Thursday, September 11, 2008

Untitled, as of yet

This is a poem I'm trying to write for a school publication. My sister and my mom both said it was too obscure and that they didn't know what it was about. If you guys can't figure it out too, then I'll have to make it a little plainer.

I gaze out.
Green, green
Everywhere green

I glance up.
Black, then a sliver of of something brighter--
Maybe yellow, maybe orange--
And then a clammy gray
That climbs up,
Curving above me,
Sealing me in.

I look out again.
A flash of blue, swiftly,
Swirled with whites and friendly gray,
And then green again,
Brown on the bottom.

I peer down.
A black river runs backward
Faster, faster, faster
Albino dolphins gleam when they leap,
And blackness swallows them almost instantly,
But they rise and fall again.
The river should grab us,
But the orange-yellow beast is strong.

I stare out, transfixed.
The green keeps falling Behind,
BUt more Springs up ahead.
Everywhere green.

Monday, August 18, 2008

What Could Have Happened During American Revolution: A Satire of Eighteenth Century British Politicians

This person is commander-in-chief of British forces in America, General Lord Frederick Sackville. He inherits an immense estate from his father, Lord Edmund Rockingham, and the estate is accompanied by a huge sum of money: four million guineas. However, little Freddie has no clue as to how to manage his financial affairs. He drinks, gambles, keeps a mistress, and journeys often to the east half of London where he openly consorts with prostitutes. His mother suffers from epilepsy, and his military family violently opposes King George William Frederick Hanover, which distresses this patriotic Briton. In an attempt to aid his fellow parliamentarian, he gives most of his money to Charles James Fox, a horny member of the House of Commons, but Fox spends half of it on wine, and the other half gambling. Because he faces much harsh criticism from parliament, he prefers the solitude of his estate. In America, he now faces a mutiny led by his officers, leading to countless retreats from the superior American armies and growing hostility towards him in London.

To Respond with All Haste

To respond with all haste to your call to arms against the legions of Google executives who seek to lay siege to apparently submissive and inactive blogs, here is a dream that I am using for a story. The story will be very long, and so far the only good part of it is this dream in the very beginning.

He could see a tall man resting his hand on a split-rail fence, standing in knee-deep, rising snow. He wore a gray woolen cloak lined with red and a general's hat. Under the cloak was a dark blue uniform with yellow facings and silver buttons that corresponded to his yellow britches. Shrouding his feet were a pair of black, leather boots that rose to just below his knees. Through the gently falling, lace-white flakes he realized that the man's face was strong yet filled with sadness, and his striking blue eyes betrayed a haunting fatigue.
Suddenly, an intense pain erupted in his feet, and he looked down, saw they were bare and bleeding. Instead of his cloak and uniform, he wore a tattered, brown coat and worn, leather britches. A dark, red stain spread across the canvas of his shirt already wet and freezing from the snow. He reeled, grasped the fence to support himself, and collapsed with fatigue from a thousand marches and battles and memories. His ear stung sharply.
Footsteps brought a red-coated soldier. He gazed into his eyes, saw that he was no longer a man, but a boy of sixteen. The soldier raised his musket, the barrel aimed at his victim's chest, the bayonet gleaming in the winter light. For a long moment neither moved, one held down by the weight of a single bullet in his flesh, the other by his insane anger. Then the tension holding the redcoat snapped, and the bayonet pierced the center of the wound of the already, dying, dying, dead boy in front of him.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

My dears!

It seems our beloved blog is becoming a bloth! How ridiculous and unfair. And you know what happens to bloths? They die a slow and painful death. At the hands of google executives.
And this, my friends, is why we must keep posting!
So... um... something of value? Anyone?

Here's a poem!

Nobody Knows, Just We Two

Daddy

Rubs my back and

Croons songs that haven’t

Been sold in twenty years

Except on the hidden

Discount racks.


Slowly,

He unrolls me

Where I’m wound tight,

Crumpled on the floor like

An unborn child.


He eases me back,

Holding me

Close to him.

As if I am five and

I fell off my bicycle.


Singing

He dances me in slow

Side to side motions.

If I could cry,

I would be allowed to

Cover his shirt with water and salt.


Instead,

I listen, breathing in

His scent and his voice.

He doesn’t ask,

Only answers.


He dances me around the

Kitchen, repeating the

Same songs over again,

Like one of his old records

Stuck on a single point.


I don’t mind,

Even when he forgets the

Words and has to hum them

Or, worse, substitutes his own.

He resolutely sings me down

Until I feel human again.


Sunday, July 27, 2008

Mazal Tov

Congratulations to the BIMA Writers for a wonderful day of readings at the Arts Festival. You all surpassed my wildest expectations and made me very proud.

Keep on writing (and posting your work on this blog).

Thanks for being such a great group of young writers.

JON

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Reality Unseen

Clean-cut façade
Near impossible to see
the difference between the falsehood
and the reality unseen .
Two-faced Janus,
Deceiving as an elf
hiding behind the images
fashioned by oneself.
Looking glasses
Glazed in lies
created by magazines
and images flickering on screens.
Reflected in silver
Tainted with fading truth,
we find ourselves lost
within our fight to be part of the norm.
Using appearance as a shield
With words as a sword,
to keep ones image
we all wage our wars.
Fear of secrets being told
Those of new and those of old,
We hide behind our web of lies
Our glistening masks.
Those camouflage screens
That have become part of our very beings.

Monday, July 21, 2008

When We Saw the Heavens Aflame

When we saw the heavens aflame,
So were our hearts and eyes.
A burning madness, but no desire,
For filled with gladness were our hearts.

Glorious flags of forty nations
Flapped brightly in the midnight breeze.
Danced we, for the time had come
To fill the dark with our joyous cries.

For we know, but never admit,
That self-doubt is a master.
For we recognize, but never acknowledge,
That we chain ourselves to ourselves.

Now we walk the path undaunted.
Now we praise the martyrs right.
This is our chance. We take it gladly.
Free of guilt and regret, we dance.