Hurt Not
Humanity steals, it does not borrow
What they will have today but not tomorrow.
Some claim humanity is not to blame
Yet Mother Nature screams with pain.
The Trees will fall and grass will burn
Still the humans do not learn.
What's on this Earth we all must share Hurt not- or the Earth will tear.
By Sarah Vaugh, 12th
Humanity steals, it does not borrow
What they will have today but not tomorrow.
Some claim humanity is not to blame
Yet Mother Nature screams with pain.
The Trees will fall and grass will burn
Still the humans do not learn.
What's on this Earth we all must share Hurt not- or the Earth will tear.
By Sarah Vaugh, 12th
City of Dreams
Any place can be the center of someone’s life, one thing so insignificant to one individual can be so inconceivably profound to another, and that’s what we call life. A multitude of little centers of each and every human being’s own little universe, the product of their own perceptions, thought Allard Kintarti. Al walked up his steps—his porch, the sentimental entrance to forty years of hard laboring. The doormat was worn and dirty, the corny Welcome sign faded after a thousand steps pushed it progressively farther into disintegration. That stamp, memorabilia of so many insignificant moments in his life, screamed “Al-type-of-lifestyle.” The walls of the house were like cosmic nets, capturing the grime of the polluted, corrupt atmosphere of Little Falls, a generic town in every state in America. The traditional Romanesque columns were his symbolic tribute to his long deceased mother of Southern heritage with a craving for the sublime—she agonized over refinement and preached being cultured the way the pastors in her church shoved God down her ears and under the folds of her dress—“always be faithful to the lord, Sue.” Madeline Kintarti would play Mozart and Beethoven in the creaky abode of nine, creating an eerie echoing effect of transparency. Madeline never wanted to be Sue Black. Sue Black became Madeline, the paradigm of time traveling restlessness. The setting and rising of the sun every day cast persistent shadows on the roughening edges of the house itself, outlines that met each other in a compromise of concave arcs. He inhaled, gritty dust the unpleasant reminder of the untouched, unsullied isolation of the place. He realized in surreal disbelief that the scope of reality was as potent as the first slap a child received, the toxin of realization, the sullying of innocence. Reality descended towards Al in a wave of static realism… “Ole Al, my man,” The house seemed to sigh, breathing in his vulgarly masculine scent as the structure enveloped him with a gust of memories, the floors creaking in recognition of another Kintarti. Maybe Pastor Chuck had said it years ago, but Chuck was dead. He had vanished, like every other entity of restless unfulfillment in Al’s life, which reached an unfathomable climax in the second of wonder when his mother stared at him, hollow-eyed, the Earth slowly spinning off its axis as she shot herself in the head. It quickly became a deaf horror, and then… nothingness. He couldn’t feel anymore as the sound of impact drenched him with disgust at the world’s appetite for flesh, too comprehensive of despair—leaving his ears ringing emptily. A deranged apathy settled in where Sue’s blood had seeped into the virginal carpets, stripped of purity and then stripped off the floor in an unceremonious display of superiority—his ability to close the chapter and paint over the cracks with a characterless mauve overlay. “Where the hell’s my dog,” Al mumbled gruffly. A chocolate Labrador waddled over, his eyes twinkling kindly, weighed down by his twenty pounds of obesity. He wagged in a delayed, lagging motion as his slobbery gums were exposed in acknowledgment. “Darn dog, you smell.” Al frowned sheepishly, stretching his hand out to pet his bristly, graying coat. “I’m sorry boy, you’ve become such an old man…” If only I could slow the passage of time that’ll snatch you away from me like every other fiber of happiness I’ve ever had, Al bitterly swallowed down, not daring to give voice to his thoughts. After all, who would hear them? A lone coatrack stood by the door, the soft creamy wood painted in intricate designs—elaborate attention to detail making it seem almost foreign. It was the love of a woman that blinded him to the shabbiness of the place, as it was that same love that was his lifeline to the soul and heart he longed to be rekindled to the most—his own. For it wasn’t the lover that he missed the most, but the feelings for her. Those feelings that had invoked a revolution in his core, so that he could indulge in dropping the façade of indifference and developing the softer side of paradise—his soul. He stared at the coatrack almost reverently, recalling passionate lovemaking on the floor, gazing at the film of space that had been enveloped in that moment, ingraining the memory of it into the fibers of the house like existence itself. Loud sirens sounded nearby, coarsely ringing in the ears of all the neighbors in a resounding echo, the crude symbol of infrastructure that failed to make anyone feel any more content. Al blinked blankly; overwhelmed by sudden consciousness of the moment that forever met the present in a dance of timelessness, in a prolonged state of limbo. It was the moment Momma killed herself… “Allard Kintarti! Look at this mess! Another tree fell in my yard, what a pain in the ass!” Hollered a man in a pristine suit—his ever-angry neighbor—obsessively fussing as he paced around his garden, his fancy dwelling towering over the neighborhood like the utterly misplaced eyesore that it was. |
Several polite knocks sounded nearby, and he tried desperately not to surrender to his curiosity.
