SLEEPING ON THE WING Poems 2013-2014 (Grade Eight): Walt Whitman

"Write a poem that is a song of yourself, a celebration of yourself.  In ordinary life, we are constantly made aware of the limitations of our powers. In this poem forget the limitations. Write as if you actually are the way Whitman imagined that you are. Write as if you were all of life, as if you were everywhere and in all time and were everyone and everything--seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding, being everything that there is. It may help to begin your lines with the words ‘I am’ or ‘I see’ or ‘I hear’ or ‘I know.’ Imagine yourself in many different places, including some you’ve never really been in--on a sinking ship, walking through the desert, in a burning building, at the battle of the Alamo, floating down a river. You might try, at least for part of your poem, putting a different place in every line. Say what you see and do there. Try using long lines, lines that give you space enough to describe in detail exactly who you are and what you see and hear and know. Be boastful and bold. Try making the poem very long. Let your poem keep changing its subject as it goes along, as Whitman’s poem does. You will probably find, after you write it, that it all goes together in a way you wouldn’t have expected.”

--from Sleeping on the Wing, by Kenneth Koch and Kate Farrell (Vintage, 1981).

________________________________________________________

I am big, I am tall. 

I float among a million more of me, 

but I am special. I am unique.

I can hear the squeak of the mouse, 

see the tiny atoms belonging to us, 

from my toes to the end of my hair. 

I can feel the wars raging on, the calm breeze blowing by,

I have faults, but I still stand proud. 

Wars have played upon me, but so have many great feats.

I am one with all as all is one with me, 

For I welcome all in my warm arms.

I welcome from every kind, from every race and every place.

My beauty shines bright for all of them to see.

And in a time of dark, in a time of sadness, I shine brightly and light the way.

I make the trees blow and the clouds fly.

I circle freely, around and around, rotating, rotating.

I get dizzy and dizzy but never fall over.

I am supported by all and support all.

I can make anything, everything.

I have made the trees.  I can hear the trees.

I have made the Sky. I can feel the sky.

I can wander freely, wherever I please.

I wonder, I celebrate with all as I grieve.  I mourn with all.

I celebrate for one new life as I grieve for one lost.

I see, I feel day after day, all with their heads down and all with their heads up, 

because I am one with all as all is one with me.

***

I hear a soothing chirping of the birds.

I hear the gentle tapping coming from the windows.

I hear the silence falling through the house.

I celebrate the piece.

I celebrate the quiet.

I feel the gravity on the moon.

I hear the gentle mooing of the cows. 

I smell the pungent smell of cow manure.

I celebrate the diversity of the animals of the moon.

I celebrate the many different smells of the moon. 

I hear the crackling laughter of the hags. 

I feel the soft moss underneath my bare feet.

I see the night sky.

I celebrate the evil.

I celebrate the smoke.

I hear the demons laughing.

I feel the heat radiating from the walls.

I listen for the everlasting evil.

I worship the demons.

I celebrate death.

I feel the sharp heat coming from burning hot sand.

I see the green oasis waiting in front of me.

I know that it is fake, but I still hope.

I will celebrate the cool shade.

I will celebrate the refreshing water.

I hear the wind tapping on my window.

I see the cars flying past my window.

I feel the wind trying to push my house away.

I will celebrate if I live.

I celebrate the indoors.

***

When I am faced within the confines of my own abilities,

When there is nigh another method,

I will bring myself to go around those walls.

If there is a maze with no exit sprawled out in front of me,

and there is no correct way to enter,

I need not doors or wit, for why one should take a maze when he can demolish the wall?

I will at times need tactics, or a gamble will be lost; things I learned in my delinquency,

bewitched by the smell of fortune. 

I am not too smart a fellow to know.

I, sometimes in the night, be lis'nin to the whinnies ad the neighs

of those four mounters, who are just waiting in the shade

for the day I destroy the earth through my own idiotic means.

There will ever be a conundrum which only I can solve.

I will not like my duty but not shirk it either,

for there will be the taste of failure. 

