My poem, 2019

I won an honorable mention in the West Roxbury Library Poetry contest.  The theme of the poem was "Look Closer."

54

by

Nina Kallen

50 years ago:

What I think my mother sees:

A naughty girl.

Poopsie fresh bossy, you call me.

You think it is hilarious because you think it is true.

I think it is mean.

You think girls can’t play with hot wheels

Or cross the street without help.

You think they are always under foot.

What my mother sees:

It is so hard to get through the day.

Three children.

One takes little pills to calm down.

It doesn’t help. 

He beats up his brother,

And the girl whines all the time.

What I am:

All the kids in the neighborhood

Are being cruel to a boy just a little older than me.

They are pulling him onto a wagon.

He is crying.

I know it is wrong.

I want to help.

It is the first time I feel like myself. 

37 years ago:

What I think my classmate sees:

My boobs must be glowing,

The way you stare at them. 

I have finally started to brush my hair every day.

I have finally started to answer when people speak to me.

I am not the loser that I was,

But I will never be cool.

What my classmate sees:

If I can’t pay for college

I will never get out of this sucky town.

I work more and more hours,

And my grades go down and down.

If that girl had to get a job,

She would not be able to drone on about Ophelia.

What I am:

At the house where I babysit,

I read a long article about the Killing Fields.

At Hebrew School we are told that we can never

Let the Holocaust happen again.

It just did.

Why doesn’t everyone understand that?

14 years ago:

What I think the mom from the baby and me class sees:

A mom who barely works.

A  home office is nothing.

What the mom from the baby and me class sees:

Another ear infection,

And the last time I slept through the night

Was four years ago.

God bless anyone who has kids and doesn’t kill them. 

What I am:

Pregnant again.

And my best friend has died. 

Can I carry on her legacy,

Or will life drag me down?

Today:

What I think my friend sees:

The one who kicked her husband to the curb.

You wish you could be that selfish.

What my friend sees:

If I have to go to one more school concert

I swear I will kill myself.

And oh god I haven’t saved for my kids’ college

Or my retirement.

She should stop complaining –

She got the house.

What I am:

The seer, the reader, the mourner,

The one who can never do enough,

But has not yet given up. 

Maia's poem 2019

Maia won first prize in the West Roxbury Library Poetry Contest with this poem.  The theme of the contest was Look Closer.  

Look Closer

by

Maia 

A speck

A form

A shape

A living thing

A mammal

A human

A female girl

A brunette

A gold eyed girl

A pale girl

A scared girl

A confident girl

An ambitious girl

A girl

Who wonders

Things like

Why should it matter

If to someone off in the distance

I am a speck

Things like

Why should it matter

If I never change the world

Who

Would

Ever

Know

A girl

Who answers

Things like

Because to a speck that I see

I am a giant

Thing like

Because it would matter to me

If I just disappeared

From existence

Without

Making a difference

A girl

Who decides

Things like

Then I will avoid stepping on

every

speck on the sidewalk

That moves

Things like

Then I will change the world

A little bit

At

A time

All this

From

just

 a speck.

Morgan's poem 2019

Morgan won an honorable mention in the West Roxbury Library poetry contest with this poem.  The theme of the contest was "Look Closer."

expectations

by Morgan 

The world is frozen over.

I am still stinging from the cold, not quite numb.

Icicles bite at my ears, my nose, my mouth.

You are glowing with warmth.

I’m not ready to melt.

You are an enigma.

A code impossible to crack.

I want to know if your brain whirs at a million miles a minute

as you stare into space.

Maybe you’re thinking about me.

Probably not.

I like solving puzzles.

Nancy Drew haunted me through middle school.

You’re harder to solve than the Secret of the Old Clock.

I want to know what makes you tick.

How do you understand the world?

As we walk away from our prison at the end of the day,

you don’t say much.

Worn out, perhaps.

Exhausted by the futility of life.

Or perhaps Lucretius guides you. Seneca. Aristotle.

I try to look closer.

Look beyond the wind in your hair and the flush in your cheeks.

See the real you.

You’re blinding.

You look back at me.

My teeth are chattering.

My cheeks burn with cold.

Yours just burn.

Tell me who you are.

Show me the contents of your soul.

You open your mouth to speak to me.

I am ready to understand.

It is silent for a moment.

And then.

“So, could you send me last night’s math homework?

I played video games until two a.m. and forgot to do it.”

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

My poem

My submission to the 2018 West Roxbury Library Poetry Contest.  The theme this year was "Listening."

 WHAT I HEAR

by

Nina Kallen

Airplane noise.

No, a specific plane, with a specific destination,

With specific passengers who don’t know me.

Whining.

No, a specific child with a specific intonation

Making specific complaints about my failures.

Traffic.

No, a specific car pulling out of a specific driveway

Of a specific house next door to mine.

Voices.

No, specific neighbors walking down a specific street

To get to their specific job, enjoy . . .

Or do they?

Enjoy the flowers in my garden?

Or are they enjoying each other?

Are they friends?  A couple?

Friends who want to be a couple?

Or is it that one of them wants to be a couple

And the other one just wants to get to the stupid bus

And she’s happy enough for a little company from time to time

But if only he would stop leaving his apartment at the same time that she leaves hers,

Every single stinking morning.

She stops warily as a car starts to pull out of a driveway.

Will the driver see them and let them pass?

He does, with a grimace that could mean he’s sorry he didn’t see them earlier

Or could mean he’s sorry he has to stop for the damn pedestrians.

He’s late.  Again.  His boss is a nasty piece of work. 

No kids, so what can she possibly understand,

Of the hassle of getting out of the house on time each morning. 

Finally they are safely past,

And he pulls into the street.

It’s not quite warm but he opens his window

To get rid of the smell of his daughter’s boyfriend’s cologne. 

He regrets it immediately.

“I don’t want to walk.  You’re so mean. Why can’t you drive me?

Everyone else’s mom drives them.” 

He doesn’t know the neighbor kid’s name,

But he sure knows her voice. 

As he closes his window to drown it out,

the girl looks up to the sky.

Her mom complains about the airplanes,

but the girl likes them.

She would like to fly somewhere.

Anywhere, really.

The arctic – or Antarctica?

She can never remember which one is which

But it doesn’t matter because she loves both polar bears and penguins. 

She waves to the people in the plane.

The boy staring out the window can’t see her.

The cars look like toys and the houses like dollhouses.

He wishes he could find his father’s house, but it’s hard to tell

What town they are flying over. 

It’s hard to tell

Exactly when he will see his father again.

He closes his eyes,

Lulled to sleep by the loud rumble

Of the airplane’s engine. 

Maia's poem

Maia's poem, which one first prize for her age group at the West Roxbury library poetry contest.  The them of the contest was "Listening." 

Listen

by

Maia

Age 13

The cry of the cold,

The uproar of the unstable,

The shout of the shoeless,

The yelp of the yearning,

The screech of the sad,

The holler of the helpless,

The bawl of the broken,

The wail of the weary,

Are you going

to let it all go unheard?

Or will you stick by your word,

And listen?