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Ode to a good basketball game
“Ball is life” so they say
whether in high school or NBA
While I must disagree, there is indubitably
beauty in quality game
Last minute step back J,
Silky smooth fadeaway
Any good game is a joy to see
hard to make basketball lame
Why bother? Why devote
our time deciding who’s GOAT
Maybe it’s ‘cause we’re real fans
maybe it’s ‘cause we’re just bored
That’s not true, I’d take note
how our emotions float
How we yell, clench up our hands
Cry tears of joy when they score
Basketball mirrors life
The joy, the anguish, and strife
That’s why we keep coming back
to feel the things that we lack
Maybe I spoke too fast
Seems I’ll concede at last
Turns out it really is true
Ball is life, what say you?
An Old Book’s Manifesto
I was once your favorite book of all,
Treated with your charming care and stare,
Into which I long’d to read more,
One page, or another, the best we did share.
Oft did we embrace until late at night;
Insatiable as you threw me another glance,
And lit the mid-night’s candle light,
In the melody of spheres more would we dance.
Yet the old-fashioned candle never last long,
As all stories have to have an end;
With the ash-coat on, I am forever forlorn,
Reduced into the dust, which cannot be amend’d.
For one mere thing I disclaim,
There is florescence inside your palm.
I will change “disclaim” to “complain”
This is my sonnet.
The Faulty Encyclopedia
I look to you to find my answers dear,
But it’s rare that I find what I look for
In the pages to which your soul adheres.
Maybe it hides in the pages I tore
From you, like you tore out all that I was.
Silly for me to believe all your truths,
Not lies, per say, you think you have no flaws;
Still you took the innocence of my youth.
I memorized the content of your myths
But you make no effort to keep the things
That hold me awake and make me squirm with
Passion, exciting and irritating.
These blunt dimples upon your leathered spine
Confuse the ones here in this heart of mine.
Time
There is something out there for everyone to never have;
Galaxies we will not visit,
And cosmos we will never grab
We collect dust and burn minutes,
Breaking nails on the chalkboard of her apathy
To be forgotten like a footprint on the moon
We wait to fall and feel her gravity,
And stain the aloof Earth maroon
Careless wounds with tired fingers she inflicts;
Still our gaze fixed upon her skies from our open casket,
Keeping track of the hands that choke and tick
To the tune of the creator and assassin;
She whispers “there is nothing more”
In hopes we’ll find that it’s worth living for
Sonnet
Assignments always given every year,
there’s always some requiring me to feel
And these, the ones that always give me fear
Feel forced, and vague, and often not quite real
The ones that say to write on anything
without a goal in mind aren’t ever fun.
I find myself too often wondering
exactly what it is that they want done
To put it simply I don’t feel the need
to write down all the things I feel and think
It’s not that I don’t think, not that indeed
But thoughts are in my head, not set in ink
Of course I think and feel, however I’m
not sure that needs expression, rhythm, and rhyme
i can’t edit this, but I made a change, so my real sonnet is posted below.
Assignments always given every year,
there’s always some requiring me to feel
And these, the ones that always give me fear
Feel forced, and vague, and often not quite real
The ones that say to write on anything
without a goal in mind aren’t ever fun.
I find myself too often wondering
exactly what it is that they want done
To put it simply I don’t feel the need
to write down all the things I feel and think
It’s not that I don’t think, not that indeed
But thoughts are in my head, not set in ink
Of course I think and feel, however I’m
not sure that needs expression, rhythm, rhyme
Bird, Grass, and Wind
A passerine’s upon an oaken bough
With roosted tune, enduring, never new
Extending through the woods eternal vows
His coat—and heart—a craven ocher hue.
This strain of strain does aggravate the wind
So breezes carry off the toiling tune.
No matter how the fledgling finds it’s sinned,
It’s raw to currents’ wishes to commune.
But blades of grass do sway with gale’s desire,
The gale, in turn, proceeds as flora sway,
Now here, now there, not ever arranged as prior,
But always matching harmonies they play.
A world’s vibrations always undulate,
So bliss shall come for souls without constraint.
I don’t know why my stanza separations didn’t appear.
