Darkest Time--a poem

Hey all! I know, long time no posts, but I'm in a show of current, and between that and homework I've little time for blogging...speaking of homework, here's a piece I wrote for an English project--it is based off the book Milkweed , by Jerry Spinelli , and is a letter in poem format to the main character, Misha.

Darkest Time

Tess Klingele

To Misha:

I looked upon the darkest time

Saw nothing of the light

All was hard and gray and cold

Peace called for a brutal fight.

Rainbow red

Made of bloodshed

And bombs of orange and yellow

Green a military suit

And blue the frozen fellow

From indigo and violet shown

Dark flowers by a grave

But you recolored my rainbow

And blossoming from ignorance

Bloomed the hope you gave.

When I looked upon the streets

I saw the Jackboot’s blade

Harsh, taunting, sharp and cruel

Yet you’d turned hate to a parade.

Child through your eyes I’ve seen

For you have shown me this

Don’t ever grow up too soon

For ignorance is bliss.

Cereal Box Vow

Cereal Box Vow
By: Tess Klingele
Little Margarite
Will you be my friend?
To have and to whisper to
To laugh and to vent
I do I do I do
need you...
So wander with me through the sunflower fields
Splash me at the fountains
but little Margarite
Don't leave me at the mountains
We'll climb 'em or we'll move 'em
Together work as one
That's what friends are for
in rain or in the sun
Take this plastic flower
as a token of my liking
know that I'll be with you
in lounging or in hiking
If we stick together
our adventures will never end
I'll even pinky promise
There
Now you may hug your friend
Oh! And little Margarite,
these devotions are just the start
I swear that I'll be with you
till adulthood do we part


*called Cereal Box Vow because I think of the "tokens of love" that little kids give each other, and they generally are plastic toys/cereal box finds. I think it is so adorable! This poem is dedicated to a friend of mine with a similar name...

Random Update

OK, OK, I'm sorry! I am a terrible person, I know. Oh, and a complete procrastinator. But still, I HAVE been busy(ish)....
anyways, here is some nothingness that is very pretty to look at.








Beautiful, right?



Anyways, this ought a pacify my nonexistent followers: a nouns poem from 7th grade ( it was homework, I'm not a TOTAL nerd)

Tess Klingele
7P, #15
11/9/12, Comm. Arts

My Favorite Nouns*

          Whipped cream on cocoa and paintings on canvas

 Dark stormy night times and long walks on campus

Thick creamy beige pages and white lace gowns

These are a few of my favorite nouns.

          Bright scented candles and wreaths decked with holly

Crackling fires and Christmas time folly

Bluebirds that chirp throughout life’s up and downs

These are a few of my favorite nouns.

          Splendid silk dresses with glossy ballet flats

Ribbons that tie on my waist and my felt hats

Classical singers with beautiful sounds

These are a few of my favorite nouns.

          When my throat aches

When my head pounds

When I’m feeling sad

I simply remember my favorite nouns    

And then I don’t feel so bad.

Awww...cute, right?

(To the tune of My Favorite Things)

Lace Christmas

                I know, not the season...but I hate to have a post list clotted with drafts...
---------------------------------------...........................*.........................---------------------------------

 

Lace Christmas

I smell the scent of cutting cold and lovely Christmas spice
and the world begins to whisper of winter
as the clouds fill with knotted ice.

When at last the sky is greying
and white hairs streak its head
the branches, they are fraying
and the flowers nearly dead

The world begins whisper, it grows into a chant,
winter is a-coming
the snow will soon decant.

The clouds fill up with knotted ice,
they grind the glass to satin,
it sprinkles down like Christmas spice,
and the ground begins to fatten.

The world begins whisper, it grows into a chant,
winter is a-coming
the snow will soon decant.

The gnarled branches lose their youth
and the frost chills their trunks
carolers sing of Christian truths
and the ice falls down in chunks.

The world begins whisper, it grows into a chant,
winter is a-coming
the snow will soon decant.

Bright lights aglow surround my home
and children laugh and play  

I smile and sip hot chocolate foam

And wait for Santa’s sleigh.

The world begins to whisper
soft and sweet and low
look up at the sky, enjoy the falling snow!

