Sleeping In - Haiku

Sunday morning, you wake up in your room

you drift out of bed and walk out of your room

-silence-

As I was trying to come up with a haiku, I remembered those moments when everyone else went out while I was asleep and I woke up to find myself alone in the house. I used to live in a two story house and as I walked down the stairs to see if anyone else was home, I would hear only my footsteps and the creaking of the stairs. Sometimes, however, my brother would be downstairs on his computer and I would faintly hear the computer fan running as I walked down the stairs, being slightly relieved and knowing he was there.

I chose the day to be Sunday because I thought maybe some of the readers' houses don't get empty often and the only times this would happen to them is when they slept in on Sunday and missed church. Actually, I think this happens often during vacations too.

I tried to get the readers to picture their own rooms and go through the story in their own shoes instead of just objectively listening to mine because I wanted them to experience that feeling I was trying to convey. Anyways I hope it worked.

Dammit

Tuesday,
I wake up and its 7:40am.
Damn I missed my bus again!
Damn I didn't finish my Psych FRQ
that I was going to complete at 5am.
Damn my dad is going to lecture me again.
Damn, today is gonna suck and I know it.
And yes, it was.
Drously going from class to class,
sometimes glancing out the windows for some grass.
O how the teachers monotonic voice is like a lulaby.
How I wish I was in a airplane in the sky.
Damn I hate today.
Damn I hate everyday.
Its just so annoying to wake up early in the morning,
and getting ready to go to school, when I can be chilling by a pool.
Such of waste of my time and my life.
When I can be just making food with a sharp knife.
But.....
But......
PERSERVERE!
I have a PURPOSE in life and my God is on MY side!
When I am down, he lifts me up.
When I am tired he wakes me up.
When I am slacking he keeps me going.
When I am lonely he is on my side.
Everytime I'm about to fall he raises me back up and gives me a reason.....
..To live..
..To love..
..To enjoy..
..To give..
..To become the best that I can be..
So my days which begin with a Dammit,
just might... just might....
become a day starting with a.....
Hallelujah :)

What I have seen

What I have seen

I have seen many things in this world, both good and bad.
I have seen people fall and trip and people laughing about that, including me.

I have seen people of different ethnicities try singing Koreans songs and fail miserably.

I have seen people fight over the most stupid things, such has test grades.

I have seen people curse out each other, which was fun to watch.

I have seen a guy successfully do a 360 flip on his skateboard.
I have seen a little boy singing Britney Spears songs.

I have seen people struggling to reach their goal, and finally achieved it.

I have seen people laugh for no reason.

I have seen my friend opened his mouth to talk and a fly went in.

I have seen teachers curse.

I have seen a little kid, around 6 years old, smoke a cigarette.

I have seen my friend fart and blame it on me.

I have seen Neo and Morpheus jumping on top of trucks.

I have seen my friend try to do a dunk but hit his head on the pole.

I have seen my friend driving, driving more intensely than a roller coaster.

I have seen a person covered with white paint from head to toe in Manhattan, standing in a calm way.

I have seen so much TV that if I spent that time studying, I might have gone to Harvard by now.

I have seen people backstab their friends for the stupidest reasons.

I have seen many people better looking than actresses today.

I have seen my friend throw a slice of tomato, causing a food fight.
I have seen friendship or a relationship happen, the two most incredible things.

I have seen many things in this world, both good and bad.

Reflection on What I have seen

I thought about what to write for my poem as soon as Mr. D assigned the poem for homework. Poems were always my weakness and I was afraid I might not come up with anything until last minute. I was right! I honestly thought about what to write and I finally got the idea off from Mr. D on Sunday. One day, Mr. D told everyone to write a couple of stuff based on a topic. The first one was “I have seen…” and I thought I could use that somehow for my poem. I first thought of similar to Mr. D’s Belief System and realized that bother were almost identical. Disappointed and helpless, I went back to the notes. There, on my notebook, were all the key facts for my poem. I changed and added some stuff around and finally finished my poem. I tried to remember all the funny things I have seen in the past. Since I myself am not a funny person, I included funny images in my head. I also included some negative images because I do not live in a utopia where everything and everyone is good. Unfortunately bad things happen in this world. Also, I feel some sort of guilt because I did use first draft for my final draft.

