Summer

Beginning of Summer Holiday 5/22/2011
I cleaned my desk,
the papers stacked and filed,
and in their place
are journals filled with empty pages;
Tolkien rests on top of Plato.

The brown leather shoes are put away,
shelved and empty,
and in their place
are hiking boots,
long laces running to the ground.

My khaki pants hang flat and still,
invisible feet beneath,
and in their place,
blue jeans run to the floor,
my feet beneath them,

standing at the screen door...

Sunrise on a Battlefield

Here's a villanelle written for my creative writing class, which as you may be able to gather from the form, is not that easy to write. :)


Sunrise on a Battlefield 4/25/2011
The daybreak is nearest when grayness is whitest
And the gray rays cast rifles in heaps on the ground;
For shadows are sharpest where light is the brightest.

He grips his gun tightly, his lungs growing tightest
And waits for the sunlight without any sound.
The daybreak is nearest when grayness is whitest,

The ground all around him grows lighter, then lightest
As he waits in the trenches with mud all around,
For shadows are sharpest where light is the brightest.

He closes his eyes and imagines a flight west,
Seeing the dawn out the window, home-bound.
The daybreak is nearest when grayness is whitest,

But sure as the sun in the morning is rightest,
The soldier stands firm for his country and crown.
For shadows are sharpest where light is the brightest.

The sun rises grudgingly, seen by eyes sightless,
And grieved at the unwelcome welcome it's found.

The daybreak is nearest when grayness is whitest,
For shadows are sharpest where light is the brightest.

Rainy Mother's Day Reflections

Rain 5/8/2011
A pregnant cloud releases life upon the earth
And in reply the ground gives leaves and flowers birth,
This rain-gift, heaven's milk, falls a million fold
And warms the earth, though falling clear and cold.
God the Father, here God the Mother, gives life in Spring
By feasting earth and all its life on heaven's drink.

Sonnet 2

We have reached a poetry unit in a creative writing class I'm taking from a Petra teacher. (His blog is here.) This is a Petrarchan sonnet written for the class.

Sonnet 2 4/25/2011
No courtiers will Lady Music stand,
Extolling all her graces with their cooing.
Despite their eloquence and sonnets grand,
Her smallest string sung trill will still their wooing.
With pen and ink they'll set down scores of lines,
Seeking to describe what none has told,
Until the final suitor finally finds
His words too simple, empty, dry, and cold.
For Music carries scents like mountain flowers
Mixed with breezes in the mountain streams
That pool and rush through warm and sunny bowers.
But fickle and fierce she soon will glow and gleam
With fearsome passion sending lightning showers
Breaking cliffs and hearts to wake us from our dreams.