And when I see an opportunity, to whit there is a chance

for me to gain without my toil and exert myself in this endeavor

I will take that prospect with little hesitation of any type

There will be a type when the boogieman tries to spook me into submission. 

When he spreads his foul stink around my room,

he'll try to make me suffocate, but he'll never see my corpse.

No matter the limit of my own life, my memory will live on.

I care not for the mud on my name or the sheen of it .

At least I'll still be renowned. 

This world I live in will try to eat me alive with a side of my wisdom as garnish,

and I'll welcome it with open arms as I look and I say,

"I'll be darned for all I own."

I am the water which can seep past the smallest tunnel,

the magma that seeps within the volcano of nostalgia

and a melancholy broom.

***

If I could Freeze time, oh all the awkward things I would do:

look at Changho’s paper during a test, 

use a marker and draw buckteeth and a donkey on the teacher’s face.... 

All the free food I could eat!

But then I would feel guilty, as if there were a ghastly tantalizing grapefruit walking down the aisle.

I see swimming, Parkour/free running.

Then I hear footsteps,

footsteps on water.

Then I think “Thats impossible.”  Or is it?

Until the water became the sand at the beach in Spain, Valencia, right by the ocean....

I am practicing.  I see myself from a bird’s-eye view on the burning sand, playing around and training for the Art of Motion. 

When I go to Art of Motion I think back to the 2016 Rio Olympics.  The way I won is the way I am going to win today. 

I will celebrate myself with a party at my mansion by the beach,

with a garage filled with Porsches, Lamborghini’s and Bugatti’s,

my pool and free-running gym filled with friends....

This is how I will celebrate my victories

when they come.

I know they will come,

Just as I know when snow will come,

in the winter, during Christmas,

When it is warm inside and there is nowhere to go.

I will celebrate my success and abilities over a fire with hot chocolate and marshmallows that have too much mallow and not enough marsh,

Design Technology wasn't my best class, so I prefer the mallow. 

I did not enjoy eating my rugby coach. 

***

I am floating in space, watching the stars, peacefully.

I see the stars and the moon.

I hear only the sound of my breathing.

I am in the water going at full speed, knowing that I can’t let anyone else win, 

gliding swiftly, but watching my opponents slowly catching up. 

My legs start going kicking harder, mind set.

Before I know it, my hand hits the wall with such immense force it becomes numb.

I climb out, watching everyone watch me with a sense of pride. 

I know I must get out, but I find no strength in my legs.

I watch flaming objects burn one by one, the fire getting closer to me.

It will devour me in a matter of seconds.

I see a figure with a suit who immediately carries me on his back through the flames and out the door.

I’ve made it.

On this day, I am 14 years old in this world.

And as I my gaze drifts from person to person, I think how lucky I am.

I blow out the little flames as everyone smiles. 

My sister cuts the cake.  I take a piece and drown in the delicious flavour. 

I am sitting with my best friend on the bed, not saying a word.

Both of us staring up, drowning in our own happy thoughts. 

I think how nice it is to share such a friendship,

where we enjoy ourselves just in each other’s presence

and where words are not necessary.

A sinking ship I’m in, not being able to do anything.... 

I run outside and see a crowd pushing through.

I jump into the water, knowing what to do. 

It’s freezing cold, and as I gasp for air, my body is 

paralyzed--from the cold--and I take my last breath of air before

sinking slowly...deeper and deeper.

***

I see my reflection looking down at a river, 

Looking at myself thinking what I’m doing here.

I have made a big mistake.  I regret everything.

They started it, and they did not want to end it.

It’s not my fault.  We say that every time we start a war.

We say that we do not regret anything and that all of our decisions are the best decisions.

In reality they’re not.

We could have done something.

But we did not.  We could have said the truth to our people.

But we did not. 

In the end it was our fault, but we told our people it was theirs.

We thought everything was O.K. afterward and that it was going to end.

It did not.  They came back, and we had to fight.

We thought our home was going to be destroyed.  We surrounded and lost everything.

