Someone once told me that nineteen was the age of a young poet.
I'm looking through one of the journals I kept this year. Here's a couple poems that slipped in between the short stories and journal entries:
The Word of Frogs
The words are here in my head, honest,
and not just words, but Words, with a capital Wuh.
On paper, the meanings are clumped together,
sticking like tadpole eggs.
These poems of mine are abominations when written out.
My eloquence evaporates, and my Word is stagnant,
a bleak pond moving with nothing but frogs.
Half Gone Beauty, All Gone
Her youth said “goodbye”
almost as quickly as it had said “hello.”
What new horror she found:
it had been here a fortnight, gone the next!
How ungrateful for the gift to disappear,
unappreciated and unused.
She examined her sallow face in the mirror,
in mourning over the cherry cheeks,
the full, plump mouth, the clear eyes,
the vigor that marked her plain as summer.
She never knew that the ignorance
with which she treated her looks
had humbly heightened the opinion
her neighbors had had of her.
It was the lovely ladies aware of their looks
that no one could stand.
To the secret, public heart,
the aging maids were all the better.
The Word of Frogs
The words are here in my head, honest,
and not just words, but Words, with a capital Wuh.
On paper, the meanings are clumped together,
sticking like tadpole eggs.
These poems of mine are abominations when written out.
My eloquence evaporates, and my Word is stagnant,
a bleak pond moving with nothing but frogs.
Half Gone Beauty, All Gone
Her youth said “goodbye”
almost as quickly as it had said “hello.”
What new horror she found:
it had been here a fortnight, gone the next!
How ungrateful for the gift to disappear,
unappreciated and unused.
She examined her sallow face in the mirror,
in mourning over the cherry cheeks,
the full, plump mouth, the clear eyes,
the vigor that marked her plain as summer.
She never knew that the ignorance
with which she treated her looks
had humbly heightened the opinion
her neighbors had had of her.
It was the lovely ladies aware of their looks
that no one could stand.
To the secret, public heart,
the aging maids were all the better.