MARCH 2012

You are all grown

And strong now, 22

23 in April, Jumping from college

to work

Ray-ray I know you’re a busy guy,

Trying to maintain a

Successful life,

Not as if it doesn’t come

Naturally.

 

Ray-ray I can’t help but to think

About those times of

Combining my Barbie’s

With your wrestling men

 

Our imagination was so strong,

We actually, truly, and really lived it,

 

I remember when we use to pretend

that we were like the characters of

final fantasy roaming through the

house pretending to fight impossible

creatures.

 

Names like the sacrificer will never efface

My memory

 

You’re my best friend, I don’t think I

would be half the person I am if it

wasn’t for you.

 

All those late nights of secret telling,

We were always the first ones to know

Any thing about each other.

 

Ray-ray I wish it could remain that

way, because now it seems to me I call

When I only need.

 

Ray-ray I’m sure you know that’s not

the case, but you know how your pebe 

chicken is always overthinking any situation.

 

We have priceless memories but

Many traditions are now broken,

Like sleeping together on Christmas Eve,

while listening to Christmas music.

 

Often my bestfriends are jealous

because they wish they had a

relationship with their siblings like

how I have with you.

 

Trust me Ray-ray I know I’m never at

home on weekends but Ray-ray we’re

going to make this work.

 

Ray-ray I pray that one day I can raise

my son how mama raised you so that

my son can be exactly like you to help,

teach, and treat his little sister,

Like how you did

Me.

I was shaped this way

By Deronisha Arceneaux

I was just a little girl

Still skinny, burettes with twirls

My mama brand me to be picky, smart, and clean

It was proven by the age of thirteen

Raised on the Southeast side

Where drugs and violence deprive.

I always tell my self I have to get out the hood.

Before one day I be misunderstood.

Story starts on saint low

When our house was broke into by the back doe

Moved off of Airport and MLK at eight

To find that kids stayed out too late.

 

Bike racings to the stop sign

Eating spicy pickles in the wintertime.

Around 2007 all the kids moved off the street and I was left with a kink.

My mom continuously bought pets to settle my boredness

They became pregnant and I had to aboard them.

 

Daddy came home from jail at dark

Made it up to me at Astroworld Park.

Our life was put back on track

Because all of the feelings came back.

 

Went up to Iowa to spend the summer.

Got into a fight with my cousins, what a bummer.

Never knew my accent was strong

Until I was judged wrong.

Spent a lot of time in Louisiana

It is so country

I felt way too clever.

Middle school hit

I was present in a bunch of filth

First years of track

I wish I could rewind them back. Sixth grade was my best year

Because I always had a bunch of cheer. Now im there at YWCPA

And all of my

Thoughts, experiences, and memories

Are still at display.

 

February 2012

Continuing our Winter Series at Park Place Regional Library,  in addition to our WITS student,  two local students attending St. Christopher’s Catholic School read poems. 

The Pirate and the Tree

By Chinyere Akuechiama – 4th grade at St. Christopher’s

 

There once was a pirate

Brave and bold

Till he sailed across the sea

And found some gold.

 

He dug the X to find the key

Then he thought

Who will I be?

 

He found the key

Then opened the treasure

And then his parrot said

What a pleasure

 

He saw it was green and brown too

Then the pirate said

What shall I do?

 

He took it out very gently

Then his parrot said

That’s not plenty

 

Then he thought

Is it a bee?

No said the parrot

It’s a tree

 

The Ocean

By Jimmy Phan – 4^th Grade St. Christopher’s

 

The ocean is big

The ocean is blue

It has a lot of fish

More than you.

 

The fish are small

The plankton are green

They are so small

They are the size of a jellybean.

 

Fish are big

Fish are small

Fish are short

Fish are tall.

 

Fish are green

Fish are red

When they go to sleep

They don’t have a bed.

 

There is a Pacific Ocean

It is very big, too

There is also the Atlantic

And it’s big, round and blue.

 

WITS Student: Jonathan S.

( 3rd grade at St. Mark’s Episcopal School)

 

JonathanNice
Funny
Smart
Wishes to go to Heaven
Dreams of helping the poor
Wants to travel to every place in the world
Who wonders what’s inside a black hole
Who fears evil
Who likes God
Who believes in Jesus
Who loves my mom
Who plans to be an artist
I like myself!

The Declaration

The Declaration is as loud as an elephant.
It’s as bumpy as a road and smells as bad as a sewer.
It probably tastes as bad as a rotten apple.
It was written by Thomas Jefferson, one of the best men ever.
The Declaration is very, very famous.
Fifty two people signed it.
It was written for our independence.