We lost our resources and materials.

Our home was destroyed.

For the first time ever, we lost.

***

I didn’t know where I was.

I woke up here in the middle of the night

in an empty room that looked like a penthouse.

I stand up from the spot I’ve been lying on,

who knows for how long.

I slowly open the curtains.

Now I know where I am.

New York City,

the city of lights,

the bright lights from the gigantic buildings,

towering over each other.

I walk to the counter,

where a box sits.

I open it, and there are a note and a bottle of champagne inside.

“Drink me” the note says.

I pour a glass of champagne.

I hold it firmly.  

It was as if the glass were a part of me

and that if I were to let go

I would lose a piece of myself.

I tilt the glass

then take a sip.

As it hits my mouth,

my lips curl.

I swallow.

As the champagne travels down my throat,

I suddenly remember “it.”

I’ve known all along why I am here.

I’ve spent every birthday since I was 13 in this empty space.

I wasn’t legal to drink, but nobody stopped me.

This year was no exception.

I remember that

two hours ago I was supposed to meet with my father.

He is the only one I have

aside from my uncle Jack.

My father is the most powerful man in Manhattan.

He would do anything to keep his secrets from everyone.

***

I taste the sinews of the alligator freshly killed by boat blades in the swamps of humid lands;

I smell the citric sweat of maidens wearing cormorant feathers in honor of being the last of their tribe;

I touch the blistered face of the male adolescent, ashamed to ask a girl, any girl, to the prom or even to the latest Paranormal Activity movie;  

I hear the drip-drip-drip of milk leaking from a punctured carton that has overturned in the refrigerator after an earthquake.

I see the sunglasses hiding the blind man’s eyes and wonder he has any idea of how cool he looks (especially at night). 

I hear guacamole salesmen shouting Dutch obscenities from the church tops of Zanzibar.

I lick the salt from pancakes discarded by breakfast chefs determined to hide their mistakes.

I mispronounce a greeting in Mandarin and anger the ayi of my best friend’s cousin.

I open letters from women who’ve mistaken me for someone with more money than Greek men have back hair.

I click on hyper links infected with identity-thieving viruses.

I taunt hunchbacks in the public squares of mining towns. then outrun them as they lumber after me sweaty and sweet.

I resist the come-hither glances of extra-terrestrials who land routinely in my cornfield and refer to probe as the P-word.

I inhale carcinogens and thank the heavens for snail trails.

I exude the effluvium of otters slain for their pelts by Aleutian sailors on the Island of the Blue Blowfish.

I use binoculars to watch people with binoculars watching other people with binoculars.  (I do not know whether they are watching me.)

I hear the microphoned singing of a bad Elvis Presley impersonator wearing a white jump suit that gives “too tight.”

I take a nap on a bed of nails and dream of the Tuesday that the police arrested me for impersonating a cactus.

I try on every pair of swimming trunks in the sporting-goods store but, not liking any of them, return each one to the racks from which they hang like traitors to the throne.

I hear teenaged girls complain about the depressing nature of the poems that their English teachers force them to write.  (But I think they would be even unhappier with nothing to complain about at all.)

***

I have found myself on the verge of death.  I’m trying to remember everything that I’ve had, that I’ve enjoyed, or that I was scared of.

Such as,

When I was two, I saw a dinosaur.  It was big and green. 

When I was four, I saw the ocean, crashing waves and the smell of salt. 

When I was six, I felt the soft grass under my feet.

When I was eight, I left my home.

On a sinking boat in the middle of the sea, 

crashing and bashing of the water on the side of the boat,

I am rescued by a helicopter. 

It takes to our destination, Johannesburg.

At my new house, all shiny and new,

as I look at the window, 

there is nothing shiny and new. 

People knock on the door, begging.

They look different, these people from outside the window on the other side of the road. 

Driving to school, on the highway,

A car comes by the side of our car.

The driver has a gun,

“Pull over!” he says.

This person comes from the other side of the road.

He takes our car and my mother’s phone.

