Youthful Flowers
I followed a bouquet of dreams in my youth,
exuberantly naïve, assured, and coy.
I flirted with rage at the thought of failure
and turned one cheek to smile with the other,
skipping ahead without a care in the world,
as if immortal and the world were my oyster.
By the babbling brook under the dappled shade
of the grand old oaks, I immersed myself in books
and longed for a knight in shining armour to save me.
So, when the fog rolls over and the light of day is blurred,
remember those days of youth and how absurd you were
to squander away the years fantasizing about romantic love
when you could have been experiencing the pleasures
that life afforded instead of picking youthful flowers.
Youthful airs come and gone
turning heads for all the wrong reasons
painfully desperate to attract attention
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
University days of my youth
life was a smorgasbord of unlimited opportunity
~ where has the time gone?
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
They asked me if I'd ever been with someone.
I told them,
I have been with a girl.
I talked to her until the moon turned to sun,
and an absence of childhood stories
became our own tale of normalcy being absent from our lives.
Childhood dreams not yet realized,
because heterosexuality was not realized in them.
Without much of a ceremony
one day i walked through a portal
knowing everything would be different
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: 1st place 2025
She reads with voracious appetite
she has the patience of an angel
~ her future is looking bright
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
My Dream Within A Dream Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Constance La France
9/16/2025
Edgar Allan Poe: "All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream."
My Dream Within A Dream
Somnambulant dreamer,
Dancing in time to silent music,
Pirouetting arabesques,
And grand jetés performed as on stage.
While all around her people stared,
Astonished by what this darling dared.
Leaping, spinning, and body rolls,
She danced through her dream out of control.
Tumbles and twirls, tempo frenzied,
Her youth and beauty were so envied.
Lithesome grace utterly entrancing,
This young beauty caught dream dancing.
So lost in the dream, her steps faltered,
Lovely dancer, soon to be martyred.
Upon the pyre of lust and greed,
Selfish desires of the watchers' need,
Pulled against the dancer's grace,
And brought a tear to the lovely face.
The crowd's screams broke the count,
Her mistakes began to mount,
Until what once was sweet and pure,
Became something so unsure.
The dream, a nightmare instead,
The dance, a thing of terrible dread,
Our lovely dancer dreams no more.
When “pretty” really is never pretty enough
The pressure to look like everyone else is such a hassle. The pressure to have prettier eyes, skin, hair, body shape, and everything else. So why is everyone always so pressured to look different than they are. “The pretty girls have is better.” “The handsome boys have it better.” Why do we think like that. Well honestly, I don’t know because I do the same. “I wish I was prettier.” “I wish I had pretty blue eyes.” “I wish I had bigger hips.” Why can’t we be happy with what we have? “Butterflies can’t see their wings. They can’t see how truly beautiful they are, but everyone else can. People are like that as well.” -Naya Riveria. Where like butterflies. We can’t see our own wings but other can. Other people can see that your pretty or handsome but you can’t. Im sitting here writing this while im not even taking advice. I do wish i was prettier, i do wish i looked different. So why is pretty never pretty enough for anyone.
Since early youth we’re brainwashed to
measure ourselves with a beauty stick
while the real standards need to be
how kind sweet thoughtful loving we are
I’m sixty-something and past my prime
I’m not supposed to look like a hot babe
I’ve had my day in the sun and made it count
now I’m that fading rose whose time has come
A Real Bodhisattva
A bodhisattva is the Buddhist equivalent
Of a warrior for Christ, who is well on their way
To being Christlike themselves.
Of course there are many degrees of bodhisattva
From those who only have the wish to be
To those who actually are.
Literally millions are examples of the former.
The Dalai Lama is a good example of the latter.
Real bodhisattvas are rare.
Their hallmark is infinite love and compassion
For all beings
Combined with deep insight
Into the true nature of reality.
This week the world lost a real bodhisattva
In the form of a young American patriot,
Who at just 31 years old
Had successfully reached a whole generation
Galvanizing many young people
To critically look within
And embrace traditional American values
Of family, honesty, integrity, openness,
Love, tolerance, inclusivity, and faith.
And for this he was martyred.
The world is a better place
For having known Charlie Kirk.
But it is certainly not a better place without him
Unless we take up his mantle
Take the torch, and shield and sword
And become real warriors of Christ
Bodhisattvas in the army of truth.
(9/12/25)
The Burden of Youth
She was seventeen, and her boyfriend had left her
Life is more intense when you are young, she wanted to commit
Suicide so he could see how much he loved her.
Filled her rucksack with stones and waded into the bay, but
The water was low only to her chest when she reached the other side
Besides, she was glad to be alive.
She met a young man also unlucky in love, who took her rucksack
Filled more stones into it and waded into the sea, but now there was
High tide and the young man disappeared under the sea.
A few seagulls shrieked in the otherwise silent area as the girl waited for the bus.
To take her back to town, block out unpleasant thoughts, she said aloud.
My father is a communist, the bus driver who was a fascist stopped
Pulled out his gun and shot her dead, and the women on an outing clapped.
This was her father letting the red flag fly in the street of Utopia.
a Magic 9 poem
Who's to blame?
I don't know,
but it's a shame
that children suffer
in the name
of what is holy~
Is God the same
for all who show
us how to maim?
the two were a best match
opposites attract, interest meets
the two tried to leave one another but
the two were tubed
lessons learned, trials faced but
they always found a way
through groups and tribes
new faces and towns
nobody ever cliqued like the two
Our proximity came with my age
And I only saw your later chapters,
though I saw myself in you.
Not unlike myself with ambition,
Homely peers and shouting,
The weight you did accrue.
Your aims changed a while ago,
And I added them to my own,
I saw your smile tighten,
But I let my feelings stew.
Fancy chains of gold, white veiled capture,
And, yes, I hate your captor,
Sceptical of this new chapter,
and the baby cradle too.
As of now your hands have turned to hitting,
Smiles inclined to swearing,
Your son is only one now,
And our similarities are already true?
As I try to slumber now the stature cracks,
The bringer of tears strikes again,
And I struggle to identify who.
I’ve looked up for the longest time,
And I gaze into you now that I’ve grew.
The truth I’ve come to grips with now,
I don’t want to be you.
Yogi Bear to me is as close as family
Out in the backroads of my youth
Grew with me through the years
I’ll always have that soft spot in my heart
Specific Types of Youth Poems
Definition | What is Youth in Poetry?
Poems Related to Youth
minor, boyhood, juvenescence, puberty, ignorance, jejuneness, inexperience, greenness, innocence, immaturity, bloom, childhood, adolescence, salad days, teens, girlhood, youngness, springtide, youthfulness, jejunity, awkward age, springtime of life, tender age,