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"The Lonely Land" - A.J.M. Smith                -Jocelyn's poem
            
Cedar and jagged fir
uplift sharp barbs
against the grey
and cloud-piled sky;
and in the bay
blown spume and windrift
and thin, bitter spray
snap
at the whirling sky;
and the pine trees
lean one way.

A wild duck calls
to her mate,
and the ragged
and passionate tones
stagger and fall,
and recover,
and stagger and fall,
on these stones -
are lost
in the lapping of water
on smooth, flat stones.

This is a beauty
of dissonance,
this resonance
of stony strand,
this smoky cry
curled over a black pine
like a broken
and wind-battered branch
when the wind
bends the tops of the pines
and curdles the sky
from the north.

This is the beauty
of strength
broken by strength
and still strong.



---

---

Kate Van Buer's Poem                      Cinderella By Roald Dahl

I guess you think you know this story.
You don't. The real one's much more gory.
The phoney one, the one you know,
Was cooked up years and years ago,
And made to sound all soft and sappy
just to keep the children happy.
Mind you, they got the first bit right,
The bit where, in the dead of night,
The Ugly Sisters, jewels and all,
Departed for the Palace Ball,
While darling little Cinderella
Was locked up in a slimy cellar,
Where rats who wanted things to eat,
Began to nibble at her feet.

She bellowed 'Help!' and 'Let me out!
The Magic Fairy heard her shout.
Appearing in a blaze of light,
She said: 'My dear, are you all right?'
'All right?' cried Cindy .'Can't you see
'I feel as rotten as can be!'
She beat her fist against the wall,
And shouted, 'Get me to the Ball!
'There is a Disco at the Palace!
'The rest have gone and I am jealous!
'I want a dress! I want a coach!
'And earrings and a diamond brooch!
'And silver slippers, two of those!
'And lovely nylon panty hose!
'Done up like that I'll guarantee
'The handsome Prince will fall for me!'
The Fairy said, 'Hang on a tick.'
She gave her wand a mighty flick
And quickly, in no time at all,
Cindy was at the Palace Ball!

It made the Ugly Sisters wince
To see her dancing with the Prince.
She held him very tight and pressed
herself against his manly chest.
The Prince himself was turned to pulp,
All he could do was gasp and gulp.
Then midnight struck. She shouted,'Heck!
I've got to run to save my neck!'
The Prince cried, 'No! Alas! Alack!'
He grabbed her dress to hold her back.
As Cindy shouted, 'Let me go!'
The dress was ripped from head to toe.

She ran out in her underwear,
And lost one slipper on the stair.
The Prince was on it like a dart,
He pressed it to his pounding heart,
'The girl this slipper fits,' he cried,
'Tomorrow morn shall be my bride!
I'll visit every house in town
'Until I've tracked the maiden down!'
Then rather carelessly, I fear,
He placed it on a crate of beer.

At once, one of the Ugly Sisters,
(The one whose face was blotched with blisters)
Sneaked up and grabbed the dainty shoe,
And quickly flushed it down the loo.
Then in its place she calmly put
The slipper from her own left foot.
Ah ha, you see, the plot grows thicker,
And Cindy's luck starts looking sicker.

Next day, the Prince went charging down
To knock on all the doors in town.
In every house, the tension grew.
Who was the owner of the shoe?
The shoe was long and very wide.
(A normal foot got lost inside.)
Also it smelled a wee bit icky.
(The owner's feet were hot and sticky.)
Thousands of eager people came
To try it on, but all in vain.
Now came the Ugly Sisters' go.
One tried it on. The Prince screamed, 'No!'
But she screamed, 'Yes! It fits! Whoopee!
'So now you've got to marry me!'
The Prince went white from ear to ear.
He muttered, 'Let me out of here.'
'Oh no you don't! You made a vow!
'There's no way you can back out now!'
'Off with her head!'The Prince roared back.
They chopped it off with one big whack.
This pleased the Prince. He smiled and said,
'She's prettier without her head.'
Then up came Sister Number Two,
Who yelled, 'Now I will try the shoe!'
'Try this instead!' the Prince yelled back.
He swung his trusty sword and smack
Her head went crashing to the ground.
It bounced a bit and rolled around.
In the kitchen, peeling spuds,
Cinderella heard the thuds
Of bouncing heads upon the floor,
And poked her own head round the door.
'What's all the racket? 'Cindy cried.
'Mind your own bizz,' the Prince replied.
Poor Cindy's heart was torn to shreds.
My Prince! she thought. He chops off heads!
How could I marry anyone
Who does that sort of thing for fun?

