Friday Poetically with Brian Miller

Welcome to Friday Poetically.

Thank you to all that participated last week in our music inspired poetry. This week I want to introduce another new feature that I will be running each month: Kid's Wall. I use the term kids loosely as it encompasses the smallest child to the waning days of teen-dom. Kid's hold a special place in my heart, which is why I do counseling with them.

Children and youth have a perspective on our world that many times we lose as we grow older. The trick is getting them to share it. I believe it is our role as parents and advocates to encourage the arts in our collective children and celebrate their creativity.

Kid's Wall is about celebrating those voices, the ones that dare to put them to paper. Perhaps they are your child or just one that you know. If you are interested in having their work posted on the Kids Wall, please submit them to oneshotpoetry@gmail.com and put Kid's Wall  in the subject line. I will coordinate posting them and email you when your submission is posted.

Without further ado, this week I have poems by two teenage boys. One on fear, the other on love and both about growing up, just a bit. I think you will enjoy.

No Fear
by Robert Fletcher Moffett
(age 16)

Everything's so easy, when you're a kid,
No pressures to worry about, you can just live.
Everyone's so nice, you never see mean,
You can feel safe, living as a human being.
You go to play in Little League games, while people cheer,
You can be out, and live a life of No Fear.

Every now and then, a problem comes across,
It might be that you fell, and caused your team a loss.
But its over and its done, within a couple days,
It doesn't leave you scared and confused, in an endless maze.
You can go over there, you can be over here,
You can live the life of No Fear.

Then you get older and the pressures come down,
You don't feel like the king anymore, wearing your golden crown.
Your friends and your family, say two things far apart,
Stuck in this position, it's hard to follow your heart.
Should I do drugs?
Should I drink beer?
What happened to my life?
My life of No Fear?

You see when you're a kid, everything comes to you so easy,
No decisions to make,
This might sound a bit cheesy.
But don't forget that you had the life to live,
Everything that you did came out pretty positive.
You didn't have to do drugs, or drink beer and be a fool,
Back in the days with your friends, you could always be cool.
When you're a kid, you don't have to worry about bad things being near,
You go on living your life, your life with No Fear.

Resonances
by William Bednar
(age 18)

Tis not in commitment
To love that warrants beauty,
For fickle a girl beauty is indeed, not to be bent
By sorrow and pain filled gazers and dandies,
Eyes gleaming in fleeting hope, without sense,
That their smiles, enwrapped and dependent,
Will have recompense
By her gaze, resplendent,
And perhaps, if in good favor,
Have admiration bestowed on them amorously.
But nay, beauty is a fickle girl. Alas, we love her.
So as the breeze sings melancholy,
And the leaves reflect her lips of flame,
As milky clouds remind of her skin,
When her hair is night, dark and sleek, putting others to shame,
Filled with expectation
And apparitions of loveliness,
I think of the sweet longing,
Hoping for the moment not to pass.
The sweet longing
I loved then,
For a moment,
Lingering in the agony of emotion,
In a short eternity that I underwent.

I then found beauty.
But then the lights were no longer low,
The emotions, so resplendent in ardor, escaped me.
The facade was gone after the show.
Nay tis not in commitment to serve
Love that hold beauty.
Tis in the memory of nerve,
Tumultuous as a stormy sea.
Tis in the very slow-grown enthrallment
Of her melodious voice.
Tis in the memory of through what my heart went
When I told it to her by my choice.
When I told how it was stolen by her raven hair,
By her star-drenched skin,
By her cherry lips at which I’d stare,
And the voice so in apprehension, rife with emotion from within.
Tis not in the resolution itself
Of intricate harmonies and dissonances,
So pleasing to the ear in their discord and wealth,
But in the expectations and resonances
Of this ecstasy,
That resides beauty,
Which is why I told her my love and melancholy,
Letting her forget, and proceeding to flee.
For the wonderful nostalgic memory
Of the shortness of breath,
Would by intimacy,
Certainly be put to death.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone and keep your eyes open, you never know where a poem might be lurking, just waiting for you to write it! ~Brian