Sturtevant
There stood old Sturtevant,
Who had been here,
For over hundreds of years,
Overlooking at the bowl, still and sheer.
The leaves were falling, the wind chilling,
But old Sturtevant never made a move.
And one day an eager student asked:
“People come and go, but why you never leave?”
To his astonishment old Sturtevant spoke,
In a manner most benign,
And on and on he told,
A story, in a voice so divine.
“When I was young I had a dream,
As grand as that of Martin Luther King.
I dreamed to catch the wind,
And refine it, confine it to spring.
People would thank me for my deed,
To jail this ruthless air.
So when the coldness came,
And our skins would be fair.
So around the earth I ran,
To capture this amorphous shape.
Again and again I attempted,
But I saw nothing in my gape.
So I lay down and mused,
What should I do to contain the gust?
Boom! a hunch took over my mind,
Of course, I had to push it to control it.
Thereafter I changed my plan,
‘cause winter was bitter anyway.
I took out all my tools,
And built giant fans with no delay.
Soon my invention powered the whole country,
And cooled the sweat of the scorching summer.
My factory sat in Boston, on the ground of Jamaica Plain,
My wind blew to Europe, stirred ripples on a German river.
And now I am here, standing in oblivion.”
The old man stopped, pondering in silence.
His eyes were tearing sand,
On the path that walked the students.
In a trice he disappeared.
With the wind, he had gone without fame .
The last thing he ever left,
Were some bricks bearing his name.
So when the coldness came,
Our skins would be fair.
I should have deleted the “And”.
Almira
A girl who found rhythm wherever she went
Never missing a beat, she waltzed about
All that remains of her is this lament
My darling Almira danced through life.
Her smile always brightened the day
No matter what, Almira continued to dance
We love Almira’s happiness they would say
My darling Almira danced through life.
Then a different tune played, not made for her
She danced on though, until the end
An unstoppable disease with no cure
Still my darling Almira danced through life.
There is no rhythm left for her to find
There are no more beats or waltzes
I know I won’t find anyone of her kind
Because no one dances through life like my darling Almira.
The Treasure
To Hebron Dudley Bailey came
To teach in ’32,
A man of God, or so he’d claim,
His peers, though, misconstrued.
He preached the cryptic wealth of Christ
Which none could understand
Such that no thinking would suffice
Though he knew truth firsthand.
Though he believed that he’d found God,
Would see him up above,
Preceptors said, “this man’s a fraud
who blasphemes, void of love.”
And old Red Purington, the head
Of school, with piercing stare
Sent Dudley off to live instead
Someplace that wasn’t there.
So Dudley packed his bags and left,
wife Hannah by his side,
They traveled through the state bereft,
Devoid of any pride.
They came to Greene and there he preached,
For seven years or less,
When soon in Greene did rumors reach
That Dud was blasphemous.
And as before, to Cornville, Wayne,
St. Albans, Hartland too,
Until near all the state of Maine,
of Dudley’s repute knew.
By then his daughter Harriet,
Born 18 years before,
Abandoned this Iscariot,
a new life she left for.
So agéd Dudley and his wife,
Tried Monson for a while,
But word got through again—so rife
—One more supposéd crime.
But when the mayor looked for Dud,
To send him on the path,
He found inside Dud’s home a flood,
And Dud drowned in the bath.
His wife returned to Hebron then,
And dug him in the ground,
The place where she had grown up when
Her father owned the town.
Old Red’s son, George, head now was he
His own son soon he bred
Named Otis, born 12/23
A year since Dud was dead.
Now Hannah midwifed Mrs. George,
the babe loved as her spawn,
A friendship she hoped would be forged,
Alas, they’d soon be gone.
On Christmas day, Red went to scrub
All clean for his own health,
But Babe and midwife, drowned in tub,
At last found Christ’s great wealth.
Lillian “Birdie” V
Lillian V,
Called “Birdie” by her family,
Was well behaved, never strayed far from home,
Unlike her sister Ida who was always one to roam.
One day deep in the heat of mid July,
Birdie and Ida ran to quench their tongues so dry
In the deep river where the horses bathed.
Only Birdie would return home unscathed.