Honestly, the final copy of my poem has nothing to do with my first draft, which I think is a bad thing. My final copy has nothing to do with my first draft. I guess my reason for not using my first draft was because I didn’t really like my first draft. When Mr. D assigned the poem for homework, I thought about using my first draft. The only thing was that my past is not that funny and it is hard to incorporate into a poem.

According to Mr. D’s reflection on Belief System, the poem took him a long time to finish his poem. It took me two days to think about a title. Then after that, it only took me a hour to finish my whole poem. This makes me wonder if I should have put more time and effort into my poem, but I do not know what else to include for my poem.

My favorite line is “I have seen friendship or a relationship happen, the two most incredible things.” Those two things are the best things I have seen in my life. In my opinion, nothing else could replace that.

Haiku

Grandfather Clock

Tick away to tomorrow

The troubles from today

October

The heat on my face, the warmth and brightness

I feel running through my body

Taking deep breaths

Crisp fresh air encloses me

Whisper of crickets somewhere off in the trees

Too bright to look up

I close my eyes

Put my face towards the

Burning star.

The cool green grass tickles

Knowing there are thousands of critters creeping around

Shadows overhead

I feel safe knowing

I

Am

Not

Alone.

As I take one more breath

Im burning up on the outside

A cool fresh breeze inside me

Makes me appreciate things all over

Again

October

Month of change.

Get comfortable

Yet

Try new things

Where I Am, Where I'm Going

Where I Am, Where I’m Going

I’ve been here from the start.

I am who I’ve always been with a tweak of edge and maturity.

I was shy when I was little with no one guiding me somewhere.

I thought I had it all planned out.

I had a dream that I would be able to fix everything needed to be fixed.

I still can imagine a better life.

I dream about a life where there is no sense, but only freedom.

I believe I can make a difference.

I will find what I’m looking for.

I know it takes effort and a sense of creativity.

I won’t just get by, I will soar through it.

I love listening to songs after songs after songs on my Ipod.

I like just plugging in my earphones and tuning out to my music.

I eat my Grandmother’s home-cooked authentic Chinese food every night.

I enjoy sitting by a campfire and laughing with friends and family.

I can see all the real emotions that people have on their faces.

I make people happy by just being around them.

I surround myself with good people with strong hearts.

I fight for those I love.

I think about things every second of the day.

I laugh about random things on random occasions.

I’m going to race to the very end.

What's Lipstick?

What's Lipstick?
By, Nicole Bonura

I grew up plain.
Two Story house. Christian faith

I spoke words
Simple. Short

I went to school
Red cheeks. Tin lunchbox

I was hurt
Skinned knee. Bruised knee.

I thought about
Playmates. Play-dates

I loved
Dogs. Dolls.

I feared
Monsters. Heights.

I was.


I grow up slowly
It's beautiful to be young.

I speak abnormally
"Momjeanz". "Kittyroo".

I go to school.
Red cheeks. Tin lunch box.

I am hurt
By the wars and brutality religion and faith have brought.

I think about
Who I am and who I will become.

I love
Folk music and it's raw honesty.

I fear
Growing old with no one to love.

I am.

My name is Ben Nahmani

By Ben Nahmani

English 11R

Mr. Daszenski

Auto-biographical poem

My name is Ben Nahmani

I am sixteen…and a half

I can drive…alone

I like sushi…a lot

I am Israeli and I’m proud

I can make you lose ten pounds in a week

I like to work hard…physically

I am very strong though I don’t look it

I can do 174 push-ups in a row

I like this girl but I never see her

I am Ben Nahmani

I wish people could speak their minds

I wish people wouldn’t rely on war to solve their problems

I believe in god but only when something good or bad happens maybe the occasional holiday

I don’t believe in magic but there are things I find unexplainable.

I hate winter but I love winter styles, snow and snow boarding

I don’t hate my English teacher but that’s only cuz he’s the man

I enjoy a good hookah “sesh”, good music, a great movie and a home cooked meal

I don’t enjoy rock, metal or any of that scream shit

I love my family, friends and this girl but I never see her

I don’t love my science teacher but don’t tell her

I am me

My name is Ben Nahmani

Who are you?

