Oh Dandy

Poetry

By: Michaela Kim

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Ballad Poem page 1The Opposite Path page 2Summer page 3-4The Beach page 5A Girl page 6-7Ten Minutes page 8-9Contradictions (Metaphor) page 10-11Cross page 12Cookies page 13Scar page 14

The night was young as were the guests

So drinks and smiles were shared.

Soon the noise got out of control

And turned to fights they dared.

All the laughter suddenly ceased

And fists were thrown everywhere.

The flirting stopped and the drinks spilled

And the eyes would just glare.

The Opposite Path

Title of Work: Two Sisters (On the Terrace)

Artist: Pierre Auguste Renoir

Spring has risen

And the birds are calling.

The vine are flowing

And the breeze is whispering.

They are two sisters,

Alone but together.

One gazes far beyond

Her curiosity craving for more.

The other has satisfaction

Written in her e yes.

She longs for no change,

She craves for nothing.

They walk off the terrace,

Leaving the green behind.

They walk in opposite directions,

One looking for simplicity

And the other looking for adventure.

The terrace of green

Is their only sanctuary

To be together,

Before they finally part.

Summer

Title of work: Surfside Park

Artist: William Lewis

A day in the summer

Is like a walk in the park.

The people blend in

Like harmony.

Oh William,

It truly shows.

The blotches of white

From his brush,

Balances the light.

The stroke of blue

From his brush,

Completes the painting.

The grey buildings

Standing far back

Calls your name.

Home sweet home,

It whispers.

The smiles are welcoming

The aurora smells peaceful,

Sweet and young.

It’s a day in the summer,

A day of a dream.

It’s his place,

It’s his home,

It is he.

The Beach

Title of work: Beach at Cabasson

Artist: Henri Edmond Cross

They are of three

Of the same mother.

Their tanless skin

Blend in to the pale sand.

The air is silent

Only the calm waves are heard.

The sky is red,

The blue fading away.

Their eyes are dull,

Staring off into the distance.

The sand is fraud,

Hard and thicker.

The shadows lay

Beneath the three.

The black ghosts below

Wonder what’s next.

It’s dusk,

It is motionless.

The sun is falling,

Yet silence is still in the air.

A Girl

Title of work: The Girl by the Window

Artist: Edward Munch

I am a girl,

A girl of dreams.

I sing my songs,

I dream my dreams.

I am a girl.

I’m a girl

Staring out.

I peak out,

Out of the hard transparent walls.

I look out,

And I see the world.

My white, stainless gown

Is unmarked.

Unmarked of its journeys,

Clean from its lack of work.

I am a girl,

Locked in my room.

The door is painted

And the window is my only escape.

I stare beyond the distance,

Beyond the yellow lights.

I want to be out there

I want to leave.

I am a girl,

And I just want to be free.

Ten Minutes

When the bell sounds,

It marks the start of the next ten minutes.

The next ten minutes when the

snake is set free. He slinks around,

place to place, with his fiery, charcoal eyes

searching for my mysterious, serene ones.

Within these ten minutes, everyone is

Shuffling to their next destination.

Within these ten minutes, he

Sets out to fulfill his duty.

His duty to find and to conquer.

His pride and ego radiates through

The corridors of the school.

He makes himself known

And seen. As the cold-blood

passes me, his current victim,

He whispering words become

Louder than the gossiping hallways.

The vulgar words and the obscene comments

Knife towards me, as I stare beyond

This encounter avoiding his promising eyes

That will never quit until the day I no longer

Walk the halls of this building.

It was yesterday, it is today,

And it will be tomorrow.

Contradictions.

You are…

Black and white,

Two colors so perfect

But so wrong.

Shining as the bright amber sparks

Lighting up the dark night.

Two selfish colors

Chewing up and swallowing all past.

Dull as the starless sky,

A caution sign under radar.

The taste of cheap alcohol,

But the smell of smoke.

A punch of the face,

But the adrenaline rush.