Through New Eyes

Some choose to see the sea as water
I see it as a waterfall's kiss.

Some choose to find the fog a vapor
But I, a rainbow of sweet mist.

Some choose to call the dirt dry soil
I know it's truly golden earth.

Some choose to pass it as a fire place
but I christen it a feisty hearth.

The sunset streaked across the sky?
Why it's a child finger painting!

A wilting bunch of Queen Ann's Lace?
A lady in a corset fainting.

Seek earthly beauty and
the world will show it.

Now through new eyes,
I am a poet.

White Cat

This poem was actually a sixth grade literature assignment that I kept. It was my first poem that really seemed worth showing people outside my family. I recently found it and decided to add it just for fun. Hope you enjoy!

White Cat 

a poem based off of Gertrude Abercrombie's painting: White Cat

            The marshmallow cat crouches in a corner

Of a rainy sky and ivory colored room

The artist’s sudden movement freezes the cat like an icicle

 head slightly turned from the opal dyed vase on the table.

 The cat’s eyes stare blankly at the artist

as she tries to capture the expression of the cat onto the canvas’s pale body

with one of her many assortments of brushes

 this one thick as a broom.

The artist then turns to recreate the portrait clinging on to the otherwise blank wall

with the last of its aged strength.

 Slightly blurring the animal shown in a paper thin coat of oily paint

 a twinkle in her eye bright as the sun,

shows it is up to the viewer to guess whether or not the snow colored animal

 is the same one in the portrait as in the room she has painted, or some other.

 Afterwards having already drawn three sides of the portraits frame

she allows her ivory paint to leap off the brush

smothering vivid lines of white to the right side of the frame.

  Though the cat’s stone gray shadow on the wall proves the sun to be smiling

the spectator still yet wonders

if this white area of frame is a reflection of light

or perhaps just a mismatching block of wood

placed by accident into the ancient frame

something of which with nobody cared to bother.

As if not to disturb the cat

the artist’s strong and graceful brush dances

more discreetly on the charcoal shadow lines of the door.

Could she not want to distract the cat

into turning towards her hand once again?

Has she not yet painted the solemn thing’s shadow

 therefore pleading silently

for it not to shift position, or scoot around the floor?

 The lines and patterns of the leaping brush cannot but help make you question the events occurring at the time of this painting.

Perhaps she intended this to be so?

 Can an artist not paint in such a manner purposely

 as if questioning the future reaction?

The artist smiles

and as if to show she is pleased with the picturesque painting

  signs her last name

 Abercrombie

 officially admitting the masterpiece her own handiwork ready for show.

The cat rustles loud as a herd of cattle

 and obediently the artist open the door

 as if to say “yes, your work is done,” while the relived cat leaps out the door

 and disappears into the skinny and dark hallway.

 

A Sequence of Macabre Murders

 (spoiler alert!)

This poem was another of my many English assignments, a sixth grade final project for a book we read in class. Out of several options of ways to get credit, I chose to do a poem. Most of my poetry has a bit of a macabre edge, this one especially. Based off a murder mystery book, it is solely about gruesome deaths. A spoiler alert to those who want to read the book And Then There Were None (I highly recommend it!) because yes, if you read it closely, the answer to who murdered the ten murderers in the book is there, not very well hidden. I hope you enjoy it!

A Sequence of Macabre Murders

(A poem based off Agatha Christy’s And Then There Were None)

            Ten guilty murders, lured to their demise, taking a “vacation” away from prying eyes.

One of the ten, following a nursery rhyme, makes each and every one regret his heartless crime.

One by one, through storms and clear skies, they all take their fatal and final cries.

Anthony Marston, drunk with pride, ran over two kids, and died of Cyanide.

Mrs. Rogers helped her husband to kill, and so she was given a "sleeping pill".

General Macarthur, with a heavy conscience to hull, killed his wife’s lover, and was whacked in the skull.

Mr. Rogers, clumsy in his tracks, was found guilty of murder and chopped with an axe.

Emily Brent, stiff and quickly chosen, turned out her house maid, and was injected with poison.

Justice Lawrence, with a lust for death, was declared by Dr. Armstrong to have taken his last breath.

Dr. Armstrong, who in trusting is swift, operated drunk, and was pushed off a cliff.