…

Reflection

I started my poem as any other kind of write I have ever started; with shallow thoughts and a “just get it over with” attitude. As I was writing I started to think more and more about what I’m really about. When I looked back at my work I thought, “Wow what kind of bull shit is this”. I didn’t want to sound so plain and boring, so I went deep within me and dug out all the things I thought were cool about myself. Out of all those things I chose a few that would fit in to what I believe people should know about me.

In addition to my inner feelings, I also wrote about things that were on my mind. When the project was assigned, it was the day after I passed my road test. So I wrote, “I am sixteen … and a half” because you have to be that age before you can even take the road test. And if you pass then you can officially drive alone so I wrote, “I can drive… alone”.

Once I got through the first half of my poem I took a break and read some other poems. I picked up on some other peoples’ writing techniques and schemes. I enjoyed one poem that said “I love… I don’t love…” and “I believe… I don’t believe…” I then spun it around a little and made it my own. I put true emotion in my poem although I don’t feel as though the reader can tell. It’s not that I want them too, but, I feel the best poems show that true emotion was put into it.

I wrote about my life and what I am about. I wrote about the things I enjoy in life and specifically about something a lot of people know me for, and that is hookah. Hookah is somewhat cultural for me because my family is Israeli and has some decent from Iraq (on my mother’s side). I did not write entirely enough to show about exactly who I am but only enough to tease the reader so that they are a little more interested in me and my life. I say that I can make anyone lose 10 pounds in just a week. Which is true, I am a certified trainer. I work at New York health and racquet club of great neck, the gym under Waldbaums. I work as a porter and front desk person and train on my spare time. I wrote about a lot of the things I do in this poem but certainly not all. I can tell you everything but then I’d have to kill you. ;-)

Limited

Limited by, Carly Farkas

I Am living life peacefully like a dove flying in the clear blue sky

I Believe everything happens for a reason

I Close my closet doors every night because I’m still scared of the monsters

I Dance, but only when I’m forced to

I Eventually learned how to drive a boat when I was 10 years old

I Flew towards Israel until we had to turn around because the plane was broken

I Go to the city and give turkeys to the homeless on thanksgiving

I Have heard the trickling sound of water when the fossit isn’t fully shut off

I Imagine what the world would be like if everything was perfect

I Jump when I’m scared

I Knew I shouldn’t have pierced my own ears, but I did it anyways

I Littered a few times when there was no other place for the garbage

I Make mistakes, which makes me human

I Never choose the easy way out because I prefer to complicate the task

I Only cry when I have to

I Prefer to say my birthday is in winter, but it’s really the fall part of December

I Quickly bike along the streets like Lance Armstrong

I Ride my snowboard down the mountain in the winter

I Spend my summers at Camp Wayne

I Travel out to the Hamptons with my family as often as we can

I Used to unroll toilet paper rolls when I was little

I Vacuumed my pacifiers when I was too old to use them

I Wish I could take back my mistakes, but at the same time, they’ve formed who I am

I Xerox my hands and feet when I’m bored

I Yawn when I’m tired, tired enough that I can sleep for hours, wake up and yawn again

I Zoomed passed the other cars when I was driving on the highway

I Am living life peacefully like a dove flying in the clear blue sky and

I Believe everything happens for a reason

A Reflection on Limited

It my first full week of 11^th grade, and throughout the week all my teachers were teaching lessons and giving textbook homework, except English. I would head to English knowing that I was learning something new, in a fun way. Writing poems, to me, is something I enjoy.

Mr. Daszenski had said in class that we will be free writing in class to form ideas and a base for our poems, but I took that differently. I wrote about specific moments in my life that I enjoyed because I knew what I wanted to write from the start. My thought was to write random moments in my life that I enjoyed, or moments that stuck with me. I had completed this third draft with the writing style of scrambled memories all over, and when I read it to myself, it wasn’t as strong as it could be. The idea of having moments scrambled was something I liked, but I felt it needed some kind of organization. I tried to make it work by changing different parts of the poem, but in the end, I had thought to follow the alphabet. At first it seemed like a great idea, but then thinking more into it, it became worse and worse. As I wrote one line for ever letter of the alphabet, I noticed I was Limited in what I could write because it only gave me a certain amount of lines, and words to use. Then, once I completed the poem, and I read it aloud, I enjoyed the way it sounded and thought that the memories in my life that I put in were significant and all of them meant something to me. In fact, I had used most of the lines from my first and second drafts.