Ambitious and impulsive as she was,
Ida jumped down the river bank because
She wanted to reach the river quickly,
But the water below was rushing too swiftly.
Ida lost her footing near water’s edge
Slipping on a nearby wet sedge,
And fell into the powerful current,
Taken from life by violent torrent.
Birdie screamed out for her sister;
The only sound returned was the voice of a nearby agistor.
“What is wrong, child, why do you cry?”
“I think I’ve just lost the only sister of mine.”
The farmer brought young Birdie home
With no concept of what she would become.
Without her older sister by her side
Birdie might as well have been the one who did die.
Sarah Turner
She was his“love at first sight” girl,
Walked down the aisle
With heirloom pearls and close pin curls
Like something from a faery isle,
The world had not been graced with such a smile
Or such sweetness to make still hearts murmur,
Wedding bells rang through years and miles
For the sweet young Sarah Turner
The summer found its peace,
When winter came
She settled for the things that ceased
Spending long nights with him by open fire
And when the embers died they would retire;
There was no greater happiness than this,
To never grow tired of twilight and what transpired
Content with a canvas and goodnight kiss
But paintings were the only babies she could birth,
Creating sunsets and valleys equal to her splendor
But none of them would walk the Earth;
There’d never been a storm she couldn’t weather,
With every failure her heart strings severed
He took her hand and told her “sorrows heal”
So she took up her brush and aimed to remember
But it no longer had the same appeal
She traded the brushes for fingerpaint
Teaching at the schoolhouse in town
And not once did she breath complaint
Or regret tending to skid knees on the playground,
Their laughter had become her favorite sound;
Her wishing had left her fatigued
But Monday mornings with their glee abound
Helped her to be at ease
Generations passed through her room
All while Sarah’s hair became ivory with age
Years crept on by
Her skin wilted but her smile stayed the same
For her passion did not expire or fade;
She passed in the late July
And so did summer’s greenest days,
A time lovely as her to say goodbye;
All sorrows heal and that’s enough sometimes
Nothing But a Name
It was in the winter of old Maine,
There old Durward did go.
Snowflakes falling down the roof, my friend,
He steps in a tavern named Rose.
“A pint of ale, and a mug of bear,”
He roars at the bartender Joe.
He takes off that hat and unload his gear,
And seats down throwing jokes.
“I am from Alabama, so don’t wonder when I get drunk,
Folks who answers this correctly, you may go ahead and claim a crown.
Why do ducks fly over Alabama upside down?
Cause there’s nothing worthy, for folks to craping on!
The old man Durward got dizzy,
And everything seems so blurry.
He gets himself up and tumbles barely,
He’s going to spend a penny.
The wind is blowing twigs and boughs,
Thing enshrouded by darkness.
Someone comes up behind the fellow,
And chop him with an axe.
They discovered the body, next morning burrowed in snow,
No one every knows who is him, only did Joe know his name.
So they lay him behind the chapel, with nothing but a square of stone.
Here lies old Durward in Hebron, with nothing but a name.
No one knows exactly what to say
in regards to the death of Florence A.
Only daughter of the Reverend,
for a short life she was destined.
It was the first of November
All the townsfolk they remember,
When Florence went for a walk
After noticing the weathercock.
Through the forest she strolled
Among the fallen leaves of gold
The sun was out, the air was mild
A pleasant day for a mere child
It was then while Florence ate
that the weathercock did rotate
The wind shifted, the air grew cold
The bells of winter tolled
Soon there were drops of ice-cold rain
beating on all the window panes.
And while Florence hurried home,
Round and round the weathercock roamed
She eventually made it safe inside
and got bundled up, warm and dry.
However, little did she know
she had just suffered her deathblow
Because while through the woods she ran
inside her the pneumonia began
to take its lethal hold
This was no death foretold
In the end Florence went another week
The family all knew it would be bleak
And indeed she died on the first
To an early end she was cursed
Not quite nineteen years of age
Nothing could be said to assuage
her two grief stricken parents
Now they fear even the slightest ailment
Jon Tuttle’s final poetry collection: https://docs.google.com/a/hebronacademy.org/document/d/1OEGXYMXd9abFQdGBmubxpNhEfLTkF0poIJSrt7IFeYE/edit?usp=sharing
Collection of Original Poetry – Alana
Next Chapter
The days, a little closer to the end
The hours and minutes tick and fade away
There’s no more time the sadness for to mend
It’s all led up to this our final day.
