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Go here to read poems for this challenge submitted
by students from Souderton Area High School
A
CURE FOR WHAT AILS YOU
By Howie
Hood
1
My head has become an ungovernable city of murderers
and thieves. I can only stare at something for so
long before the police start coming around. After
all this rain, a body hangs from a neighbor's tree.
Don't listen to what the flies say. If nobody loves
you, somebody can still fear you.
2
I didn't discover that the ocean was dead until
months after it died. Refugees from the pages of
banned books ask directions to the future. All the
things that might help should be indexed somewhere.
I have begun a list in my head: plantain for colds,
raspberry for stomachaches, red clover for nerves.
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RIVER
GHOST
By Alan
Savage
My
secret is drowned in this watery grave
Where river silt fills my nostrils
And the memories of my life lay submerged
I am the ghost in the river bed
Like a manikin in a rocking chair
The phantom strands of my hair coiling slowly
Once I was alive, with my hopes and dreams
Once I was the mother who made up her home
Amongst the patter of tiny little feet
Now my womb is stolen,
My dreams a sunken galleon
Lying on the river bed: waiting to be found.
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HAT
TRICK
By Joanne
Leva
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Bedbugs
mistake the top of a hat for another
insect - that of learned and deliberate
wrong-doing, designed to cause ill-being
in the dark of night. But bonding and
affection at its' earliest stages tell
a story of crickets and lamp light.
It's the selfish bugs that pierce the
skin of their host with force that devours
everything until there
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is nothing, but a vaccuum of doom and a stove
pipe shadow on the wall.
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PEARL'S
SONG
By Eric
Medlin
we sailed together
a trip to the moon
some bed bugs
and a lone shadow on the wall
is all we left behind
miss jenny was there
her gold shared throughout the land
the curse lifted by our handmade toys
leaning on everlasting arms
our stars form day-to-day
we could build a galaxy
to keep the bad men out
love conquers hate
a fairy-tale to embrace
we abide and endure…
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PREDATORS
By Barbara
Wagner
They stalk children
at night and in the light of day
with words, with toys, with smiles
they reach past our good sense
to grasp tiny hands
and steal blossoms from spring.
They watch.
Like hungry wolves they wait
to feed on the vulnerable.
While we laugh,
while we work,
while we dance,
while we fight,
while we search for keys,
while we look into mirrors,
while we shoot up,
while we shut down,
while we look around
and look away,
they stalk.
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THE
REAL MONSTER
By Fran
Baird
It is the darkness that protects the little children.
They are afraid. They do not know the monster, hiding
in the closest, is not for them. It waits to devour
the true, unrecognized grim, the one who slithers
in under the holy disguise. The hidden terror sees
with knowing eyes, shows itself only in a dream
and waits with steel regard for the betrayer, the
disguised demon to appear. Its razor-edged scream
descends upon the child in her dream, fashions a
blackened sword in the forge of a nightmare memory
that forever will protect the child from preachers
of the night.
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SHE'S
DEAD
By Carol
Ann Bond
I feel empty inside except for the fear, and my
food keeps coming up in my mouth, and my hands shake.
He killed Mommie and if he kills me too who will
look after, Pearl, my little sister? I hope the
River will carry us to safety. I hope the grown-ups
will believe me. I'm John and daddy told me where
the money is and Reverend Powell knows I know.
I
close my eyes and I see his handsome face and crooked
smile and yet, his eyes don't smile. The shadows
make a dark spot in the dimple of his chin and I
know the darkness is inside him. He has tattos on
the fingers of his hands: one is "love"
and the other is "hate". He has the cool,
cold eyes of a snake, ready to strike. I feel his
evil in my heart real strong. When you're dead do
you really go to heaven. People always say stuff
like "She's in a better place, now." I
don't think it's a better place.
The
river is crying for us on our little raft, me and
Pearl. The willows flow down like mermaid's hair
on either side of the river. Everythings in shadows
and I jump at every sound.
A
raven flies by narrowly missing my head and loons
are calling out as if to tell me, "You're dead,
Johny." Everything is in shadow and I jump
at every shape thinking it's him. He will slit my
throat, too, if he catches us. He's poison inside
like a cobra spewing venom. And there's a smell
in the air like death, or things rotting. I see
a dead fish on the river bank and its glassy eye
stares back at me as if to say, "You're next."
The sliver of the moon follows me as it slides through
the whispering trees, and I think even blood looks
black in the night time. Pearl is happy for the
adventure. I told her we'd be like Huck Finn going
on a little trip.
The
darkness protects us and I know he will keep coming
until he catches us. The Reverend Powell. He is
not of God. Lord Jesus protect us. Oh, Mommy, I
miss your sweet, happy eyes. Oh, Mommy come back.
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