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Isabel
After Claude Monet’s
The Boat at Giverny
"Isabel, she treads so lightly/
floating in her gypsy dresses/ though her words cut deep
I can’t deny the truth in them.”
--Ben Jelen
the white gauze of Isabel’s dress twirled in the breeze
her hat tilted boldly
an eager smile on her shaded mouth
we watched her sway
in a distant dance above the current
checkered light filtered from the straw brim
above her twitching toes
she waved a fishing line, supple as her movements
harmless string and bread bobbing
as she sang to us.
I cast my line and watched disturbed dust swirl beneath the surface
and shaded from the sun, my eyes followed the motion
of my sister
while she moved and danced
against the waves.
Ana Petillo, 10th grade
George Mason High School
Falls Church, Virginia
Alissa Mears, teacher
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The Artist’s Father,
Reading “L’Événement”
After Paul Cézanne
The chair is soft and moldy
cabbage rose backing lying
firm under the weight of skullcap
and shame of the public variety.
He has worked all his life,
and hard, the son
of a province merchant
whose holdings left him with a little more
than nothing and a newspaper.
The black ink bleeds into red blood—his
hand cut from shaving, purposefully left
without a bandage. The man lies tense,
like one posing for a candid shot from
a hidden camera he knows is there, subtly
angling the flash to make his profile
straighter, his nose nobler, his eyes more
lightning flashed. It is not easy to be the father
of a poet, knowing that at any moment
one may be captured and preserved
for the benefit of a dusty anthology,
all his sins laid bare until they rot
under the cruel cleaver of his offspring.
K. L. Thun, 9th grade
George Mason High School
Falls Church, Virginia
Alissa Mears, teacher
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Little Boy
After Pierre-August Renoir’s The Artist’s Son, Jean,
Drawing
Little boy, what are you drawing?
What is it that you see in your mind that no one else can see?
Is there meaning to your drawing?
Or are you drawing because you can?
What do you see in those lines you craft?
Or is there nothing you see yet?
You seem to be concentrating very hard on your work,
Your eyes downcast, your cherub face pressed close to the paper.
What is it that you’re drawing, little boy?
Is it a world pure and good?
Or is it the world as it is, cold and cruel?
Tell me please, little boy
So that I can see the world like you do.
Kathleen Roller, 11th grade
George Mason High School
Falls Church, Virginia
Alissa Mears, teacher
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Splinter in the Eye
After Frank Blackwell Mayer’s Leisure and Labor
The man in the suit stands by
Wearing a fashionable hat
And looking down his nose,
Mud sliding up his amateur boots.
Even his dog is all show;
Still upon his work the laborer persists
With his warm kindly eyes
The laborer, he taps
Taps the horse’s hoof
Working with his simple wisdom,
Scooping out the dirt
Removing all the hurtful glass
Except for the splinter
In the other man’s icy eye
Filled with envy and contempt
For the simple working man
Who chooses the will to try
Emma Goetz, 12th grade
George Mason High School
Falls Church, Virginia
Alissa Mears, teacher
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Driven to Drive
Neath the Raging Morning Sky
I drove barefoot just to see
If I could feel my car breathe mechanically
And soon enough I came to find,
That my car had a heartbeat just like mine
She coughed and sputtered when put under pressure
She stopped and broke down when days got no better
She whined but complied when she worked as was told
Her hands wipe her tears away when she realizes she’s getting old
She growls in vigor when I turn her on
And I know she falls, quiet as death, every time I’m gone.
Justin Mohn, 12th Grade
The Steward School
Richmond, Virginia
Lynn Define, teacher
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Headstrong We Long
for Glory Untold
Heroes don’t get hung-over
The nectar brewed in malice singes while
They burn brightly in the night’s eyes
We fought to have found, those we love in the ground
We drink to the night, we love in the night, we chant
Heroes don’t get hung-over.
After each enemy subdued, we found our cause a ruse
Capsized we rise and gaze at our father’s lies as
They burn brightly in the night’s eyes.
As each one of us dies, we find mortality on a leash
And our phrases faltering, we look to the sky, let God please whisper
Heroes don't get hung-over.
The life ever after, clouds of sound, echoes of laughter
Frame the sonorous souls as
They burn brightly in the night’s eyes.
So many decades pass, soon after
We watch the same old scene with a newborn cast, chanting
Heroes don’t get hung-over
They burn brightly in the night’s eyes.
Justin Mohn, 12th Grade
The Steward School
Richmond, Virginia
Lynn Define, teacher
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Big City Fever
After Piet Mondrian’s
Broadway Boogie Woogie
When the sun sets on the big city
The street lamps and road lines blur into golden streaks
Racing through the depths of the night like eels
Winding by bright buildings and blurred out blocks
Alive with bursts of color which make the city hum.
