Tag Archives: teenage angst

Camp Out

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Camp Out

Gathered around a campfire before a tiny hut,
they try to find a pathway out of their parents’ rut.
Like each new generation, they must grow out of their roots,
stubbornly insisting they won’t fill their parents’ boots.

They flounder in their greetings. Are you he or she or they?
So many other choices than straight or bi or gay.
Their paltry experience seems to them uncouth,
so they are determined to spice up unseasoned youth.

They embark on new adventures, treading warily at first,
grasping opportunities to quench their every thirst.
They pass around the bottle, then share the smoking pipe,
place proffered pills on questing tongues, imaginations ripe

for each new experience, finding every mode
of travel that might lead them all to the mother lode.
Every generation finding their own route
to strike out on their own to see what life’s about. 

Prompts today are roots, flounder, greetings, youth, hut and paltry. Image by Jason Leung on Unsplash.

Teenage Lotharios at the Dance: NaPoWriMo 2022, Day 3: The Glosa

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they speak whatever’s on their mind
they do whatever’s in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance.
*– e. e. cummings

Teenage Lotharios at the Dance

Along the gym wall they are lined.
These young men of the teen-aged kind
are young and beautifully designed,
but they aren’t subtle, and they aren’t kind.
They speak whatever’s on their mind.

They pose, they preen, they strut, they prance.
They walk by girls and joke and glance,
at intermission make their advance 
and if they score a date, perchance,
they do whatever’s in their pants

For them, romance is a slow grind.
For years, they’ve plotted and they’ve pined.
so after  girls are wooed and wined,
it’s very likely they will find
the boys I mean are not refined.

But, if girls can put up with their rants,
beguile the knight, repel his lance,
 stay firm in their “wont’s” and “cant’s.”
and get them back inside, by chance,
they shake the mountains when they dance.

 

 

 

The prompt for NaPoWriMo today is to write a Glose or Glosa Poem.The glose or glosa is an interesting Spanish form. The basic premise is that you quote four lines of poetry as an epigraph from another poem or poet. These four lines act as a refrain in the final line of the four stanzas written by the poet. So the first line of the epigraph would be the final line of the first stanza, the second line ends the second stanza, etc.

The most common convention is for each of these stanzas to be ten lines in length, but NaPoWriMo is not holding us to this rule. There are no other hard and fast rules for rhymes or syllables, though line length is usually consistent within the poem (so the epigraph kind of sets the line length).

*From “the boys i mean are not refined” by e. e. cummings:

In the Mirror

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In the Mirror

Her rag doll image
rejects the girls room twitters,
counts to five and says hello
to the new girl she sees 
in the mirror who doesn’t care.

 

The dVerse Poets prompt is to write a Wayra poem. The elements of the Wayra are:
1. a pentastich, a poem in 5 lines.
2. syllabic, 5-7-7-6-8
3. unrhymed.
A further request is to use onomatopoeia.

Since I’m addicted to writing to prompts, I am randomly choosing prompt words for myself as well: by letting my eyes fall randomly on words on this page or my desktop. Here are the prompt words: twitter, count, image, hello, rag, rejects.

Only Child

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Only Child

She wants to trade her parents for contemporary versions.
She cannot stand their constant recital of aversions.
When it comes to expectations, their rule list never ends.
They derogate her clothes choice and her makeup and her friends.

When she wants to go on overnights, they won’t give their consent.
They never understand her or hear what she really meant.
Her dating makes them nervous. They wait up ’til she gets in,
then interrogate her as to what she’s done and where she’s been.

When it comes to parents, she got the rawest deal.
The schism that’s between them it seems will never heal.
Would she had an older sister who was ill-behaved and wild
to detract attention from this wretched only-child!

Prompt words today are nervous, consent, schism, derogate and trade.

Sixteen

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Sixteen

She met him at the harvest dance.
An act of fate, they met by chance.
The very first grown man she kissed,
he was a traveling journalist,
and she had barely got love’s gist
when he vanished in the mist.
For reference, she had not any.
She had not made love with many
and those she’d had were only boys,
as unacquainted with the joys
of mature love as she had been,
for they were only kids, not men.

She found it tedious at best
to spoon with any of the rest,
and yet she tried, and kept a list
in which she rated and she dissed
those teenage lovers that were left
once journalism left her bereft
of seasoned lover who had pleased her
whereas all the rest just squeezed her
wrong, somehow. They smacked and cuddled,
yet, somehow, they all just muddled
what she’d had occasion once, perchance,
to experience at the harvest dance.

She finally devised a plot
wherein she could improve her lot.
She’d do a deed of much renown
to draw her lover back to town.
And this is why she planned the prank
wherein she would rob the bank.
Of course she’d send the money back.
The larcenous gene she seemed to lack,
but this would create so much news
that she was fairly sure he’d choose
to come investigate the crime,
and that would be the perfect time
to improve her skills of woo.
He’d be her prey and she’d count coup.

For a week, her schemes just perked.
She watched and waited, planned and lurked
watching for the perfect time 
to enact her lovelorn crime.
And, finally, the time seemed good.
She donned a long-armed cloak with hood,
took her daddy’s gun and, masked,
said “Stick ’em up” when she was asked
if she was seeking to deposit,
distressing her, it seems, because it
seemed to  cause so little pause,
from the teller, perhaps because
the teller, who was also masked,
gave her a sucker before she asked
what transaction she might mean
to request on this Halloween!