It’s time to start a new part of our lives
Taking all that we have learned from our past
The next chapter begins as it arrives
A whole new start, one that we know will last.
Leaving behind our homes to get going
The Hebron hymn one last time we shall sing
All the pride in our smiles is showing
The victory bell continues to ring.
We must begin a whole new chapter now
Farewell Hebron Academy, for now.
Ode to Daybreak
After the stars have dazzled and the moon has shone
You put them to sleep and bring a new day
Bursting through the darkness you bring light
Today is new, and you are here to stay.
You are the calling of all day and new beginnings
After a long night of stillness you wake the Earth alive
Putting to rest all that was left of yesterday
Without you we would not be able to survive.
You are the rising of the day,
The Earth catches your first ray.
The City
Muffled air filled with cigarette smoke, freshly roasted nuts, hot subway tracks, and the repulsing smell of abandoned trash. My soft skin is splattered by exhaust from subway carts swiftly passing below. Caged bars rattle and shake beneath my feet as the subway screeches and puffs smoke into my face. The alleyways, sidewalks, and walls are filled with concrete. These countryside feet stride across the uneven pavement. The honking rings through my ears as cars yell at eachother. Flapping pigeon wings sweep the hair off of my forehead. The neverending city lights give warmth against my pale skin. I get caught in the conversations of the people I pass. People quickly shuffle in the early hours of the morning, all trying to get somewhere.
I am part of the buzz and hub of the city.
This is New York City.
Ode on her Heart
Tender, still and melancholy as it beats in her chest
Lined with warmth and kindness, she hurts no one
It is tame unlike the rest.
Pure and still fluttering with innocence
It carries on with no intention to harm
Not yet tattered by the affections of others.
I have been plagued by its richness
Infected by its affection
Each and every beat pulses through me.
It calls out and draws me in
Comforting and protective
It latches onto mine and I can’t break it off.
Overwhelmed by the sweetness and love
I am caught in a whirlwind of desire
One that cannot be broken.
Her heart then begins to beat differently than mine
Our directions are separating
I cannot seem to grasp what we shared before.
Unable to decipher the calling of her heart
I fall back behind
Watching as she goes on.
The feeling in my chest is changed
An indescribable difference
What was filled with love is now drained.
Confused by what her heart is saying
Not knowing what is truth and what is fake
I try to seek the beauty in it.
I find her heart is no longer with mine
Clouded by the reality of it all I realize
In the end her heart is still the same.
Her heart continues to infect others with its kindness
I cannot stop her from moving forward
I must let her heart go.
Sally B.
Silky brown hair braided tightly back under her baseball cap
Sally B. caught every boys eye
It might of been her slender waist or beaming brown eyes
Or maybe it was her confidence that showed that she was not shy.
The boys had never seen a girl walts onto their field
Or certainly not one as pretty as her
Sally B. was the prettiest tough girl they had seen
They never met any other girl like her.
Their dropped jaws did not slow her pace
She smacked the ball into the outfield and sprinted to the bases
Sally winked at the catcher as she crossed home plate
Slightly giggling to herself with the look on their faces.
That season was the best season for those boys
Summer had never gone by so fast
They wished it never ended
It would be hard to put those memories in the past.
Sally B. had moved out of Summer Town
The memories of her were not forgot
They missed her lightly speckled face hidden under the rim of her helmet
And all the lessons she had taught.
Her spirit too was not forgotten
No Sally B. in the field, but they could still see the smile from her lips
Or see her long braid swing across her back
And the tight fitted baseball pants around her hips.
A girl on the baseball team was new for them
But they would never forget a girl like Sally B.
Joy
It has always been there, even from the very first day.
The rosiest cheeks a mother has seen, that till this day still blossom red.
The soft smile and gentle giggle bring warmth
Never sulking or lacking pride
A high raised head leads its own path
Help from others is not needed, independence is her own
The laughter and excitement is contagious
Others cannot help but love her.