Mr. Blore, bulky and easy to scare, jailed an innocent man and was crushed by a 'bear'.

Philip Lombard, cruel and tart, left twenty natives to die and was shot in the heart.

Vera Claythorn let swim a boy who couldn’t float, she lost her lover, and hung herself  'round the throat.

But one of these Indians, (as they have been named) is who is to truly be fully blamed.

 For he never ‘till now had committed a crime, when a want for justice took over this time-

 a grand scale of bloodshed, 

and a fulfillment of hunger,

 he knew when he died he’d feel many years younger.

Who was it? Do tell!

Who was this mastermind? 

Why the one, of course, best educated in crime! 

The one who has a want for destruction, 

a need for justice and human reduction.   

The one who faked his own end- to Dr. Armstrong he posed himself as a friend.

guess who...
Unless of course, you'd like me to tell...

Once Upon A summer Harvest

Once Upon a Summer Harvest
 A poem by Tess Klingele

There was a beautiful time I used to be able to sing out at the moon
on those windy nights when the grain would fly through the air
and the wild rice would sway with me
rocking me to sleep like I was a baby
Till I'd drowsily fall to the ground and sleep
sleep wrapped in a blanket of summer night heat.

Murmuring, murmuring to myself
as the sun would flicker on ,
rays peeling open my eyelids,

fresh rain that straggled my hair
washed the dirt and left me bare

freshness
smoothness
the sun as my towel
my ears ringing from the coyotes howl.

back in a life of sweetness ,
of mecrcy
and wonder

a life that came before the thunder.

Last Smoke

Last Smoke
A Poem by Tess Klingele

"Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return"

Ash crumples in my fist

I stomp out the flicker of red that sparks from the end of my mouth tail*

That once hung like a panting tongue from my lips,

Pressed so tightly between my teeth it wore too thin

So that inhale I could not

so I let it fall

fall

   fall
     
          fall
     
                fall from my mouth like a deflated balloon,

purpose used up, no longer needed

but now I, I have gone too far

and my lungs collapse within me

and I collapse on the ground

as the ash collapses from its perfect mountain in my hand

and I am dust

once more.

*mouth- tail refers to the way a cigaret hangs from ones mouth.

Hugo and Ivory

a story preview

This story started off as a final for a English class, and it all took off from there. Its unfinished, but if you like it, just comment in the box below, and I will continue to post updates. Enjoy!

 Hugo and Ivory

Chapter 1-Edgy

            Sweat clung to me like a liquefied leech, and my cut lip stung with tart lemonade. The pools were open, and the gangs of minors were once again active. Summer had made her entrance. Not that I minded being out of school, the humid air was tangy and sweet, and the homework load was nonexistent. But as always, I was lonely, and very, very confused. The rocky texture of the sidewalk curb was hard and unforgiving beneath me, and the scent of the garbage dump was almost as bad as the scent of my dump, or as the people in my neighborhood call it “a house”. The world was dull, unmoving, and basically the same as last year… as every year.

            My thoughts-unimportant, but nevertheless enveloping my mind-were rudely interrupted by a girl standing in front of me.

            “Hey! What’s your name? How old are you? What are you doing here on the sidewalk alone? Do you even go to school?” The voice was cheery, but her happiness irritated me. I looked up at her.

            She was eying my dirty, ripped up t-shirt and my scummy jeans, which must have been what triggered the last question. I looked back at her outfit, and snorted.

             “Interesting closet selection yourself- what are you even wearing?” I snarled. Loosely hanging onto her slender figure was an XXL T-shirt that hung past her bony knees. The dress-shirt had only one sleeve (the other had either been mangled by a cat or cut off with scissors) and binding the waistline to her body was a thickly wrapped rope, the sort that is bulky and brown-ish and used to hold pirate ship masts up. My eyes traveled up from her ratty whatever-thing to her face. She had pale skin and dark black hair, and her gray eyes had specks of blue shining in way that reminded me of stained glass windows. Her eyes were bright and excited as they examined the world around her as if she were seeing it for the first time. Her hair was cropped short, and around her neck a pendant dangled loosely, swinging side to side in synchronization with the slight sway that was tilting her body. Her eyebrows were perfectly shaped, and her lips were dark and beautiful. My description makes her sound like Snow White, but she was too…fierce? Energetic? No…too…excited, too enthusiastic about every little thing, each sentence, each leaf, each grain of soil, even, to resemble the dainty Disney princess that warbled out high pitched tunes as she danced with squirrels and rabid raccoons. Yeah. My eyes dropped to her brown sandals, and looked back up at her for an answer.

