More of the old...

Before I post a couple of poems that I wrote a little while ago, I have to tell a random tidbit about today. At the pet store today my mom and I marveled over a lizard who had red lips. Mom wanted to buy him and name him Mick Jagger. He was quite endearing. It got me thinking, how odd would it be to live your whole life in a glass box and never know the extent of exploration to be made? I guess not odd at all if lizards really have no idea what they are supposed to be missing. Is ignorance really bliss though? I feel as though I should interfere and smash all the terrariums in a glorious rush of brilliant epiphany or else madness (there's a fine line) and release them into the wild. The drastic shock of being born again through broken glass and the rush of oxygen and sun-light very well might kill them all. But it would be a risk worth taking. Wouldn't it?

On to the old stuff.

This is a poem I wrote in whimsy for my best friend. This of course is the revised version. It makes me happy.

Best Friend

No rule or format can trap the girl

Who's puzzle piece fits next to mine.

She's the reckless rush of a diving bird

Plunging wildly through radiant sunshine.

Her wondrous rapture is raved through songs

By Sheryl Crow, Mayer, and Third Eye Blind.

When she walks into the room it's like dawn

Lighting paths I keep trying to find.

She leaps like laughter from my mouth

Through fields of hay bells and golden heather.

Twirling like children with arms stretched out

We find the world in circles is better. 

Her ideas blink like Christmas lights

Across the pages of colorful journals, 

Where she may write songs or draw a kite

Blowing from her heart into the sky eternal.

Strumming her fingers on strings all in line

To the time of a melody only she knows

Inside of a fort made with blankets of white, 

She looks like a goddess--the pillows her throne.

Her fire hands burn pictures like dreams 

On pure canvas made sacred with color

Flowing like water over stones in streams

That winds around trees growing into each other.

----------------------------------------------------

And now I'm ending on a sad note...my bad.

Yearbook Picture

On picture day you wore green,

Your hair blazed in contrast.

I took a mental picture of you then,

A different angle from the flash.

Your hair blazed in contrast 

To the white-washed walls of conformity,

A different angle from the flash

Of the hallway traffic majority.

To the white-washed walls of conformity

Students taped that picture of you,

But the hallway traffic majority

Didn't cry as much as the few.

Students taped that picture of you

Beside that football player's face.

They didn't cry as much as the few 

When his death you did replace.

Beside that football player's face

His twin brother said goodbye.

When his death you did replace

Your closed casket offered no reply.

His twin brother said goodbye,

While hundreds looked on from their seats.

Your closed casket offered no reply 

Though your picture looked down at me.

Dozens looked on from their seats

Spread out on the human lawn.

Your school picture looked down at me

Reminding me you were really gone.

Spreading out on the human lawn

Mist rolled in like a haze of sorrow.

Your gazing picture said you were gone,

That your seat would be vacant tomorrow.

Gazing through a haze of sorrow,

I saw you in the hall the day before.

Now your seat's vacant--it's way past tomorrow

And from those walls your picture is torn.

I saw you in the hall the day before, 

You were in a hurry getting nowhere fast,

Racing past the walls where your picture was torn--

All these years later it's still hard to grasp.

You were in a hurry getting nowhere fast.

You didn't even make it to your own graduation.

All these years later it's still hard to grasp

That roses replaced you in your chair at the end.

You didn't even make it to your own graduation,

But your picture was taped up once more

Above the roses in your chair at the end

Next to that football player's face so adored.

Those radiant roses raved red on your vacant seat,

Contrasting with my dress--you and I both wore green.

------------------------------------------------------