I move away from that shiny new house. 

I go by plane,

It’s the first plane I’ve been on.

I am going to India.

I love India so much.

I’m there right now.

I haven’t left India since I came here.

Now, I’m going to die here.

I have a gun against my head.

It’s there because I have no connection to anything anymore.

So now I’m leaving.

***

I feel the rain pour down my face.  It feels like the blood,

the blood from the day, the day of the murder. 

I am in Tokelau, on holiday with my family.

She doesn’t see it coming.  It’s quick.  I try to save her. 

The blood pours from the celling.  She is only 25, too young. 

I hear him.  He walks around the corner.

The noise of the shot vibrates through the walls. 

I can feel it all around.  It’s terrifying. 

I’m scared.  I know I could have helped that day, 

The sound of the blood dripping repeats over and over again.

I still fear him.  I still know he is around.  I am waiting for the day

that I will be the one to die.  He wants this to happen. 

This is his plan. 

I see him.  He runs away quickly. 

I hear a bang.  My head hits the floor. 

I wake up in a concert. 

It’s a rave! 

All the fear goes away. 

It’s the time of my life! 

I don’t know that it’s my last day.

I don’ t even know I’m dead. 

I see her again.  We are re-united. 

***

I am all over the place.

I am in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Paris and London.

As time passes, I am everywhere but nowhere.

I see people walking by, from different races and speaking different languages.

But all I hear is peaceful birds flying past with rushing rivers next to me,

as if I am in a tropical jungle.

I feel alone, even though I see people and hear birds.

I do not feel peaceful.  I am full of stress, anger, distrust

as if my friends have left me to die alone.

In the mass of people, I do not know where I am,

but I see the Eiffel Tower, the Empire state building, the magic bean and Big Ben.

I feel one person, tracking me with her eyes, or maybe his.

I do not know.  I feel, not see.

All of a sudden, I am standing on a hill with the Hollywood sign in front of me,

Silence.

As I look more carefully to the Hollywood sign, it’s so quiet.

Then I hear it--footsteps, laughing.

I recognize the laughs.  They are from my friends.

I hope that eventually I can see them, hope to be able to talk to them again.

I blink.  Maybe I should not.

I blink again.  I hear the voices and laughs right behind me.

I turn around.  They’re not there.  I am.

I hear the voices, but, slowly, my sight fades away.

I regret things.  I regret my decisions, the things that have put me in this position.

I see nothing but hear everything.

I smell life in a wonderful way but still see nothing, feel nothing.

I think of the people that once loved me, that once hated me.

I think about people I’ve loved and hated,

maybe still love or hate.

Those people that loved or love me, do they think about me?  Do they still love me?

I don’t feel the sun anymore.  Is this the end?

I don’t see anything.  Sometimes I see light.  Sometimes it goes white.

I think about what I have been through, what I have seen,

horrible, horrible things that I have seen, never to be repeated.

I smell the scent of the pie that my mother used to make.

I do love that pie.

I don’t smell, I don’t see, I don’t feel.

As if I am dead. Wait, I am dead.

Silence.  For a very long time.  Am I still alive?  I feel alive.

But then I wake up.

I am nowhere. I am everywhere.

I hear birds.  I see people.

Things feel right again.  I feel like me.

I stand up.  I see friends as they were before, as I remember them.

I taste the pie that my mom made, as if I’ve just eaten it, but I haven’t.

My friends act normally, but I am still distressed, distrustful, angry.

Everything that I taste, see, and smell feels comfortable,

but I still feel weird.

Everything will be O.K.

***

I feel the rising bass--the vibrations echo through my ear.

I hear the shimmer of melodies coming through, complimenting the kick.  This is where it starts, everything you hear.  Here he comes in, holding the pick.  A small chord starts the extemporization. 

I feel it throughout myself and project that feeling to what I play.  Everything starts to fit together like a puzzle. 

I see heads start to bob to the sound of the drums.  No one can explain.  The music has me feeling free. 

