Poetry

N.D. Fitzgibbon: Αυτή

Her hands like fire as they dance along my skin. I am Icarus. 

 The rays I follow higher still. I must come down, yet I yearn to reach the sun.

 I chase the warmth that will surely burn me. 

Her song, like that of a siren, beckons me, and soon I am Odysseus, inconsolable under her soft notes. 

I wish to be untied, so I may venture into those waters. 

Pleading, the chill that lingers, sapphire and emerald waters, now turbulent, beckon me.

 I wish to be filled. Consumed. 

I am Orpheus, forever reaching for what I may not have. 

She is Eurydice, slipping from my grasp, and my body ensnared with the concept of her.

Hudson Hartin: The Flower

A budding flower in the sunlight,

In the bud there is so much potential.

The flower wants to rise to such a height,

It really thinks it's essential.

But the world is lurking in the dark,

Very ready to give its nasty remark.

The bud opens and grows,

For this bud is brave.

This bud may grow slow,

But this bud will pave a way.

Many looked up to the bud,

They knew that this was not a dud.

The flower grew old and frail

And the world in the dark let out its nasty remark

The flower felt like it had failed,

But it had really lit a spark.

The flower died with grace.

And three others took its place.

Sophia Herrimaen: On a Cold, Starry Night

On a cold starry night 

Different, like no other 

The night so cold but feeling warm and tender

As I drift off, I watch the stars

Seeing all the hundreds of thousands of moons and stars,

Hoping something will know where we are

Frankie Lesieur: The Angry World

The hummingbird sings peacefully

In the trees.

But I am not the peaceful hummingbird.

I am the unfriendly deer

Eating them frequently in the woods.

And I know how to fight. 

Landon Lindsen: The Shape of a Tear

You 

know, 

there

was

 a study

on tears

They looked 

at the tears

 under a microscope 

and depending on the 

emotion, they looked different.

Tears of grief, and of joy, and of laughing,

Makes me wonder, what shape are my tears?

What shape are the tears I cry when I hear of a shooting

What shape do the tears of the dead take? Their final tears

cried as they sit, waiting to be shot, any breath could be their last 

texts, sent to their family, telling them they love them, their final words.

What shape will their screams take, as they cry out for help before being shot.

What shape will the cry for change take, as it falls flatly to the floor. Silenced. 

What shape will the photos of the shooter take, forever immortalized in history.

What shape will empty promises of politicians take, claiming they want change

What shape will the anxiety of students take, going to school wondering if today

If today will be the day they die. Turned, in an instant, into just one more statistic

one more life, brought to a close at the end of a barrel, with one pull of a trigger

Its honestly just become another part of life, we hear on the news that there's

been another shooting. More students dead. More numbers for the statistic

And as this happens, politicians are more worried about banning an app

They’re more worried about stealing women's rights from them

More worried about people living as their true self.

More worried about power and control and-

It makes me sick.

Landon Lindsen: Our Exxon-infested Seas

Speaking of sick

things and such.

How sick are our

Oceans?

How sick do we make them

With our plastic? With our pollution?

How sick do we make the animals that live?

That crawl on the ground, or fly through the air?

The ones that swim through our Exxon-infested seas

The ones that we hunt in mass for food? The ones we torture

How sick are we? Filled to the brim with plastics and sickness

How sick is the executives' greed? Destroying worlds for money

How sick am I? For not trying hard enough to make any change. 

How sick is my family? For being tricked into believing it’s all fine.

That the government has it all under control? I scoff at that idea.

I can tell you that one thing with certainty. They absolutely do not. 

They do not have the wars under control. The threat of bombs.

So it is with the utmost certainty that I tell you today. They don't.

How sick are the people who throw their trash to the ground?

And what can I do about it? Pick up a piece of trash? Another?

For every piece of trash I pick up hundreds more are thrown away.

For all the plastic removed from the ocean, tons more get tossed in.

What's the point if by the time I'm thirty the world will be dead? 

Birth rates are declining, who wants to bring a kid into this world. 

This excuse of a country, let's be honest, of a planet. It's all we have. 

So why don’t we take care of it? Why are we letting our home die?

I don’t know why we act like we’re going to get a second chance. 

Because we aren’t, this is our one shot and we are throwing it away. 

It makes me sick to think that we are cancer to our home, our earth. 

But there’s nothing I can do. I can’t vote, people don't think I’m smart

Even you hearing this speech or reading this poem probably don’t.

Because why would you listen to me, I'm just a kid. What do I know?

Enough to choose what job I want, what college to go to, everything.

But not to make comments on the bigger issues. That's for grownups. 

The same grownups that are leaving behind a broken tainted world.

The same grownups who are giving me this rotten, putrid inheritance.

Leaving behind their issues for me to fix. The ones that they couldn’t

Well, let's be clear here, the ones they wouldn't. Because they could. 

If they wanted to, they could fix this. But they won’t. It’s not profitable.

What's life worth if you're not rich beyond your wildest imagination.

What’s life if you don’t ruin the world for those who will come next.

Apparently nothing, because that's what's happening. 

Myla Dorian Moon Nickel: Guilt

A feeling like lead

pulling me

down towards the earth

this is

the internal punishment

of

unspoken apologies.

Myla Dorian Moon Nickel: Anger

On the precipice of an explosion

Water boiling, about to spill over

A heated energy longing to break free

But still

I try

To keep it trapped 

within me.

Violet Sherrill: Why Is Pollution So Pretty?

Pretty like fire

Pretty like chemicals 

Why is pollution so pretty?

Does it just have a sense of…

Familiarity?

There is almost comfort in him

Am I just used to it?

Why is pollution so pretty

Is it really pretty

Or am I just plagued by my own

Ignorance?

Why is pollution so pretty?

Rollin Shively: Starting Over Hurts

Starting over hurts–

Above, the blackbirds scouring,

to dig through my past.

Karlee Turner: The Flame

A fire burns peacefully in its forest 

starting off as a single almost innocent flame,

 like a grain of rice in a void of space

People don't like fire 

People like sunlight 

Sunlight is beautiful until people disgust and fear what comes.

When you add too much 

When you give a fire water it turns to steam

When you give fuel to a fire it rages burns

A fire needs three elements to survive:

Heat, Fuel, and Oxygen

A fire with too much oxygen becomes unmanageable 

Things need balance:  

Deprive a fire of oxygen, it disappears.

This isn't about fire.

 There goes my spark. 

Now all I have is embers.