Such happiness and bliss in one person
She is joy.
Bitterness
We are told what we want to hear
Secrets covered by soft lies
Truth should not be our fear.
Honesty is hard to understand and unclear
It does not need to be something that we despise
We are told what we want to hear.
Hurting others just to protect those who are dear
The truth is something we should not deny
Truth should not be our fear.
It is a comfort having them near
Give them something fake to prevent their cries
We are told what we want to hear.
Dancing around the answer because of fear
Then there is failure after too many tries
Truth should not be our fear.
The truth hurts
Soon the lies are no surprise
We are told what we want to hear
Truth should not be our fear.
Lily of the Valley
Encompassed and strung together by green
Bowing over as if to thank the Earth
The dangling soft white bells so serene
Are unlike all of the rest on this Earth.
Living for just a short amount of time
They spread across the newly birthed ground
Stretching their beauty around as they climb
Joining the newly sprung flowers around.
A scent so pure and rich that fills my nose
Trickling to my chest for a short stay
Running through my veins as it flows
Until it has shriveled and past away.
Not before long Spring has faded away
And all of the Lilies have gone away.
For The Love of Dance
Keep going and dance
Do it now before you go
There is always time for one more dance.
Do not miss the chance
It might be your last, you never know
Keep going and dance.
Time is too precious looking at life at a glance
Sink into the moment and let your desires show
There is always time for one more dance.
Stop the worries and fears to dance
Feel the music and find the flow
Keep going and dance.
The beauty of it is the romance
Passion begins and it’s hard to let it go
There is always time for one more dance.
We all need to let ourselves go and dance
There is nothing better to do than dance
Keep going and dance
There is always time for one more dance.
Zach Abisalih’s Poetry Collection:
https://docs.google.com/a/hebronacademy.org/document/d/1TY73HYzioeZkZpjXkl_UAOBgVexctZOAWvwXnvfOgcU/edit?usp=sharing
The Treasure
To Hebron Dudley Bailey came
To teach in ’32,
A man of God, or so he’d claim,
His peers, though, misconstrued.
He preached the cryptic wealth of Christ
Which none could understand
Such that no thinking would suffice
Though he knew truth firsthand.
Though he believed that he’d found God,
Would see him up above,
Preceptors said, “this man’s a fraud
Who blasphemes, void of love.”
And old Red Purington, the head
Of school, with piercing stare
Sent Dudley off to live instead
Someplace that wasn’t there.
So Dudley packed his bags and left,
Wife Hannah by his side,
They traveled through the state bereft,
Devoid of any pride.
They came to Greene and there he preached,
For seven years or less,
When soon in Greene did rumors reach
That Dud was blasphemous.
And as before, to Cornville, Wayne,
St. Albans, Hartland too,
Until near all the state of Maine,
Of Dudley’s repute knew.
By then his daughter Harriet,
Born 18 years before,
Abandoned this Iscariot,
a new life she left for.
So agéd Dudley and his wife,
Tried Monson for a while,
But word got through again—so rife
—One more supposéd crime.
But when the mayor looked for Dud,
To send him on the path,
He found inside Dud’s home a flood,
And Dud drowned in the bath.
His wife returned to Hebron then,
And dug him in the ground,
The place where she had grown up when
Her father owned the town.
Old Red’s son, George, head now was he
His own son soon he bred
Named Otis, born 12/23
A year since Dud was dead.
Now Hannah midwifed Mrs. George,
the babe loved as her spawn,
A friendship she hoped would be forged,
Alas, they’d soon be gone.
On Christmas day, Red went to scrub
All clean for his own health,
But Babe and midwife, drowned in tub,
At last found Christ’s great wealth.
The Treasure
To Hebron Dudley Bailey came
To teach in ’32,
A man of God, or so he’d claim,
His peers, though, misconstrued.
He preached the cryptic wealth of Christ
Which none could understand
Such that no thinking would suffice
Though he knew truth firsthand.
Though he believed that he’d found God,
Would see him up above,
Preceptors said, “this man’s a fraud
Who blasphemes, void of love.”
And old Red Purington, the head
Of school, with piercing stare
Sent Dudley off to live instead
Someplace that wasn’t there.
