Tag: poetry
The Generation of Speaking out and the Spoken Word
by Sarah D Kirchner on November 21, 2019
Portfolio
by Nicole Patano ’22 –
I’m an advocate of nonviolence, so I don’t want to keep beating the dead horse.
Because the more we hear, the less we feel, the same we act.
And we forget to react and retract.
It’s a fact that our actions speak louder than our words.
The silence is deafening.
If you were to ask our sentiments, I would caution the extent to which you do so.
We’re more opinionated and liberated than others,
Free from the “dams that block the flow of social progress.”
Damn. Martin Luther King, Jr. said this when he digressed from the social norm
Of separate but equal, which was really separate and unequal.
We’ve gotten over that Little Rock; now’s not the time to stop and start treating the
Mountains like molehills.
The world is still turning, and we’re still learning.
We’re all the more deserving of being taken to task.
And I ask, “Oh say, can you see?”
Or has an eye for an eye made you blind?
Wasn’t it Plato who said that we have to leave our cave to see beyond the shadows?
And somehow after 6,000 years, our minds are still like clay.
Concrete is so passé because if you’re stuck in your ways
There’s no longer a spark to ignite your flame.
So we say, “May your fire burn forever.”
And don’t let anyone put it out.
Don’t let anyone put you down.
They say the sky is the limit.
But if my calculations are correct: the limit doesn’t exist.
So why should we define ourselves by what is possible
When we truly are inexhaustible?
And we may be full of hot air, but heat rises and expands.
Travel the zephyr, ride the wave, Zeppelin.
They saved the best for last.
Kaleidoscope Vision
by The Cowl Editor on November 15, 2019
Portfolio
by Sam Ward ’21
How do we propel ourselves into the unknown?
Without fear.
Without doubt.
How, without shaking in our skin at the thought of what could go wrong,
or plucking heartstrings to play hopeful songs?
How do we plunge into strange waters,
when the thoughts are white noise?
How do we pursue ambition’s depths,
when muddled minds teeter like defective toys?
Clear vision deters focus
like we need sunshine clarity
to obtain knowledge complexities: it’s
not true.
We both know that.
Empty screens collect lines racing faster than the click of a pen,
or the tap tap tap of the keyboard
and just like that:
Fear is famished.
Doubt exonerated.
Strike all the right notes and we’ll dive right in
Without fear.
Without doubt.
If we wrote to please a bunch of poets,
we’d pause the present and paint a prettier picture like,
picture this:
someday we’ll be off for no other than reason
and we’ll prove the producing purpose,
But introspection is influenced in the eye of the beholder so we behold the truth
while alpha waves synchronize kaleidoscope focus,
Without fear,
Without doubt…
On a Train
by The Cowl Editor on November 15, 2019
Portfolio
by Elizabeth McGinn ’21
Flashes whirling past, face pressed against the glass,
eyes adjust to a moving landscape from a train.
A glimpse at strange moments as we pass,
waving adieu to the lonely buildings that remain.
Littered with flecks of dust and drops of rain,
the plexiglass portal offers rare sights
to me, the voyeur: industrial sites
and crowded subway lines, a city block
of crumbling tenements, a vacant landfill,
a seaport; fishermen socializing on the dock,
coat-cloaked city dwellers fighting fall chill,
and a dilapidated, olden windmill.
Losing track of time watching the mundane,
spying the lives that aren’t mine on a train.
Day and Night
by The Cowl Editor on November 14, 2019
Portfolio
by Sarah Heavren ’21
It’s always darkest
Before the dawn
Darkness is still there
Before it’s gone.
There’s always the hope
Of a new day.
But there’s still the wait
While the night fades.
Good things are to come.
There’s still the fight
To get to the day,
Escape the night.
Darkness has become
Like an old friend.
But enjoy the day
Before night comes again.
It Slowly Slipped Away
by The Cowl Editor on November 14, 2019
Portfolio
by Grace O’Connor ’22
She looked in the mirror and took a deep breath
Today was the day her life would change
She looked down at her newly polished nails as her heart drummed in her chest
Time was going by painfully slow but too fast
She stood up slowly and walked down the stairs in silence
The silence in the air weighed down with every step
The last time she saw her she was in her arms, the most beautiful thing alive
It felt hard to breath every time she thought about her
She sipped the coffee slowly as her mind kept running rapidly
She wanted more than anything another chance
A new relationship, one that she could cherish rather than one bear the emptiness
Of a relationship that was nonexistent
The ring of the doorbell echoed through the house
She stood up slowly and walked to the door at the end of the hall
She put her hand on the cold door knob and twisted it hesitantly
She gasped when she saw her face
It was the day that changed everything
One that she had tried to erase from her memories for years
But also a day she could never get back, all the emotions that she had buried inside
Sometimes would bubble up to the surface
All she kept was that one photo
That one memory
It slowly slipped away
Until that one moment, the day that changed everything
To The One Whom This Is For
by Sarah D Kirchner on November 7, 2019
Portfolio
by Sarah Heavren ’21
I remember,
Thinking of days gone by,
That this started
With the blink of an eye.
Before I was ready,
Somehow I knew
By some way at some time
I’d be with you.
You were the first to listen
And the first to enjoy
The witty and clever
Humor that I deploy.
Over time,
Through many a pun,
It is true,
My heart you have won.
No matter what they say,
I will never deny
That I love all the puns
Of my sweet, punny guy.
November’s Dead
by Sarah D Kirchner on November 7, 2019
Portfolio - Poetry
Here, November, warmth retires—
Rush to start the Winter fires!
Yet the Sun has not retreated
And left him for whom It’s needed
Without the glow which inspires.
And on the dead for which It’s whitest;
Yes, brighter, nay, the brightest;
Now on them shall It remain,
Now, on them, who have no pain.
Plymouth, Four Hundred Years Later
by The Cowl Editor on October 24, 2019
Portfolio
by Sarah McLaughlin ’23
Tourists converge from Earth’s every corner to see
The piece of the past stored on this pebbled beach
All paths extending westward from the east
Meet here, the first of our nation’s vertices
It’s so special to so many, apparently
To view—The Rock—which began our history
They’ve never switched it out, supposedly
The first stone tread upon by pilgrim feet
It’s always tempting, every time you meet
Someone for whom it’s always been their dream
To stare down at this thing—a comical scene—
To make up some absurd conspiracy
“Now, I’m not saying it’s a government scheme,
But I think it was replaced in ’63.”
But then I decide instead to let them be
To let them stare—reverential and naive
We all have Rocks—things we cling to and esteem
And no local lark could break our make-believe.by
Four-Hundredth Fall
by The Cowl Editor on October 24, 2019
Portfolio
by Sean Tobin ’20
One of mine, but given:
Today when I arise
And see slow-rolling skies
Illuminate what lies
This bleak side of heaven,
Just one thought do I save—
How bless’d this northern shore;
The same which fathers fore,
Sea-sick, God-starved, back-sore,
Saw and knew they must have;
We know the sounds she made,
To hear minute man’s shout,
The Sacred Harp throughout,
Oak leaves falling round ’bout,
Over and over played;
Is she not the same still?
Green mountains surrounding,
Waves on white rock pounding,
Life through valleys sounding—
New England steals her fill, and so much more.
Providence
by The Cowl Editor on October 24, 2019
Portfolio
by Erin Venuti ’20