I hear the final chord that ends the jam.  The recording stops....  Silence.

I see a black stage. 

I hear footsteps.  Those on the stage are ready.  It starts.  The feeling is there.  I can’t help moving. 

I can see the life of the music fill the people listening.

I see the small room, a trap for the melody.  Four young students with much to learn pick up the first thing they see, using paper as a slight reference. 

No rhyme or reason, just go.  It was never about the tone but about the soul of the sound and the joy to be had.

***

I hear breathtaking noise from machines of gold and silver.

I hear brilliant rhythms from my neighbor’s five deceased pet rodents.

I see the beauty that I see in my dreams.  However I’m not even myself in my dreams.

I am sure that the wonders I see are the wonders in my dreams.

Although my dream may have not yet come true,

I can hope that it will speed into my life where it stops to stay for awhile.

I offer what I have, but it is declined.

I do not insist, for what is the point?

However, as moments pass, the moments of the past come back.

There will always be something that gets in the way, and I wish that I could overcome it.

Moments pass where I don’t.  I am still at 11:19.

Everything functions except for me.

I cannot focus on the smallest things because of the smallest things that have been magnified in my head,

fearing that the past will repeat, even though it has been the past for awhile.

Everyday I would change if I could.

For life is littered with numerous mistakes.

And when at night I dream of the other side,

I know that time will work it out.  I know that it will take awhile.

***

I suffer.  I suffer the tiny, very annoying melody that is being played so very loud.

It makes my ears bleed.  It won’t stop.  I get the sensation that it’s on fire. It stops. Finally, I think.  I celebrate my little moment of triumph as the next melody opens.  I cry out in pain and scurry to the bathroom. 

I feel like spending the rest of my class here.  I don’t like what the class is about anyway.  I sit in the stall, waiting for the time to pass.  I fluff around a bit with my hair in boredom.  I don’t have anything with me because I left my bag in the classroom.

I figured I might as well go back as there is no point in staying here.  Even just playing on my phone doesn’t work out: I need to preserve my battery.

As I come back, this girl just won’t stop bothering me.  “God, please make her stop.”

Everyone is crowding around this table, going off topic, cursing, and talking about stuff that doesn’t matter. I ignore everyone and simply sit in between a fight of Rayan who finds it’s so difficult just to shut her yap!  She and Luke are in a Cold War, and I’m the peaceful neutral little country where the battle is being fought.

So much hatred flows from both sides, anger, fear of never returning.  I feel trapped within, as if I am Switzerland and Luke is France and Rayan is Germany and Austria.   But Luke’s tone overwhelming language leaves Rayan stunned, looking for words, completely blown back. The debate is won, and the war is over.

It’s another day back in English class.  Luke is gone this time.  So is Izzy.  I am not aware of whether she was there the last time.  I let it pass without much thought.    Rayan’s laugh makes me laugh.  I chuckle a bit and go on with my work.  Jack is making what looks like a structure made of popsicle sticks.

Mr. Orteza is clearly unhappy that I am so far ahead of him with my word count in this poem.  Loeke challenges me, clearly the farthest ahead of us all.  We all make scientific statements and points, laughing at each other’s achievement.  

No!  It’s starting again, the music.  Aah!  It burns.  Aah!  I was made to suffer!  I can’t do this!  Somebody please.... Ugh I really can’t stand this music.  I wish that I had some nuclear weapons to make an end of it.  Ugh, it’s unbearable, trying to get into my head and drive me crazy!  The burns! 

My computer is dying, and I wish I could just take out my book.  My phone’s dead anyway.  I could do with some hunger games.  Three minutes to go.  I’m ahead of the rest of the class with over 500 words and counting!  I’m doing it.  However my poem is not interesting.  Ugh I want to go home and just sit behind my computer.

Jack bursts out with One Direction, as if my ears haven’t suffered or burned enough. Maybe I was born to do this, to suffer.

***

As I fly in the airplane, I can see all of the cloud around me.

I hear the turbines spinning and turning.

I know that there is bad and good around me.