 

January 2012

For our Winter Series at Park Place Regional Library we invited four students from St. Christopher’s Catholic School to be part of our program, and from Meta-Four Houston International Poetry Team, Robyn Bria Adams. 

St. Christopher Catholic School

Jasmine Maldonado – 5^th Grade

Wolves

 

Wolves are nice creatures

They can be pets

But they are wild animals

And they hate the vet.

Wolves are friendly

They are like dogs.

Wolves sleep long

And they sleep like a log!

Yasmine Ortiz – 5^th Grade

St. Christopher School

 

St. Christopher School is very cool.

I’m very glad this school is not bad.

Our classes are good.

We are always in a good mood.

No scary stories

We don’t have worries.

We really love this cool school.

Jacob Martinez – 5^th Grade

Life

 

 

Life is long.

Life can be a song.

You shouldn’t do anything wrong.

In life there’s a time to play.

In life there’s a time to say.

You should say hey.

 

 

Kiutza Leija – 5^th Grade

About My School

 

St. Christopher is a good school.

The students here are kind.

The activities we do are cool.

We have great minds.

Robyn Bria Adams

A High School Senior, Robin Bria Adams, already has a long list of accomplishments to her credit including: representing Houston, Texas in the Semi-Finals at the 2011 Brave New Voices 14th Annual International Youth Poetry Slam Festival and being crowned the 2011 Brave New Voices International MC Olympics Champion at the UC Berkeley Chevron Auditorium – International House; San Francisco, California (July 22, 2011); Authored collection of poetry (2009 – 2011); Performed Original Poetry and Christian Raps; Outbreak Youth Ministry Events; Windsor Village United Methodist Church; Houston, Texas (July 2010).

Recess

I wish I could burn these scars into ashes,

that resemble sand-boxes where we first met.

See,

we had that elementary type of love.

That check yes or no box type of connection—

That you shared your oreos with me

at lunchtime type of affection.

We carved our names into sidewalks

just so we could say we walked with love.

That was back when

we used to be scared of our own shadows

so we tried convincing ourselves we were someone worth following.

See its funny how simple things use to be,

between you and me.

I was a jungle gym you were my high beams that held me into place.

Often times I forgot that I couldn’t stand without you.

See,

gravity played cupid with our hearts,

making us fall for each other.

This wasn’t part of the plan because I fell so hard

that I forgot to teach myself how to land.

I thought we had that ken and barbie type of love.

But looking back on it,

Its kind of funny how we’re attracted to something so fake.

Because you grew up to be a player

and I was your cello.

I just wanted to be held but instead you string me along,

playing heart broken notes that produce painful symphonies.

While I tried to stay composed.

See, Love had a different meaning back then.

You made my heart play hopscotch

and skip beats like scratch cd’s.

While I played monkey bars on your rib cages trying to cling to your heart.

But I see these ice cream relationships always seem to melt away.

So maybe when were old and gray.

We’ll look back and say

or pray at another day to play

at recess.

November 5, 2011: 

David Avent, a 4th grade student, read these two original  poems:

Jemma’s mother read two poems she composed at WITS and, by request from Public Poetry, a set of three poems about hurricane Ike.  All are printed below:

About Ike

Three poems in tribute to all who sat listening

By Jemma Leech, September 2008  

 

Waiting for Ike

By Jemma Leech

September 11^th, 2008

 

My mom is rattled.

She walks a worn path

From computer to kitchen to TV to computer

Checking each update

On storm surge and storm watch and storm track.

 

She pockets scribbled lists:

Raisins

Cereal

Flashlights

Milk

 

She talks a new language

Of dirty sides and uncertainty cones

And has new acquaintances to gossip about to her friends –

Gustav, Carla, Allison, Rita, and now Ike,

(But no gossip about Katrina, just low-voiced awe).

 

She sends texts of concern

And makes reassuring phonecalls

To family in non-tropical waters

Playing down the danger

While losing sleep herself.

 

Outside the air is hot and still.

The clouds are light and high

In the clean blue canopy

But Ike is coming

And we are waiting.

 

Listening to Ike

By Jemma Leech

September 25^th, 2008

 

From inside my ply-pillowed place,

I listen.

 

The horns of thunder blaze in furious fanfare,

The lightning shrieks in sharp discordance,

The complex percussion of rain and wind,

Branch, pole and rocking fence

Beats the rhythm of the storm

In a different universe,

Out there, beyond.