Blurry to a perfect eye,

A ring on the wrong finger.

A failed final, a failed exam.

The minimum passing grade

Moving you forward to the next level.

Illegal music, pirated songs.

But a guilty conscious to a found bill.

Two papers glued together,

A silent jet flying off into the night.

Like eating cereal for dinner

And steak for breakfast.

Like an approaching rainstorm

During a cloudless, humid summer day.

Tangled hair with no end.

Black and white,

Not the same.

Two selfish colors

Bouncing back and forth.

Two tennis balls in one match.

Black and white,

Darling and horrific.

Murky as a foggy lifeless light,

With the full moon smiling brightly to down below.

A snapshot, a photograph

With no colors.

A black and white photograph

With nothing to give and nothing to hide.

A limitation.

You are a contradiction.

This is me, this is me.

What do you see?

You see a girl, a girl

Of five feet. A girl

Of seventeen. Shy and

Small, never seen.

I look like you, I smell like you. I am no different. But I wear a necklace, to escape the bareness. It hangs from my neck, no longer naked. It’s silver, it’s small. It’s never noticed. To me and to everyone, it is

forgotten. I am the youngest, of both sides. I am the last, their last hope. As years go on, I am placed within walls. Walls miles above. Time is ticking, and sand is running out. Disappoint roams the air. A

tongue click that ruins a day. So I am the last. I am normal, just like you. Normal, but with a cross hanging. The walls are closing, with no escape. The piece of silver hanging from my neck, becomes

heavier and heavier. The burdens no longer sit on my shoulders, it sits on the silver. The forgotten piece of silver I never cared for. It pulls me down as days pass by. As years pass by, this is it.

This is me, this is me.

What do you see?

A girl of smiles, joy

And laughter.

A girl trying to fit in,

Hoping not to be seen.

This is me, this is me.

The burdens pile,

And the necklace

Becomes too heavy.

But for three years, it

Has never budged.

Weight of the cross

Has made me smaller.

But this is my last.

My last hope,

From collapsing.

Cookies

Forgive me, but

The crime committed,

I admit to.

The evidence I tossed,

Fingerprints disappeared.

It was irresistible.

I licked it clean,

Your cookie jar.

In case you were wondering,

They were delicious.

I didn’t see it coming,

It was small and fast.

The sun was young,

And so was I.

Laughs ran through the gym,

I knew no one but him

Then it came.

Small and fast.

My eye could no longer open,

Just one

Not both.

Pain and tears.

An older brother,

A tennis ball.

It’s dark,

And it’s brown.

It looks okay.

Only I know,

And he knows,

What truly happened.

Poetry Reflection

During the poetry unit, I learned different types of ways to write a poem. I like to free write, which is the reason why I took this class, and some of my free writes have been poems. It was kind of challenging because the poems I would write would just be my words, my feelings, and very simple and direct. There were no secret meanings or any other deeper thoughts than the words I would write. It was hard to follow the directions and complete the specifics for each task, and I don’t feel confident because the majority of my written poems during this unit aren’t my real words or tone. Even so, I did learn the different ways to write a poem. I enjoyed the entire unit as a whole because it now helps me to write different poems with different voices and meanings. I can now write poems with deeper meanings. I have never been good at analyzing poems as a whole, so this unit also definitely helped me learn. My feelings about poems haven’t really changed, it still is the best way to express my emotions and feelings whatever the situation is. I have a broader feel of poems. I realize now that I don’t have to be direct with my words to show and describe how I feel or what emotions are going through me. The three poems I have chosen are my metaphor poem, my concrete poem, and my apology poem. I chose the metaphor poem because it was the poem that was the hardest for me to write. I had to write with indirect words. I chose the concrete poem because it uses my words and my thoughts. You can tell that I wrote this poem, and it describes me very well. It’s the most poem like me, and I really like that. The third poem I chose is the apology poem because its very simple and I think it’s kind of adorable.