Once my poem was completed, I had called it, My Life Scrambled in an Orderly Fashion, which really explained the poem. Although Limited fit the title because it was limited in what I could write, it really was my life scrambled within a poem, but in an orderly fashion because of the alphabet.

Although I am not a strong writer, I believe this poem has a lot of meaning to it and it really describes who I am, and what I do. My favorite line is “I Close my closet doors every night because I’m still scared of the monsters.” This line is what describes my childhood, and as much as I don’t want to admit it, it can even describe me now. Although I don’t believe monsters are real, I still get scared when my closet door is open at night. When I was little I used to have a sign on my closet saying “No Monsters Allowed,” but I would think they were there anyways. We’re in the process of building a new house and my dad made sure that my closet doors are not facing my bed, because he knew, I would have to get up and close the door every night.

Poetry is something I enjoy to write, especially when it rhymes, because of the same reason I like this poem. When people write poetry, it is as if they are limited because they can only use certain words that rhyme, while free verse can cause you to write anything. Since we weren’t really supposed to use the rhyming technique, I decided to challenge myself by making this poem limited as well.

My First Memory

I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where I had my first memory.

I was two years old.

I can remember when my family and I first came into that apartment.

It belonged to my grandparents.

I can remember the apartment so clearly as if I’m still there.

I can visualize a kitchen on the left and a pantry on the right.

I can see a long hallway that led straight into their bedroom that had guest rooms and closets along the way and a big grandfather clock.

I can see the living room with a mirror hanging above a wooden framed glass table with pictures and a decorative vase on top next to it.

I can see a wooden desk right next to it with a lamp on top and bills all over the desk.

I can see two couches with flower embroidery and a sea-foam colored chair.

I can see my grandpa sitting on the sea-foam colored chair, reading the newspaper with his wooden cane by his side while watching the stock channel on TV, and my dad sitting on the living room couch holding my brother and I.

I can see my grandma and mom cooking in the kitchen.

I can still remember the overwhelming smell of antique furniture when you first walk in.

I can still remember the scent of my grandma’s Mandel bread at night and French Toast in the morning.

I can still hear the grandfather clock chime every hour.

I can still hear my grandpa’s hoarse voice calling my name.

I can still remember the feeling of being held by him.

I can still remember the happiness I felt to have all the attention focused on me.

I can still remember playing with my grandpa on the living room floor.

I can still remember saying goodbye to my grandparents not knowing it would be the last time I ever saw my grandpa again.

A Reflection on My First Memory

I have never really wrote a reflection in response to my own work before but there was a lot of work that went into this poem. I first got the idea to write this poem from my English teacher Mr. Daszenski as he was just throwing ideas out to the class about topics to write about. At first I had a hard time choosing a topic I wanted to write about but at the moment he mentioned, “your first memory” something in my brain just clicked and I just started writing away. It was as if I had this whole poem memorized in my head and I was just copying it down onto paper.

I’m guessing that I wrote about this particular memory because I’ve had lots of changes in my life this past year from my grandma getting sick and being put into a nursing home, to just going through her belongings in her apartment like pictures, and other documents. After I had my first draft done I felt like it was missing something so I decided to cut and add some parts into the poem. As I was writing my poem I just started daydreaming and my mind went into a trance. I was thinking about so many things at once and somehow I just thought of my grandpa and decided to add some stuff about my grandpa and the old apartment they used to live in. It brought back so many good memories.

When I was done with the essay I showed it to my dad and he just gave me this look like wow and at the same time a look of regret that I didn’t have the chance to get to know my grandpa better. I could see that there were tears in his eyes and it just hit me that I’ve never really written something with so much passion before. I feel that memory of seeing my grandpa for the last time really just “hits the ball out of the park” when people say that you should be thankful for what you have and cherish every moment you have with your loved ones. I think that’s very important and people should be thankful for what they have.