Moments later, Al thrust his door open, and to his surprise, it wasn’t his neighbor but a pleasant looking man dressed in a suit of impartiality. The man seemed immediately like the epitome of cool-headedness and rationality, apparently devoid of the typical crass assumptions everyone else had brought to Al’s doorstep. “Mister Kintarti?” “Yes, I am he,” Al raised one eyebrow in a show of skepticism; the old lines manifestations of infinitesimal doubts just barely penetrating the surface. Doubt. “I work for Cline Bank in Summit Point.” “Well?” Al exhaled in a grunt. Golden light seeped into the house, crawling up the stairs, a fluid wave of vindication. “Since when have government workers knock on people’s doors? Aren’t there some laws in this country that protect us from that?” “Have you been checking your mail, sir?” The man’s smooth profile remained entirely emotionless and unbothered. “It appears that you have been avoiding bank statements—” “You’re invading my privacy. In fact, you’re trespassing.” Allard’s face adopted a defensive lockdown, his eyes piercing with vivid hatred. “I’m sorry Mister Kintarti, but this is a courtesy call to alert you that you’re going to be foreclosed.” Al’s mouth set into a line, brow furrowed, and then he turned around and slammed the door in the man’s face. He hadn’t even asked the faceless man’s name… You can’t always place a name to all the evils in the world, Al sighed, resigning himself to the inexplicable heaviness of truth. The house’s stale air seemed to spin before his eyes as he fell to his knees, despondent as he became forevermore unreceptive to the world’s rubbish optimism. “Damn you,” he growled and then, “damn you all!” Allard leapt to his feet and smashed the table with his fist; calloused fingers crunched the wood in blunt vengeance. He swung again, toppling tasteless vases from an eternity ago as he pulled cups and glasses down with him in the tidal wind of destruction. His breath caught and he closed his eyes for a moment and imagined that he was in a city of dreams, completely caught in the momentum of sorrow, until he could see the entire retrospect of his life like a creature of the abyss. He stood back suddenly to see the graveyard of glass more broadly, gazing with a grave fascination at the scene of destruction, the broken glass like skeletons of murdered endearment. Like murdered dreams… Al felt a stinging sensation through his numbness, and he looked down at his hand idly, wracked with hatred for those who had the power to take everything from him. The power of just a few words… The power of words, he thought in awe. The bloody knuckles adjoined a worn hand patterned with sunspots and blemishes that had faded from his extensive isolation. Isolation so expansive, it had dulled the smoothness that Allard imagined had existed from the feel of a woman under his palms. He felt the betrayal by his lover fiercely, like a new wound, loneliness renewably seething within him. The bloodied knuckles shone with their demoralization, like battle-scars from fighting the economy. It dripped, that hand that stroked the veneration of the middle class, with solid-seeming droplets more scarlet than the heart itself. It was his blood that flowed freely—the volition of releasing sorrow—that seemed to purge the vacuum of reality. He let out a sudden sob, hollow and soul wrenching in its despair. I tried, Momma, I tried. I couldn’t keep the house that I was born in, Allard blinked with blurred comprehension, his tears starkly visible against his tanned skin. Maybe it was Momma who heard his calls, or maybe it was God that listened to his pleas—for he had prayed to both to be reunited with the soil of the earth in his yard. Madeline Kintarti had been buried there nearly three decades prior, her soul had implanted itself into the trees, fueling them with her indecisive ambition to see the world grow ideally. The emptiness howled through the open windows, chilling the town that he had called home, reacquainted with the dreamland that sent Momma into the deepest recesses of insanity. The barren trees were like night stalkers, lacking essential greenery to make space for the gloom of Little Falls’ suffering, the green papers in people’s pockets—the little centers of people’s universes—growing rarer than the bloom of the Kintarti trees. By: Adelia Gregory, 12th |
By Owen Barrett
This Poem is not...
