Criticism is welcome. It's hard to be objective about one's own work.


Purgatory
-----------

I lean on glass, to fall right through.
Hours and days gone, and in my mind,
I plan to flee, leaving behind
My ectoplasmic residue.

Lightbulbs hidden in the ceiling,
Controlled by faders for my use,
Why I'd need to, I can't deduce.
Since sound's my sole useful feeling.

I can hear it, if someone screams,
Or when one smokes three times a day.
Three times, too, I eat pills and tray,
No one tells me what all this means.

Purgatory, a place on Earth.
Built of rooms for rumination,
And some tacky decoration.
Broke brain, boxed in. What am I worth?

Here they process ghosts and corpses,
Medicate many minds unclean.
When lacking reason, you're not seen,
Save when cloistered, by trained nurses.

Here I stand, pressed to frigid wall,
Believing I have joined the dead,
Contrary proof not in my head.
I'm locked out from Heavenly hall.

I tried my hand at a sonnet. My iambic beat might be a little off. My sense of rhythm can only improve with practice.


Age Twelve
--------------

A series of chrome coat hangers, empty.
Blue-and-gray carpeting, freshly vacuumed.
Lunchboxes in cubbies, contents consumed.
Children my age, sitting, all about me.
A clock moving forward, twenty past three.
Exams, final, graded, our worths entombed.
Our last day together 'til school's resumed.
(But truly, most again I'd never see.)

We will soon fly from this institution;
This long rite of passage performed complete.
Next up, to further our education;
More knowledge to fill us until replete.
But one fact leaves me with consternation.
The students I'd known: siblings in each seat.

I started writing poems daily. Nothing too strenuous, just a haiku a day followed by a sonnet at the end of the week. I stay on one topic all week. I much prefer the structure over the haphazard way I was writing before. This week, I didn't have to cheat with a rhyming dictionary, so I suppose I'm improving.

This week's topic: a new cat.

--------

Woke up with a mouse staring at my face.
The little beast had climbed onto my sheet,
For at ten I had grabbed a snack to eat,
And thus there were crumbs all over the place.
Since I have a fear of the whole rat race,
And rather would not keep my room all neat,
There arrived a way to avoid defeat:
A Felis catus would resolve this case.

I had few demands for the ideal cat:
A high-energy mouser with short hair
Would keep clean the house while removing rat.
The cat himself enjoys his basement lair:
With hiding places for a skinny cat
To keep him safe from the dog up the stair.