So Dudley packed his bags and left,
Wife Hannah by his side,
They traveled through the state bereft,
Devoid of any pride.
They came to Greene and there he preached,
For seven years or less,
When soon in Greene did rumors reach
That Dud was blasphemous.
And as before, to Cornville, Wayne,
St. Albans, Hartland too,
Until near all the state of Maine,
Of Dudley’s repute knew.
By then his daughter Harriet,
Born 18 years before,
Abandoned this Iscariot,
A new life she left for.
So agéd Dudley and his wife,
Tried Monson for a while,
But word got through again—so rife
—One more supposéd crime.
But when the mayor looked for Dud,
To send him on the path,
He found inside Dud’s home a flood,
And Dud drowned in the bath.
His wife returned to Hebron then,
And dug him in the ground,
The place where she had grown up when
Her father owned the town.
Old Red’s son, George, head now was he
His own son soon he bred
Named Otis, born 12/23
A year since Dud was dead.
Now Hannah midwifed Mrs. George,
The babe loved as her spawn,
A friendship she hoped would be forged,
Alas, they’d soon be gone.
On Christmas day, Red went to scrub
All clean for his own health,
But Babe and midwife, drowned in tub,
At last found Christ’s great wealth.
Yellow Bird
Yellow bird you sing a melody to me
One that only few will hear
You are what people wait to see
Your soft sunshine body is always near.
Those who choose to listen, love your song
You must know they appreciate it
Life would be dull if you were gone
Won’t you please stay for a bit?
You remind us of sweet things
Your sunglow wings make life lighter
And then your golden heart sings
When nothing else in this world is brighter.
Although you come and go yellow bird
We love your melody yellow bird.
This post was from a while ago but it was in the wrong spot so I moved it.
Ode to a Chestnut
A small fragment of a larger beauty
Falling at the same time of year
Scattering across the Earth
To me it is so dear
Each and every one is unique and rare
Smooth brown coats hide under green prickled layers
The shell breaks and reveals a certain essence
But I seem to be the only one who cares
I am dazzled by the power of such a small thing
Because this one here has lasted till Spring.
This was also in the wrong spot.
Time
There is something out there for everyone to never have;
Galaxies we will not visit,
And cosmos we will never grab
We collect dust and burn minutes,
Breaking nails on the chalkboard of her apathy
To be forgotten like a footprint on the moon
We wait to fall and feel her gravity,
And stain the aloof Earth maroon
Careless wounds with tired fingers she inflicts
Still our gaze fixed upon her skies from our open casket,
Keeping track of the hands that choke and tick
To the tune of the creator and assassin;
She whispers “there is nothing more”
In hopes we’ll find that it’s worth living for
(this was in the wrong spot)
Sarah Turner
She was his“love at first sight” girl,
Walked down the aisle
With heirloom pearls and close pin curls
Like something from a faery isle,
The world had not been graced with such a smile
Or such sweetness to make still hearts murmur,
Wedding bells rang through years and miles
For the sweet young Sarah Turner
The summer found its peace,
When winter came
She settled for the things that ceased
Spending long nights with him by open fire
And when the embers died they would retire;
There was no greater happiness than this,
To never grow tired of twilight and what transpired
Content with a canvas and goodnight kiss
But paintings were the only babies she could birth,
Creating sunsets and valleys equal to her splendor
But none of them would walk the Earth;
There’d never been a storm she couldn’t weather,
With every failure her heart strings severed
He took her hand and told her “sorrows heal”
So she took up her brush and aimed to remember
But it no longer had the same appeal
She traded the brushes for fingerpaint
Teaching at the schoolhouse in town
And not once did she breath complaint
Or regret tending to skid knees on the playground,
Their laughter had become her favorite sound;
Her wishing had left her fatigued
But Monday mornings with their glee abound
Helped her to be at ease
Generations passed through her room
All while Sarah’s hair became ivory with age
Years crept on by
Her skin wilted but her smile stayed the same
For her passion did not expire or fade;
She passed in the late July
And so did summer’s greenest days,
A time lovely as her to say goodbye;
All sorrows heal and that’s enough sometimes
(also misplaced)