This poem is not about the rats in the basement, the pen that won’t write or
the curling iron that’s still plugged in.
It is not about the dishes in the sink, the unmade bed or
the leaky faucet.
And contrary to popular belief, it is not about the balls of cat fur under the
couch.
This poem is not about the lost job promotion, the birthday card that was not sent
or
the foreclosure.
This poem is not even about the funeral of your grandmother, the husband
away at war or
the tornado that hit your hometown.
This poem is about the hours you spent worrying about what is listed above,
the sun that shined,
the flowers that bloomed.
This poem is about the songs that were sung, the books that were read and
the ice cream that was eaten.
It is about the graduates that walked, the babies that were born and
the love that grew exponentially.
This poem is about what you missed while your pupils became dilated from
looking into
the shadows.
Christina Uzzo, 11th
This poem is not about the rats in the basement, the pen that won’t write or
the curling iron that’s still plugged in.
It is not about the dishes in the sink, the unmade bed or
the leaky faucet.
And contrary to popular belief, it is not about the balls of cat fur under the
couch.
This poem is not about the lost job promotion, the birthday card that was not sent
or
the foreclosure.
This poem is not even about the funeral of your grandmother, the husband
away at war or
the tornado that hit your hometown.
This poem is about the hours you spent worrying about what is listed above,
the sun that shined,
the flowers that bloomed.
This poem is about the songs that were sung, the books that were read and
the ice cream that was eaten.
It is about the graduates that walked, the babies that were born and
the love that grew exponentially.
This poem is about what you missed while your pupils became dilated from
looking into
the shadows.
Christina Uzzo, 11th
By Hannah Cenci, 12th
Hammock
We are of dreams and white linen
Of a cerulean sky backdrop and dappled sunlight
We are the excitement and discomfort of inexperience
Of eyes lie pietersite and golden-flecked hearts
We are the fire of a thousand transformative trees
Of persimmons and crimsons and marigolds
We are intensity; we are hesitation
Of late night crepes and dancing in doubt
We are pathetic, hopeless fools
Of chilly toes and a thousand different shades of grey
We are where the sea and sky collide
Of wisdom like thin ice and brave audacity
We are tender blooms and eyes wide open
Of hope like a color photograph
We are created of music, but can we carry a tune?
Of miles wasted and time well spent
Jamie Ballard, 12th
By Ella Krikorian
Radioactive Redemption
A seed sewn in a barren field, land laid to waste by fire and politics.
A seedling, single stemmed and feeble, clutching mother Earth in the same instant that it abandons its sole leaf to the wind.
A few decades pass, the sky rolls revolutions on and the tree seeks nourishment in poisoned soil.
Radioactive phosphorylation, a process once so natural now corrupted by man’s fallen angel.
A century looms near; other plants grow and die with the seasons.
A project is undertaken, an attempt at redemption.
A thousand trees are planted and left to nature’s whim.
Branches mix and roots mingle, yet those that twine with the grandfather oak’s labyrinth are soon pierced with the poisons of yesteryear.
The disease which one tree was born into and grew by, steadily picks off the doomed generation.
The sins of the forefathers come to pass.
A flood, a fire, a cut and a clearing to rid the horizon of this monument to man’s weakest moment.
Yet nothing can scour the grand oak from its league deep perch atop tainted soil.
It shall twist on through centuries more, radioactive and remembering.
Devin Bacon, 11th
By Emilie Marenec, 12th
Broken
The taste on your lips
Could make an innocent girl go crazy;
But you pried my hands off your hips
And now my days are hazy
We danced until the light
Dimmed from the evening sky;
You were never far from sight
For you made my emotions run high.
The arms that held me close
Were full of love and hope;
But the more you change and boast
My heart cannot cope.
You push regret back into my head
With your lonely and broken soul,
Then tuck me back into your bed
Making my life whole.
Anonymous
By Sarah Stanley, 12th
Carving the Water...
