be your
Grandfather
Young enough
to be your
Friend
Wise enough
to see your
Greatness
Where time
and tide
— depend
(University City: April, 2025)
A star is born among teen bards
and soon he'll lead in Yale's vanguards.
Young Will Chen shines, a full ride won;
his language skills beam bright, bar none.
Congratulations! best regards!
December 9, 2022
AN: Quadri-lngual high school senior poet, William Chen was accepted
full tuition paid at Yale on December 1, 2022. A long awaited moment never
to fade from his memory. He posts at a fellow site called All-Poetry.
form: a quintilla, Spanish quintain
contest: December Memento
sponsor: Andrea Dietrich
A lesson learnt in ancient Rome:
Beware the sun with sea-salt foam
But learnt at Yale
With skin so pale
Don't leave your bikini at home!
A great man had a dream
Ending in a murder scene
And I'm not such a man
Never been so brave or grand
But little one
I had a dream
About a nation that became...
A dazzling sky
The heroes of youth
A burning ache
Resurrecting Truth
My dreamy one
I had a dream
About a nation that became...
A guiding hand
Wipes the greed away
A whistle blown
Digs corruption's grave
My dreamy one
I had a dream
About a nation that became...
A jasmine wind
Turns the air so sweet
A cleansing spring
Washes stained elites
Oh, little one
I had a dream
About a nation that became...
A brilliant star
'Bove a poor man's house
A treasure chest
Let the magic out
My dreamy one
I had a dream
Oh, dreamy one, Oh, dreamy one
I had a dream...
This shadow of a man
Had a dream he can't forget
A shadow with a dream
A nation changed, a nation blessed
And let us sing...
Lux et Veritas... Victoria
Let's make our dreams come true
Lux et Veritas... Victoria
And the dream begins with you
My dreamy one
I had a dream
A nation changed
A nation blessed
For Langston Hughes
What sends them Harvard poets
I just couldn't do it, Sir:
What sends them Harvard poets
I just couldn't do it, Sir:
They'll never give me a Pulitzer.
What tickles them Yale poets
Just leaves me sad an' a grievin':
What tickles them Yale poets
Leaves me sad an' a grievin':
Never seen no Birch trees
On a snowy evenin'.
Then Oxford poets got they poems
An' I gots mine...
So I'll be movin' on, Langston
Movin' down the line....
Michael Ellis
You would not have dared look into my face
When it wore flesh and scowled
Upon the world your people forced on me,
You sons of Mammon,
You children of Ivied Privilege.
I was Terror to the Mexican,
The name their tongue gave me
Became a word for courage in your own -
Yet you pampered ones,
Who would never see
The troglodyte face of battle,
Sending others in your place for that -
Would dare to steal my very bones
To serve your ceremonies to wealth and ease.
My skull and bones may be
In your weak, profane hands,
But they have never served your ends.
Even in death I yawn
At what you consider power,
At the piles of shifting sands
You move about to raise your little thrones.
I lived and laughed where you would have died;
The Earth my throne
The Sky my crown.
My remains are not for the likes of you,
Not pieces for your foolish games.
Gothalay bids you send his bones home where they belong
Shame yourselves no more!
Little boys,
Playing with fire,
Begging to be burned!
I died on the operating table at Yale.
My brain aneurysm explosion was off the scale.
My heart, my brain and my lungs all failed.
My life was shaken like a 10 on the Richter scale.
My life, like a train, was totally derailed.
I left my body and above it I sailed.
I looked at my body and it appeared very pail.
I heard my doctor say, "we’ve lost him!"
My chances of resuscitation were very slim
I heard the machine going beep, beep, and beep.
I looked at my body and it looked like I was sleep.
To the other side I sailed like express mail.
Upon returning, I saw my doctors assail.
They worked at a heroic scale.
They continued their work to keep me on earth.
I heard my doctor say, “we’ve got him back!”
I re-entered my body and began my comeback.
The number of days hospitalized was one-eight-zero.
Because of my miraculous recovery, I shout bravo!