Friday, June 15, 2018

"A Brothers' Quarrel"

This poem is inspired by the story of Romulus and Remus.

"A Brothers' Quarrel"

You were just two boys when your fates were set.
Born to the guilty woman of the forest and the violent god of war,
you were feared by the King of Alba Long.

With your mother imprisoned, you were to be killed.
But the gods had mercy on your then-innocent souls,
and you were set adrift on the river Tiber.
The river, overflowing, carried you and set you by the bank.

 You were just two boys when your lives paths were decided.
A she-wolf found you, having lost pups of her own.
She took you under her care and protection.
She suckled you and a woodpecker fed you,
then a shepherd found you and took you under his care,
and you were raised among your own kind.

You were just barely adults when your destinies began.
Two brothers. Twins.
You wanted to found a city together.
A city where the she-wolf found you and raised you.
But you could not agree on a site.
Dear Remus, the quarrel ended your life, and that was your fate.

Romulus, you truly were the son of Mars.
Violent. Conflicting.
You murdered your twin and went on your way.
Your brother dead, you moved on.
You founded the city, made yourself king,
and named it after yourself.
Selfish.
And then you disappeared, carried away by a whirlwind,
and that was your fate.

Romulus and Remus.
You were twins.
But you were quarreling brothers,
Fighting to the death,
Over the site of a city.
Perhaps it was the Mars in you,
Or the ferocity of the she-wolf after the short time raised by her.
But you could not get along.
And now only Rome stands to show
The result of a brothers' quarrel.

"Silence for Summerland"

Hey, guys! Here's another one of my poems. Hope you enjoy!

"Silence for Summerland"

I am silent.
But not for long.
I will be silent no longer. 
I will be given the gift of life. I will be introduced to Gaea.
Novem Mensibus.
All that time, being silent, with the exception of the faint beat of my heart.

Then I will arrive into the world, screaming and crying, but with no recollection of why.
Perhaps it will be the unfamiliar feelings?
The strange sensation of hands holding me.

Maybe it will be the sudden light bursting through my eyelids that will still be shut like steel doors of a vault, protecting the most important treasure.

The sounds, coming from everywhere all at once.

The heart monitors, the nurses communicating to each other, the strange noises coming from their mouths that will make no sense to me.

I will have no understanding of anything... because all I will have known is silence.

And maybe, just maybe, it will be the fact that that silence will have been broken and from then on, life will be a constant clutter of irritating noise.

Loud coffee shops, bustling cities, heavy traffic, irritated car horns, roaring trains, barking dogs, murmuring machinery, annoying telephones, rustling paper, tapping pens, forks scraping on plates, nails on chalkboards, smacking gum, and unending thoughts.

There will be years of this along the winding roller coaster that we call life.

Years of being loud and pushing silence away, believing there will be no use for it and that I must keep my life full of noise.

And then...

Silence will come once again.

There will be wrinkled skin.
There will be white hair.
There will be shaking bones.
There will be hard hearing.
There will be bad eyes.
There will be rasping breaths.
There will be a failing heart.
Or maybe a deteriorating mind.
Or perhaps it will be that time
will have caught up with me.
Like two hour glasses,
set for different speeds.

And they will all be me.

I will be laying down. 
I will be preparing myself.
I will close my eyes.
I will breathe one more breath.
And I will welcome it.

The thing that first brought me to life.
I will take its hand,
and we will walk, side by side,to Summerland.

I was loud.
But not for long.
For I am silent, once more.

Thursday, June 7, 2018

"The Winter Was All I Knew"

Hey, guys. So, this poem is another one I wrote in my Creative Writing class this past school year. I wrote this one on January 19th.

"The Winter Was All I Knew"

Cold.
Emotionless.
Alone.
Trapped.
Freezing.
Dying.

Every year, the winter reminds me of the worst parts of my life.
The cold surrounded me, dragging me away from society.
The frost crept its way through my body,
clutching my heart and tightening its grip with every following day.
The snow built up, blocking any means of escape I had.

I was trapped.
The winter, isolating me.
I was alone.
The ice broke under my feet, dragging me deeper
And deeper


And deeper



And deeper




Into oblivion.

I was slowly dying.
Freezing to death in the winter of my soul.
The winter is all I've known.
Every year, the winter reminds me of the worst parts of my life.
But every winter must come to an end.

There is new life to be born.
Now I can see the world slowly coming to life once again.
Now I can see the rays of sun through the gray haze that had been my world for as long as I've known.

And now it is time for my life to be born, once more.
For my heart to thaw, just as the world does, year after year, fighting for survival.
The winter was all I knew...
And now it is time for my winter to end.