The Prince cried, 'Who's this dirty slut?
'Off with her nut! Off with her nut!'
Just then, all in a blaze of light,
The Magic Fairy hove in sight,
Her Magic Wand went swoosh and swish!
'Cindy! 'she cried, 'come make a wish!
'Wish anything and have no doubt
'That I will make it come about!'
Cindy answered, 'Oh kind Fairy,
'This time I shall be more wary.
'No more Princes, no more money.
'I have had my taste of honey.
I'm wishing for a decent man.
'They're hard to find. D'you think you can?'
Within a minute, Cinderella
Was married to a lovely feller,
A simple jam maker by trade,
Who sold good home-made marmalade.
Their house was filled with smiles and laughter
And they were happy ever after.

---

Rahul Aggarwal   Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost (1923)

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.   http://poetry.about.com/library/weekly/blfrostwinter.htm

---

Hannah Gettes

Sick

By Shel Silverstein

 

"I cannot go to school today,"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay,
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash, and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox
And there's one more--that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut, my eyes are blue--
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke--
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb,
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is--what?
What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is---Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!"

 

---

Bri Kelley's poem:

Love, Pride, and Forgetfulness

 by Alfred Tennyson

Ere yet my heart was sweet Love's

     tomb,

Love labored honey busily.

I was the hive, and Love the bee,

My heart the honeycomb.

One very dark and chilly night

Pride came beneath and held a light.

 

The cruel vapors went through all,

Sweet Love was withered in his cell:

Pride took Love's sweets, and by a

     spell

Did change them into gall,

And Memory, though fed by Pride,

Did wax so thin on gall,

Awhile she scarcely lived at all.

What marvel that she died?

---

Mrs. Lux's poem:

Starlings in Winter

by Mary Oliver

 

Chunky and noisy,

but with stars in their black feathers,

they spring from the telephone wire

and instantly

 

they are acrobats

in the freezing wind.

And now, in the theater of air,

they swing over buildings,

 

dipping and rising;

they float like one stippled star

that opens,

becomes for a moment fragmented,

 

then closes again;

and you watch

and you try

but you simply can't imagine

 

how they do it

with no articulated instruction, no pause,

only the silent confirmation

that they are this notable thing,

 

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin

over and over again,

full of gorgeous life.

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,

 

even in the leafless winter,

even in the ashy city.

I am thinking now

of grief, and of getting past it;

 

I feel my boots

trying to leave the ground,

I feel my heart

pumping hard, I want

 

to think again of dangerous and noble things.

I want to be light and frolicsome.

I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,

as though I had wings.

---

Hiba Ansari

 

LINES COMPOSED IN A WOOD ON A WINDY DAY

by: Anne Bronte (1820-1849)

 

•  I like the poem's detailed imagery in the last stanza and its ab-ab rhyme scheme
• There is some alliteration present in the 1st and 3rd line of the first stanza. 
• At the end of the line, the verbs personify their respective noun.  For example "leaves dancing", and " grass glancing."
• This poem can be analyzed from what the poet sees and what the poet wishes to see.  We can guess at the wistful tone

      of the poet at the last stanza and connect it to the visible "jolting" experience the poem begins with in the first stanza.

• Obviously, according to the title, this poem seems like a moment fluid extraction from the heart to the pen.  Thus I think

       we can also analyze how the brisk affect of nature has impacted the author in such a tumultous way.  

---

 

~Kathryn

since feeling is first... (VII)

by E. E. Cummings

 

since feeling is first

who pays any attention

to the syntax of things

will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool

while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,

and kisses are a better fate

than wisdom

lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry

- the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other; then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

---

Miranda's poem:

"Touched By An Angel"

By: Maya Angelou

 

We, unaccustomed to courage

exiles from delight

live coiled in shells of loneliness

until love leaves its high holy temple

and comes into our sight

to liberate us into life.

 

Love arrives

and in its train come ecstasies

old memories of pleasure

ancient histories of pain.

Yet if we are bold,

love strikes away the chains of fear

from our souls.

 

We are weaned from our timidity

In the flush of love's light

we dare be brave

And suddenly we see

that love costs all we are

and will ever be.

Yet it is only love

which sets us free.

---

Kendra's poem:

 

 

---

Alyssa's poem

 

they call it falling in love

by Bailey Elizabeth

 

because it is precisely that -

falling.

you don't drift slowly into it;

you don't bump into it like a

person on the street.

you don't walk, you don't run,

you don't wake up one day and

say

"oh, hello, sir love. pleasure to

meet you."

no.

it's more like

someone pushed you

from a skyscraper

and you lost your inhibitions

on the way down.

you

f

  a

    l

      l

right into it, land hard on the concrete

of it, and it doesn't hurt a bit.