Poem- Nature Inspired?

Poem I wrote a few years ago for my senior creative writing class. We had to listen to several different movie soundtracks and write whatever came to mind. One of the songs was from the "Atonement" soundtrack, and was full of rushing piano parts that felt like you were running across the wet English countryside. This is my poem from it; the picture is what it looks like in my altered book.

The day breaks
calm, mysterious
as a sliver of gray creeps in unnoticed.
Leaves part from cautious hands,
the dewy morning staining the intrepid wanderer
Nature takes flight
as the gray commands the sky
Footsteps thunder past, the sharp
thud thud thud thud crash
as foot meets root and you sprawl,
lay on the unforgiving wooded floor
now mocking, dark and cold,
your attempts to be king.
You are small at the mercy
of the sky

I feel like a real writer

Today I feel like a true writer, because I got my first rejection letter. I sent a poem in to Tin House Magazine a couple of months ago, and got a reply today. Standard, "sorry we couldn't use your work at this time. Best of luck, blah blah blah". I'm a little disappointed, but not terribly, since I didn't think I had a shot in hell anyways. I'm going to try submitting some stuff to smaller magazines, maybe some college ones. There's so few literary magazines that actually exist anymore that it's hard to publish in them.

Great Poem By Emily Dickinson - Death

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

Poem- Satriani

That's actually not the title, I'm just supremely lazy and horrible with titles. It is a line from the poem though. This is from an assignment we did titled "Home & Family"

A riff
a string
Satriani
a rattle
a pot
overflowing
a puff
a mattress
Inflating
a click
a key
Opening
A shriek
a hug
my family's home

Poem- Change

Modeled after a soliloquy from Shakespeare's Macbeth.
I think I really like this one because it's more formalized/very stylistic. I don't ordinarily like non free verse poems of mine, but this one is a bit whimsical.

Yesterday, and today, and tomorrow,
Change creeps in on stockinged feet from dawn till dusk
Greeting victims with deceptive smiles;
And all our yesterdays are seemed forgotten
'Till tomorrow appears. Come, come, dear change!
Life's but a still sailboat; a ship without wind,
That rocks and sails the quiet endless sea,
Searching for a port; it is a life
Unwanted by the living, bereft of passion,
Signifying nothing

Poem - Where I come From

I come from a picture of my family

Twelve of us, together at once
Frozen in the animate language
Of laughter

I can etch out
The faces, trace their smiles
And say, she is me, second to the left
In the bottom row, between sister and mother
Yet I am not her.

I was once her
Dwarfed by my siblings
If not in size, but in sheer life
Caught between the states of impression
And self
Wondering who I was

Their faces are confident
Fleshed out, dimensional and whole
Whereas she is parchment paper
Transparent, flat, only an outline
A cartoon character
Not the lead heroine in her life

She is uncomfortable, uneasy
Uncertainty comes to life
In a black dress and high heels
Her face mirrors theirs, laughing,
But her eyes are pleading
For experience, for character

She does not yet identify
She does not yet embody
She does not know who she will emulate
Or follow, or become,
In her quest of self

And yet her body tilts
Aligns with her family
Surrounded by love and laughter,
And acceptance
And in the flash of a camera
She becomes me

I am from my family
I am the ninth, the sometimes overlooked
The always loved
But I,
I am myself
And myself comes from within me

Creative Idea - Altered Book

An altered book was an assignment I had in creative writing. You take any book and paste your poems, stories, and other creative things into it. My theme was "Childhood", so my short stories and poems revolved around childhood, as did my decorations. The book I used was one on the Everglades, which I chose because it had nature themes, and I knew I had poems that fit into the nature scheme. I sewed many of the excess pages together and used fabric, fake flowers, pictures, ribbon, and painting to add more dimension to my poems. The pictures go from the last page towards the first.

Poem - This is Me

I wrote this in Creative Writing for the assignment of Poetic Portrait- basically, a passel of poems about ourselves.

This is me
This empty sheet of paper
Slowly filling
with words, with emotions,
and I am relieved
Inspiration has beckoned
And I will not fail to complete
Because that is me
Anxious, stressed, nervous,
for nothing and everything
For anything I glimpse
For the challenges
not yet issued
For the failures
I have not committed
And yet, this is me
This lazy scrawl of words
This glimpse of greatness
And maybe, maybe
Hope still beats
Echoing my heart
Filling the void
that achievement left behind
This hole in myself
Fixed not by my accomplishments
But by creativity
This is me

Poem - The Lines of my Hand

The Lines of My Hand
From a smile
Comes a laugh
From a laugh
Comes a secret
From a secret
Comes a friendship
Which eventually
Leads to love
Which begets
Trust and forgiveness
Which begets
Worry
Which leads to
Lines that show fatigue
That melts into age, and wisdom
From which comes a smile
And every part is linked
And drawn
Into the lines of my hand

Poem - Shadowed Sky of Beauty

A poem I wrote using only the words you find in those magnetic word packs.

Shadowed sky of beauty
Whispers of frantic symphony
In the flood
Drunken men rob you
Of a thousand visions

Poem: Macbeth

I wrote this poem from a prompt starting out with "In rooms of selfhood where we woke". It seemed to fit the theme of Macbeth very well- this pretty much summarizes the events of the play.

In rooms of selfhood where he woke

And someone’s sleeping slumber took

A room that fought to take our own

Wherein a battle to take a throne

Where whence a coward had hatched a plot

Where evil is found and good is not

Wherein ambition clouds the mind

And forces the slaughter of ones own kind

Where once two brothers in pride did stand

Now one is dead by the others bold hand

And where one lies in peaceful rest

The others bravery is put to the test

For where three witches did cast a spell

And three apparitions did prophesize well

Macbeth sought cunning in his greed

To stop the lines of Banquo’s seed

To seize the throne, to take the crown

For Duncan and Banquo now look down

And now the tale must take a turn

The rightful king Macbeth did spurn

Now Malcolm must return to take

The sovereignty, Macbeth must break

He’s not alone, with Macduffs bold help

Together and apart they will kill the whelp

To save blessed Scotland, their country fair

To once again sink to knees in prayer

Two in one to seek revenge

Those crying souls they will avenge

Macbeth is assured, he will not die

But in the battle his end draws nigh

For Macduff was not of a woman born

And does Macbeth’s bold statement scorn

He draws his sword and cuts him deep

For all eternity Macbeth will sleep

Amongst the demons his soul in hell

Will cry in the agony Shakespeare did tell