“My toga?”

            Her voice rose up at the end, like she was questioning me. I hate it when people do that. Why couldn’t she just give me a straight answer? How was I supposed to know what it was? Did she really expect me to respond? I didn’t say anything.

            She frowned at my silence, and I glared back at her, a little more fiercely than I meant to. I regretted it, for she swiftly turned around and marched off, a look of indifference on her face as she left.

            “Fine, stay on your lonely curb and sulk and be hostile, then!” she called over her shoulder, rolling her eyes.

            I sighed, but forced myself not to call out and ask her to return. My teeth involuntarily dug into my lip, hard, deepening the cut that seeped with little lemon pockets from the fresh summer citrus. Stay calm…it doesn’t matter…you won’t even remember her tomorrow! You can start over, and write yourself a note to be nice if you see her, and make friends! You won’t even remember her tomorrow! You get to start all over, and not remember her! But, I thought bitterly, she will remember you.

In my horrible confusion and heat of the now awful day, my anger roared like a lion, burning like a fire in me, singing my head with an awful ache. A verse popped into my head, one that I loved, for it always managed to capture the insanity and depth of my useless anger…one that made my hostility sound beautiful—something I could use once in a while. The poem echoed in my head rhythmically.

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?...

I cut myself off, stubbing my toe on a sharp rock. The rhythmic beating, an uninvited metronome that lived within me and within my poetry, was cut off with the flow of the words. It always bewildered me that I could remember poetry so well, and within a day forget all that had happened, wake up useless and confused…always relying on letters to myself, on notes…Notes! “I ought to hurry,” I caught myself thinking. Because though I wouldn’t admit it aloud, or even to the top layer of my thoughts, I did not want to forget the...interesting girl.

            I raced towards my house, which was a little over two miles from where I had been hanging out. No way did I want to run into anyone I knew on my second day of summer vacation-on any day for that matter.

            As I journeyed home, I tried to cling to the memory of her. But by the time I got to my room, day was dancing on the edge of nighttime, and the sky was fading to a dark and murky color. It was still bright out though, for the street lights were clustered in every corner, looking like sun-trees, billions of forests lighting up Chicago, spreading their light even to the slums of the city. All I could remember by the time I grabbed a pencil and paper and had settled down was part of the note I was supposed to write:

Hugo, don’t talk to pretty black- haired, beautiful  eyed,

not-Snow- White –but- sort-of –looks- like-her-toga girl

if you wanna avoid embarrassment. You had a--

(Here I couldn’t remember exactly what had happened, only that it was a disaster)

Fight? Something close to one, anyway. I think it was your fault.

            As an afterthought, I added:

Make a friend today, and for once, don’t be hostile.

-yourself truly, Hugo Elliot Lasthar

*******************************End of HUGO******************************

Chapter 1 ½…Basic Etiquette

            Ugh! Who did that kid think he was? Glaring and frouching (frowning and grouching for those who don’t speak Ivorian) and being so rude! No wonder he’s so lonely…so lonely. That was how I felt, how I feel, actually, every day of my life. “And yet,” I thought, my sympathy dying in a jerk of my hair-too short to be flicked, but long enough to jerk away-“I still manage to be polite, to play little miss optimistic.” Forget loneliness. I was lonely, but I was polite-that’s just me I guess, ’cause oh, no, nobody can spare a polite word talk to miss Ivory Santle, "prissy princess, and annoying rich brat". My first day in the city of Chicago, land of misfits and wackos, and no one is polite just because I wore a toga? Not even the loner on the curb of a street wearing rags??? I mean, I know ratty clothing is a fad, but seriously! I hate this place already. The kids are rude and cold. The heat is painful and distant. The sun and the moon are hollow when visible, which is rare with all the light pollution in this god awful city. And the fresh air here? Nonexistent. And once again, the kids. Oh, the horrible, spiteful, creepy children, and their hurtful words. I should have known kids here wouldn’t know basic etiquette.