 

The bayous surge in counterpoint

To the rumbling current,

They break their banks

In the sliding slippage of tacit destruction,

And the movement seeps to silence by daybreak

In a different universe,

Out there, beyond.

 

From inside my quiet-quilted sanctuary,

I listen.

 

After Ike

By Jemma Leech

September 29^th, 2008

 

 

Far out in the Gulf under cloudless blue skies

The turtle soars free on warm currents

Flying beneath sea-clouds of flotsam and jetsam,

Debris of shattered lives unknown.

 

As she reaches the shallows

Where frothing waters lap on the shore of hell,

Her carapace catches with silver fire

As she drags herself up the moon-soaked sand.

 

This beach has been her birthright

Since the dawn of the turtles,

As it will be for her daughters

In millennia to come.

 

For the island’s sweet song,

Not quenched, just softened,

Calls again to her children

And they will come home,

Like the turtles,

To Galveston’s heavenly shore.

My neighbor, Jack 

By Jemma Leech

June 24^th, 2009

  

When he pulled my hair,

I hated him.

When he pushed me out of the apple tree,

I hated him.

When he put worms down my back

And left me hide’n’seeking

When he went home for lunch,

I hated him.

 

When he ignored me in the school hallway,

I hated him.

When he laughed with his mates when I slipped on the ice,

I hated him.

When he told Stinky Stewart Smith that I ‘like-liked’ him

And when he asked my best friend to be his date for the school dance,

I hated him.

 

But when I met him by chance on the New York subway,

I stared at him.

When he bought me a coffee and we talked till midnight,

I wondered about him.

When he asked me to join him for a picnic in the park,

And when he told me he’d loved me since we were five years old

And had always treasured the fun we’d had together

In our shared childhoods

And in our teenage years,

I realized at last

I really hated him.

 

A Dancer’s House  

This house is very empty. 

There are only cleared-out spaces.

But this house has 

something special. 

This house is a dreamer.

 It wakes me up early in the morning 

So that I can dance to its ancient

song of

 praise. 

This house is set where 

two rivers meet and rush. 

Have you ever danced until the 

thieving sunset stole your light of day?

 Because I have, in my house. 

The blue stones in the rain 

are the music that I dance to.

 My house is made of brick and wood. 

But my house has a soul. Believe it. 

My house is old, but comfortable.

 I touch the rusted pipes that still let me live. 

My pliés and pirouettes are better 

when I’m in my house on the top floor. 

My blood, pumping out imagination until 

the day draws to 

its close. 

I leap and bound on my garden path. 

I skip across the quiet river. 

A peaceful house, 

a peaceful setting, 

a dancer’s house.

 

Young Girl, Afghanistan

 

 

 

Look into my eyes and you will

 

see the great terrors I have

 

been through.  The pain of seeing

 

my country being destroyed.  Even in

 

the darkest of times; my eyes still

 

glow,

 

            glowing like the single

 

light that emerges a strong light. Even

 

in the darkest of time, the bright

 

fire in my soul sets off

 

                                 a

 

                                    single

 

                                                spark

 

The color of my clothing is bright, but

 

not bright enough to comfort me.

 

 

 

The wind tears through my blue robe,

 

and a strange man asks me to take

 

it off.  I do.  It feels wonderful. The

 

cool wind blows against my face.

 

 

 

My blue eyes suddenly see a bright

 

light, and then, the man is gone.

 

Look into my eyes and you will see

 

the great horrors my people have

 

seen. I am sad, but I will keep

 

pressing on.  Because there is a

 

fire, deep,

 

                deep,

 

                            deep in my soul.

 

A single spark. I have to let my

tears go. Yes.

 Diamond

By Guadalupe H

 

I’m shinier than a star

I’m a diamond

That gets shined

Every day by my owner

I’m worth more than your shoes

Every time you look at me

You can see my reflection

When you put me in the sun

I will burn your Barbie doll

And toast her up like French Toast

Don’t hate because I shine more than

You and your new J’s

When you buy me

Think pink

It’s a better way of life.

 

 

[Untitled]

By Guadalupe H

 

My world feels

Cold and windy

The grass is wet

temperature around 65 degrees

 

it moves like a sphere

an airplane

the right way the wind is going

 

My world sounds like

Vibration of the wind

In my ear

Trees blowing

I could hear the freeway

When the wind blows

And the trees blow

And the leaves get in your face

And the bears migrate in the winter

 

And when it stops

It feels hot

I get mad

And our stuff flies away.