And so it was the plot was foiled.
By mistiming, her plans were spoiled.
She abandoned larceny
and resumed her tomfoolery
with the local high school boys
wherein they all discovered joys
by practice to bring that surcease
she’d sought to learn by expertise.

 

Prompt words for today are journalist, reference,  tedious, list and pleased.

First Love

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First Love

That frisson of excitement that I once knew so well—
that doubling of my pulse rate that rang me like a bell.
Back when there was no contest over which would win
when impulse clashed with custom. Back when passion was no sin.
The sum of all that feeling sent us crashing into life—
before you were a husband, before I was a wife.

Remember how exciting those first love wanderings were?
Those first stirrings of passion that made us stretch and purr
like felines on that blanket stretched out on the grass?
Our love was a religion and each touch a holy mass.
Our loving was eternal up until the time we parted
and each became a memory of when loving first started.

Prompts today are sum, double, frisson and contest.

Limbo

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1960, Murdo, South Dakota

Limbo

My best friend taught me about limbo and saints,
Showed me their stacks of National Geographic.
You had to be invited into membership, she said,
not everyone could join. I rated them against
my mother’s Ladies’ Home Journals
and felt deficient, somehow.

No wine in our Methodist kitchen cupboards.
No tuna and salmon tins
stacked up awaiting Friday.
All those cans on my friend’s mother’s shelves in limbo
all Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
that long summer when we were still twelve.

Wanting something we didn’t yet know the name of.
Restless stirrings the little boys our age 
did not know how to respond to.
All of them inches shorter than us
 except for one—a tall country boy
new to town school,
the most innocent of all.

How we waited to be chosen—
the fact that we’d already chosen in our minds
having little consequence.
How we watched. How we kept secrets,
even from each other.

I knew what to call it, at least,
if not much else,
that summer I turned thirteen,
expectantly,

and
absolutely
nothing changed.

Limbo.

The dVerse poets prompt is “Limbo.”

But Jimmy Cliff says it best!!!!

And “Limbo” of a different sort was two years in our future: 

The Leech

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proclaimed to be fine,

The Leech

They’ve plugged up their ears to muffle his mutterings.
They’re tired of his self-serving utterings.

He’s an indulgence they’d like to be shed of,
expunge from their sofa and free their spare bed of.

He thinks it’s tradition that they should take care of him,
yet they’d prefer that their house just be bare of him.

He’s a caricature of self-indulgence,
wallowing in familial abundance.

They need to be boxing his ears or possessions
and signing up for codependency sessions.

They’ve supported him well and sent him to college,
imbued him with clothes, with playthings and knowledge.

Now he needs to be kicked out to find his own life—
to be taught by experience, seasoned by strife.

Lest they make a mongrel of a fine pup,
it’s time they encourage their boy to grow up!

 

 

The prompt words today are tradition, caricature, indulgence and boxing.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/26/rdp-wednesday-tradition/

FOWC with Fandango — Caricature


https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/26/your-daily-word-prompt-indulgence-December-26-2018/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/26/boxing/

Generational Drift

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Generational Drift

It’s a symptom of their stage of life,
a product of their age.
Adolescents have to disagree
and posture, pout and rage.

That teenage chemical is now
rampaging through each vein,
bringing self-doubt, embarrassment,
confusion and disdain.

Nothing so discomforting
as advice of a parent.
Teens crave emancipation,
but go through with it? They daren’t.

They may neglect their family time
in favor of their friends.
The list of what is wrong with you?
Somehow it never ends.

If you could just dress better,
they might find it easier to
admit you were their parents
when they run into you.

But as it is they meet your eye,
their own eyes simply narrowing.
They walk by like a stranger.
To address you would be harrowing.

You rip your jeans and cut your hair
so it looks freshly tumbled,
but you cannot please them.
If you try, you will be humbled.

“Gross,” they’ll say, “You’re not a kid,
so why attempt to be one?”
But if you keep your present look,
they’ll say that you are no fun.

How can one be as old as you
and not know anything?
For their advice, they’ll go online
to consult the I Ching.

Ouiji boards and seances
bring advice from the past.
It seems words really ancient
contain more of a blast.

So parents, do not anguish
if you can’t reach your at-hand kids,
Just wait ’til you have passed away
and talk to your great-grandkids!

The prompt today is symptom.

First Love and the School Reunion

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Then and Now

First Love

Zing! went our heartstrings. Zang! went our souls.
Eyes filled with wonder, hearts cupped like bowls
ready to fill  with passion and love.
Putting each other on like a glove.

First kisses miracles we’d never known.
No longer single all on our own.
Someone to cuddle, someone to spoon.
Hand holds and lip locks over too soon.

Misunderstandings, squabbles and fights.
Heartbreak and lonely Saturday nights.
Then a new glance from cars “U”ing  main.
Flirting and wooing all over again.

More hugs and kisses parked on a hill.
How to forget them? We never will.
At school reunions, we relive those lives,
husbands beside us, or boyfriends or wives.

Talking of other things: study halls, games,
but always remembering carving those names
in desktops and memory—first loves forever—
tendrils that bind us that we cannot sever.

We’ll soar ahead to the rest of our lives,
collecting new memories—bees in our hives.
But no honey finer than that we made first.
No sweeter lips and no stronger thirst.

Stored in our hearts, remembered but hidden,
hoarded like treasures sealed in a midden,
our lives are made richer by both now and then.
Past memories opening over again

spill out old secrets, then seal them away
to be unwrapped on some future day
when old schoolmates meet for two days’ reminiscing
of school pranks and ballgames and homework. And kissing.

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The prompt word today was “Zing.”