Chapter 2…Again, Again, and Onions of thoughts

              I saw him again today.

“Hey,” I had tried to keep my voice nonchalant, but I was actually really…well, that doesn’t matter.

“Your eyes!”He half shouted.

“Uh… what about them?”

“Oh. Well…I don’t know. Sorry, that must sound really weird. What I mean is…well, I thought I knew you; just you had brown-blue eyes. Not green-gold. But green-gold is beautiful. Really,” He stuttered.

“Oh, thanks. Um ya, well, my eyes change color. And yes, you know me. Though it sounded yesterday like you really didn’t want to.”

God he was cute.

Wasn’t.

“Huh? Oh! Are you…”

There was no recognition in his tone, no sound in his voice or look in his eyes said that he remembered the ‘incident,’ but yet, he seemed to remember me from something else. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a hand-written note. He read it slowly, then a second time through, a little bit faster. Surprise registered on his face, then obvious embarrassment.

“Oh. Was it…my fault? The…yesterday?” he asked.

“Yes. You don’t remember?” It sounded like a question, calm and collected, but I wanted to shout.

“Uh, of course I do!”

He was lying.

“Sure.”

“No, really…” He looked down at the gravel, and his dark eyes looked up for a second, peeping through the thick forest of eyelashes that coated his eyelids. His almost black hair fell over his eyebrows, giving him a sheepish look when he attempted a smile.

“Whatever,” I laughed. But then I remembered yesterday. My face became solemn.

“Aren’t you going to apologize?” I asked, but the words jumped out of my mouth without me really meaning it.

“Oh, sorry. But, well… I don’t really remember it, so. Yeah, sorry anyway. Hey, what’s your name?”

“Oh! Ivory, like the marble, you know?” I was such a social idiot. Of course he knew!

“Yeah, cool. I know, the marble.”

“What’s your name?” I asked, since he clearly wouldn’t give it without a prompt.

“Hugo. Hugo Elliot. Lasthar. Hugo Elliot Lasthar.”

“Well, if we are on full-name basis, I’m Ivory Rose Santle.”

“Hey toga gi- I mean, Ivory,what-er…”

“Did you just call me toga girl? Seriously? What does it matter to you that I like to wear different things? For all you know, that might be the only outfit I own!”

“Uh… I figured you have more, since you’re wearing a blue dress right now.”

His answer was perfectly reasonable, but my temper flared up, and the pain of yesterday came coursing back into my body.

“Goodbye.” And I turned and left, before I could second-guess myself.

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Have you ever been conscious of the fact that as you are thinking about something, your mind seems to be thinking about what you are thinking about? I’m not sure how to explain it, but I think sometimes that the mind has several layers, and you can trick yourself into thinking something, but part of you, buried deep into your mind, knows that you really don’t believe it. That layer deep inside me whispered to me all the way home, but I covered it up with layers and layers of fake thoughts, just in case… well, I had this weird thought that  someone might hear what I was thinking. I only wanted people to hear the first layer, the layer of denial. Like makeup, you know? You layer on one coat on top of another, trying to hide something you don’t like, like a birthmark or a zit or a pimple. You hide it from everyone else, and suddenly the mirror is on your side, telling you how much prettier you are, and you smile, a sucker for lies. And you know, deep down, you are hiding something from yourself too, because overtime, you layer on makeup even when you aren’t leaving the house. And your mind is like “Just for fun! Oh, now see how much prettier you are? So much. Let’s do it again! And again. And some more!” And the cycle continues. My mind did that all the way home, and I knew, in that hidden layer, I was trying to hide my thoughts from myself, too. Because though I really had no intention of admitting it, even to myself, I wanted that horrible, horrible, horrible boy to be my friend. And I wanted it desperately. I needed to get a grip.

********************************End of IVORY****************************

a not-so-formal introduction

 My very first blog. Oh my! I feel so professional. :)
  I'd like to welcome you to Ink Island, my blog of all my stories, poems, plays, and random spulrbs. While most of my work on here will be completed, I will also put in previews of books in the making, and if you enjoy them, I will continue to post updates of the story! Thank you and enjoy!