The feeling of good.  The feeling of bad warms me right up.

As I get off the plane, I see the beautiful land, but I don’t understand half the things in this new place,

So as I go to a new land, I know there is a lot of stuff to explore.

On this land I see, I hear, I feel.  I can control what is there.

It is as if everything that I have ever imagined is appearing on this land.

I see my favorite things all around me.

I hear birds chirping and singing.

I feel as if I am the king of everything.

There is everything that I have ever wanted.

I have an unlimited supply of everything,

and if there is something new, I master it.

There are also all my favorite people too, so I am not alone.

If there ever comes bad, then if feels as if it just floats away.

But, then again, I am not in control of what happens here.

***

I wake up.

I don’t  know where I am.  I’m lost in nowhere. 

I can feel the soft grass around me and see the blue sky,

the cotton-like clouds over the horizon in their different shapes, 

the smell of fresh air like the smell after a heavy rain,

the people I’m with, my friends....

This feels so real.

I’m with the people I love the most, feeling so comfortable. 

Looking into the warm sunlight shining on my face,

I blink and I’m back.

The smoke around me and the people drifting by,

the grey buildings, the smoke surrounding me....

I wish I was back where I came from.

The fresh air, soft grass, everything is gone.

My friends are gone, and so is the comforting feeling of this place. 

I wish I could go back every day.

I miss my friends and everything that I had back then. 

Days pass.

Weeks pass.

The first month passes.  It feels like forever. 

Nothing’s changed.  The emptiness is still there.

No one understands me.

I don’t belong here.

I want to go back to where I came from. 

I can’t do this anymore. 

I’ve been here for a long time.

I got better for a bit, 

But it’s starting to get bad again, 

the emptiness surrounding me, 

loneliness....

A new beginning, 

a new start, 

it gets better with time. 

People come and people leave, 

making it hard to move on. 

Accepting the facts, 

what is and what’s not....

I have gotten used to this now.

I’m starting to love this place.

New people and new opportunities,

environments are not strange anymore.

Everything seems familiar. 

Seeing parts of the world that I’ve never been able to see, 

I don’t want to leave. 

I’m home. 

***

I am possessed by the passion and obsession that drains me of my youth,

The merits, pain, gains, losses build and mold the very base of who I am and what will become of me to this day.

I strive for perfection although I am yet far from such a quality and may never achieve it.   So I pray for a spectacular life, yet I am lost without direction or purpose,

with an anchor and yet to find a compass to guide my way through the vast seas of reality....

I see the vast opportunities and merits of life through the guidance of those who give us knowledge,

but with the witness of such I must make an ultimatum of great importance that will affect my life in a permanent state,

I hear the eagerness, anxiety, expectations, and realization of the crowds of the descending generation.

Come, my friends, and we shall unite in this journey to the greatly unknown,

I know that some of us will slip and fall while some of us will reach to the end and prevail.

I am uncertain of my own destiny and future.

As for the vastness of the unknown, space intrigues me.  It also leaves me clueless and terrorized.

The fear to fail, the fear to fall, the fear to slip away and never return....

But I still survive, alive as ever, and will proceed with all my heart and strength.

I feel a dome trapped over me,

A dome that traps me from the world I know.

Suddenly, it turns into a shell and covers me as if it were armor,

Yet it traps me like a moving prison, making me invisible and vague.

As I walk through the streets and walk through the halls,

I feel as if I’m nowhere to be seen.

I yell, I cry, I try to interact,

Yet I stay trapped alone.

The silent pain that takes over my soul,

the pain that impales me and fills me with agony

although there is no blade and there are no arms,

is the pain felt by the synchronization of love.

I see the tears that drown me.

I hear the sounds of blue that carve my back,

a sunny day turned charcoal black.

As I feel blue while she feels so too,

I try to reach, but I am dragged away,

never to be heard or noticed

as I silently cry for the victims of the realistic illusion of love.

--by Arsenio Orteza and the sixteen students in his 8A English class at Nanjing International School, 2013-2014