As the night gets darker, the lights get brighter
Nightclubs and shop fronts radiate neon pulses
No pattern, just vibe
The urban current flows through the nights,
Electrifying all it illuminates.
Thomas Harless, 11th grade
Henrico High School, IB Program
Richmond, Virginia
Priscilla Biddle, teacher
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Tossed
After Apple Core by Claes Oldenburg
Long gone, tossed aside.
Once gleaming, filled with pride.
The shiniest of the batch,
The ripest,
The reddest,
The only one without a scratch.
Remembered only for a few moments,
Until its flavor was lost,
After it was enjoyed,
It was thus tossed.
Tossed and forgotten.
And just because it was rotten.
Will I too be forgotten
Once I am old and rotten?
Will I be lost among those of the past,
In a sea so endless and so vast?
Will my mark not be made,
Just as the apple unnoticed as it fell into the shade?
What I would do to be remembered for more than my face,
But rather, more for my kind embrace.
To see what is within,
Rather than what would have,
Could have,
And should have been.
Instead of seeing what is easily seen,
We ought instead to be a bit more keen
To look at what is possessed inside
What people are shyer to hide;
Their dreams, their hopes, and aspirations,
The thoughts wondered while deep in contemplation.
Now the choice is yours:
To acknowledge or to ignore
What is beautiful from the core.
Vaidehi Joshi, 11th grade
Henrico High School, IB Program
Richmond, Virginia
Priscilla Biddle, teacher
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My Madonna
After
Madonna of the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci
I shall place the Madonna here
In the midst of the misty rocks,
And leave the infant's body bare
To expose the biblical asceticism it mocks.
The altered will embody radiance and articulate pure white
As I have given into the church’s might.
I shall repress the truth the reality conceals,
As my first Madonna revealed
And retire with the hope of a skeptical and curious audience.
Noozhat Nashir, 11th grade
Henrico High School, IB Program
Richmond, Virginia
Priscilla Biddle, teacher
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Crab on Its Back
After Vincent van Gogh
Look at me,
this tide has revealed the wretch beneath my shell. this
veneer has been washed away and I am
no husband, no father, no
example for my son and I am
on my back, I am defiled, I am
much too proud to ask for help
a coward I will
die here, she will be
alone to guide herself --- my son is
not ready but I am
much too selfish to be his
father,
to guide them, he will
end up just like me
but I
don’t care, mustn’t care, I have
too much pride I am
much too selfish to be his father, her husband, soon they will see
this tide has revealed the wretch beneath my shell
Kate
Singleton, 11th grade
Henrico High School
Richmond, Virginia
Priscilla Biddle, teacher
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Never Trick Your
Brother
I once had a brother who was gone yesterday.
He was gone when we went out to play.
Here's the story.
About my brother Cory.
Before we started, I say,
"We are going to play hide and seek a different way.
We don’t hide in the house, we hide around the world.
Your time's up when I say the word."
"How would I know?" he said.
“You will hide and where you are, you stay.”
I told him I will count to a hundred.
He went outside to hide.
When I heard the door close, I stopped counting.
I will never know where he was hiding.
Why, you ask?
I never went looking.
He will be running, running.
I thought for a while where he would go.
North, South, Puerto Rico?
Maybe Spain.
Maybe he's on a plane,
Egypt, Japan?
Maybe he went so far he met Peter Pan,
France?
To buy some pants?
Ireland?
El Salvador?
I'm sure his feet will be sore.
Then he didn't come back for the day.
And I went outside to celebrate and play.
Now that's my story.
Oh! Somebody's knocking!
Let me go open the door
Oh no! It's my brother!
On his side are a few tigers!
I ran all the way to Mexico!
Let me give you a little advice.
Never trick your little brother.
Always treat him nice!
Carina Marquez, 5th
grade
St. Thomas More
Cathedral School
Arlington, Virginia
Meghan Ward, teacher
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A Spring Haiku
Flowers blooming bright
Birds are chirping pretty songs
The sun shines through the clouds
Devin Vigil, 5th grade
St. Thomas More
Cathedral School
Arlington, Virginia
Meghan Ward, teacher
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A Spring
Thunderstorm
My dog runs around in circles while the thunder booms and roars,
With all this heavy rainfall the rain will flood in through the door.
The lightning strikes once, no twice, and my power goes right out,
My younger brother’s scared so he
Screams
And cries
And shouts
Katie Morgan, 5th grade
St. Thomas More
Cathedral School
Arlington, Virginia
Meghan Ward, teacher
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Carolyn
Kreiter-Foronda