Out on the lake, the smell of joy fills the air, in the boat we float on top of the water and glide back and forth with no restrictions of direction. Searching the whole lake for a good place to wake board like a hawk sitting on top of a telephone pole searching for the perfect prey to feed on, just looking for that one perfect spot. That one spot where there are no other boats in sight, where the water is so calm it looks like glass and the only noise is the roar of our boat splitting the water in half. At last we find that one perfect spot; I pull out the wake board and slip my feet into the bindings. We hook up the rope to the tower and in the water I go. While waiting for the line to straighten out, the silence becomes stronger. Cold, the goose bumps on my skin rise, and I concentrate on the water. The line is now straight, and I give the “thumbs up” to let the driver of the boat know to accelerate. Letting the force of the boat pull me up, I turn the board around and am now gliding on top of the water, gracefully as a figure skater, jumping in the air and twisting. I get outside of the wake on the right and get as far as I can to the right, come back to the wake at such a great speed to only hit the outside of it and catch air. While in the air, time slows down. My mind is running in a million different ways and flash backs over come me and all of a sudden memories of my father driving the boat pulling me on the board come to mind. It was like I was ten all over again, but as I come back to the water the flash back ends, and my father is still gone, my friend is driving the boat and I’m still on the board, carving the water. Still on the board wishing I could get that lost time back. Wishing I had more time, I head back outside of the wake and then back towards it, hitting the wake, catching air again and I go back into memories with my grandmother when we would play cards in her living room. Coming back to the water the flash ends, and I fall rising from the bottom the lake. I realize that I cannot live in the past. I can only plan for the future and cherish the memories I have from then. I need to live my life day by day and focus on the gift in front of me, not yesterday or tomorrow, but today because today is a gift. That is why it is called the
present.
Chris Lopez, 12th
Out on the lake, the smell of joy fills the air, in the boat we float on top of the water and glide back and forth with no restrictions of direction. Searching the whole lake for a good place to wake board like a hawk sitting on top of a telephone pole searching for the perfect prey to feed on, just looking for that one perfect spot. That one spot where there are no other boats in sight, where the water is so calm it looks like glass and the only noise is the roar of our boat splitting the water in half. At last we find that one perfect spot; I pull out the wake board and slip my feet into the bindings. We hook up the rope to the tower and in the water I go. While waiting for the line to straighten out, the silence becomes stronger. Cold, the goose bumps on my skin rise, and I concentrate on the water. The line is now straight, and I give the “thumbs up” to let the driver of the boat know to accelerate. Letting the force of the boat pull me up, I turn the board around and am now gliding on top of the water, gracefully as a figure skater, jumping in the air and twisting. I get outside of the wake on the right and get as far as I can to the right, come back to the wake at such a great speed to only hit the outside of it and catch air. While in the air, time slows down. My mind is running in a million different ways and flash backs over come me and all of a sudden memories of my father driving the boat pulling me on the board come to mind. It was like I was ten all over again, but as I come back to the water the flash back ends, and my father is still gone, my friend is driving the boat and I’m still on the board, carving the water. Still on the board wishing I could get that lost time back. Wishing I had more time, I head back outside of the wake and then back towards it, hitting the wake, catching air again and I go back into memories with my grandmother when we would play cards in her living room. Coming back to the water the flash ends, and I fall rising from the bottom the lake. I realize that I cannot live in the past. I can only plan for the future and cherish the memories I have from then. I need to live my life day by day and focus on the gift in front of me, not yesterday or tomorrow, but today because today is a gift. That is why it is called the
present.
Chris Lopez, 12th
Seasons
Every season has a dance, every season has a song
Winter dances a crystalline dance, and sings her song of snow and storm. It echoes through the valley, and stops at the lakes. Her canvas, once a mosaic of color, now a fresco of white.
Then come Spring skipping through a field. She turns and twirls, and her hair trails behind her, soft and flowing like the melting glacier’s streaming rivers. Like a deer she springs, soaring above mountains, diving into lakes. She glides through the beaches, clearing the fog, calling out the sun.
Summer and Spring dance together a while. Their laughter awakens the flowers and allows them to bloom and dance with them. As Spring leaves, Summer lingers. She walks through forests, through fields, through sands. She sings to the sun, and the sun dances with glee. Her performance brightens up the land, and everyone cheers and roars as she dances. Soon Summer meets her friend Autumn; the two sit down and talk. The fields and forests calm down, and the flowers yawn.
Autumn begins her song, and the clouds gather to hear. She sprinkles the land with her love, feeding and nourishing it. She recalls the fog, cooling the trees. She sings her lullaby, and rocks her children to sleep. She finishes her rain song, and rests her head, entering slumber beside her children.
every season has a dance, every season has a song.
Pio Valenzuela, 12th