The Vulture Takes What It Wants

“Once she was a caged bird,

wing-clipped without a whim,

but now she flies with her flock.”

Sing loud, sing sweet little canary;

her voice goes unheard.

“When she was a caged bird.”

The vulture looms beyond the window,

concealing it like a coffin’s door.

“She wished to fly with her flock.”

She sees from between his tar-black feathers,

yonder her friends flapped and fluttered.

“Woe is she, a caged bird.”

He kept her sweet song to himself,

years passed and then… so did he.

“She will fly among her flock.”

At long last she flew for the first time,

leaving that dark-feathered warden behind.

“Once she was a caged bird,

but now she flies with her flock.”

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Childish Misconceptions

I miss those rose-tinted days in the sun,

When fighting with wooden swords was a game.

No matter how many times we’d been slain,

We’d just stand up and go back to square one.

Back then, the war, to us, was exciting;

Being a soldier was a fine honour.

Or becoming a knight addressed as ‘sir’.

We never imagined death as something.

Now that I’ve seen it with my own two eyes,

I want no part in it any longer.

Keep the despair, the cries, and the somber.

Bring me back to my homely paradise.

 

Student Excuse #87

I am so very sorry, Professor,
For not giving my homework in on time.
I swear, I have a genuine reason
That will not lead you to think it’s a lie.

Well, you assigned the paper on Wednesday,
But I didn’t see it until Thursday,
I saw it was due by Saturday night,
But I had plans all day Thursday-Friday.

I woke up at lunch because I was sick,
A friend came in to town I never see.
My internet was down when I came back,
Printer broke: I couldn’t make a copy.

Accept my late work to prove I did it.
Oh! And how can I get extra credit?

This One Time in Middleschool…

Prose

I once knocked myself out at a basketball match. It was funny, I guess. Funny for the people watching. Funny for the coach, heck, even the mascot found it funny. I wasn’t even on the basketball team; I was just someone in the audience that came down to try and win a free tee-shirt. It was probably just going to end up a sleeping-shirt anyway, I’m not a triple-extra-large, in truth. I found the best way to make it all go so wrong so fast. There was a little trampoline a few meters from the post of the net. The goal was to jump on it and propel the ball toward the large circular goal. I say large, because it was. How hard could this be? Running like a cheetah (an overweight retired one), I leaped upon the trampoline and sprung into the air. Or at least, I would have, if I didn’t land on it funny to begin with. To cut a short story shorter, the trampoline slid backward and I shot to the ground like a faulty missile. The ball flung from my hands, hit the bottom of the basketball hoop and smacked into my face. The laughing of the crowd turned into what could be described as crashing waves at the beach. My dizziness couldn’t quite piece everything together, so I remained there while my half-concerned half-giggling parents attended to me. My adolescent pride was snuffed like a burning wick, attributing to much of my awkwardness in the later years of my life.

The Witcher’s Warning

For soothe! fiendish felon,

draw back your claws and terrible maw.

Return to your dwellings below the floor,

where the earthworms squirm and eat dirt.

Don’t challenge me or you’ll exist to be

the bothersome beast that you are.

Limb for limb, I’ll tear you apart,

until there is naught left of you

but your grin laying on the floor,

impaled by my righteous sword.

Flat-Line

Surrealist

My heart

How it beats like an African drum.

A perpetual thud,

Like hundreds of tiny trotting horses,

Racing to no end.

Like thunder booming from the heavens,

Beating the clouds.

Quell this wild, wild heart before

It

Troubles

Me

So

.

.

.

This Heart Is Wild

Erasure Poem

Comfort Comes in the Simplest Things

A Japanese Tanka

Left and right, left right,
The tall grass brushes my knees,
Left and right, left right,

It tickles my skin softly,
As I skip ever slowly.

Honey Hair

Jake’s a pretty cool kid for a grease ball,
Seems the type to be loaded with money.
But what makes Jake stand apart from them all?
The fact that his gel is made of honey!

The glistening gold goo reflects the sun,
Drawing eyes near and far upon his hair,
It’s as if his head is just a glazed bun,
Inviting all around to come and stare.

But nobody knows the trouble that comes:
The sticky truth about honey hair gel.
What do you do when the ooey goo runs?
Jake found out that it isn’t very swell.

When the day reaches its hottest degree,
Not even tree shade can stop the trickle.
On and into his jacket it’ll flee,
Leaving poor Jake in quite the tough pickle.

He feels each of his neck hairs get coated,
Skin glued to his shirt, glued to his jacket.
His flesh pulls taut each time he turns his head,
He knew deep down, he shouldn’t have tried it.

Home at last, time to purge the sticky,
Jake peels off his clothing like strong scotch tape.
It clings to his skin, proving quite tricky,
Tearing baby hairs straight from his poor nape.

Was it all worth the trouble it has been? (Ben)
Yes! Jake exclaims, he’d do it all again.

She Smells the Phlowers

I absolutely adore situational irony. Why not shove it into a sonnet!?

Situational Irony
“She Smells the Phlowers”
(In the Style of a Shakespearean Sonnet)

Gazing long from down the garden pathway,
A young maiden could be seen dressed in pink.
She crouched to where the daffodils did lay,
to caress their petals and smell their stink.

How bonny she seemed and peaceful she was,
how quiet she was and softly she seemed.
Oh I wish I could appear as she does,
such is a wish that can only be dreamed.

I leap forth as my heart does from my chest;
a spring in my step as I step into spring.
From the pathway to where her knees do rest,
I meet the eyes of this pretty young thing.

She smiled, then she sneezed, and offered a grin…
then some green phlegm dribbled down from her chin.