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Blue
Fictitious dawn snatches unfinished
sleep.
Short sun unveils the night
And invades foggy windows.
Steam clouds my breath
As the hot substance stirs.
Palms cup and throw an icy slap.
Sinking
Feeling.
It’s back.
Lead feet move heavy heart
Into the dreaded dew,
And I am stung open to attack
Of my Monday Morning Blues.
Blue
Whispers of Life
Odd
Goodbye
The Nature In Me
Little Cat
Commentary
That kiss
I Don't Know You
Poison Dwarf
Fairies
Remember?
Poem of the T.V
A dream?
Best Friends
Belong
Rock Monster
All poetry
© Gemma Wittmann
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Whispers of Life
A veil of fog hid the school, stifling a thousand tears.
Death lingered on every tongue.
The sweet stench of a summer now forgotten
Clung to sick hearts; wilted stiff collars.
No breeze blew to cool burning eyes.
Strong became meek
And jokers laughs fell silent.
Thick air pushes its humid stale breath back
and
chokes
words, releasing only gasping sobs.
Lost. A soul.
To some a friend,
To others a face,
To many, just a name.
A life becomes a memory.
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Odd
I think I bring it on myself.
‘
Once bitten twice shy?’
Get that feeling I’m out of my depth
Welling, behind my eyes and in my chest.
Have me down as quiet.
Boring.
Odd? Nobody wants to know an odd-un!
But if they talked to me one on one they’d see,
I’m not so ugly.
I want to be beautiful.
Gently I’ll unfold
And my petals, unfurl.
Just give me time to warm up!
‘I don’t know them, they don’t know me.’
But that’s the wrong mentality.
What a state I’m in.
Cut out my tongue and slap me with it!
They won’t try again
And I want to cry.
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Goodbye
Visited the farm.
Shelled peas with Grandma.
Picked potatoes in the tractor.
It’s a long journey home: ‘Bye Grandma! Bye Grandad!’
Visited the hospital.
Thanks for the chocolate: ‘Bye Grandad!’
Biscuit?Grandma asked.
Lemonade?Grandad asked?
Long journey home…
‘Grandad passed away’ Dad said.
…
I forgot to say goodbye.
Commentary
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The Nature in Me
The rain outside mimicks my tears,
Tears lash the windows as acid rain burns my cheeks.
I hear the tick tock of a clock in the background.
It is time laughing in my face,
Knowing it is unstoppable.
Irreversible.
Outside a fierce wind blows,
Churning leaves inside my stomach
As if in warning for worse to come.
I wait.
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Little Cat
Sweet little cat why do you follow me around?
You know I love you
Little cat, why do you sleep on my bed?
You know you have your own.
Dear cat why do you always sit in my favourite chair?
You know a cat’s place is on the floor.
Cat, I’ve just washed that!
Why can’t you learn to wipe your paws?!
Mog, why are you scratching my furniture?
I bought you a post!
Oi fur face, why do you play with my feet when you have your toys?
Listen flea bag, you know little cats who climb curtains never get to-
-IF YOU EVER PISS ON MY CARPET AGAIN I’LL-
Little cat where are you going?
Come back.
You know I love you.
Commentary
That Kiss
Pulling away, I searched for my surprise…
Trembling fingers unfolded holiday memories on a card:
‘… never forget…’
That kiss.
‘ I’ll never forget you.’
How you made me who I am.
Somebody like you, liked me.
He seemed so far away, and
You seemed so forbidden,
Like the fruit that opened my eyes.
Just a tiny bite,
But it was soft, and delicious.
Soft and delicious.
Just a tiny bite, but!
It was like the fruit that opened our eyes.
You.
Seemed so forbidden.
He seemed so far away
When somebody liked me!
Somebody like you!
Oh how you made me who I am.
‘… never forget you,’ his kiss whispered on my postcard home.
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I Don't Know You
I thought I knew everything about you. I knew that you
Once ate poison peas.
I knew that you
Had never been to a theme park.
I knew that your
Favourite colour was blue, like your eyes.
I thought I knew you would never hit me.
I thought wrong.
One day you punched me
In the stomach, and
I lost my breath.
Then you stabbed me,
Sliced right through my heart.
I have the scars,
Only you can’t see them.
Because you did it with your tongue,
When you told me what you had done.
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Poison Dwarf
He opens some crisps
And shoves them right in.
His mouth slobbers and chews
Like an open dustbin.
Wipes hands down his clothes
And pours out a drink.
Then wibbles and wobbles
Half of it down the sink!
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Fairies
There are fairies at the bottom of my garden, you know.
Tiny and magic with pointy toes.
There are rainbow fairies who spread colour through the skies,
And tooth fairies who bring money as a surprise.
But you never can tell of these fairies,
’
Cos they don’t like you to know.
For then everyone would want a fairy,
And they would lose their glow.
They are very private, fairies, you know.
So to disturb them you must not go.
But instead observe peacefully,
As they flutter about their day.
And remember never to say you don’t believe.
That would be a shame.
For then the fairies would all die,
’
Til you clapped them back to life again.
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Remember?
Remember when we were little girls?
We used to scrap and fight.
It always seemed to end in tears,
Mostly yours as I recall.
Remember how I used to tease,
That you had ‘frizzbuzz’ hair?
And how I laughed
When you got ketchup everywhere.
I despised the way you dribbled
When you got upset.
But the best was when you fell off Housteen Gorge
And got all wet!
I felt I had to be nasty.
You always seemed such a wimp.
Big sisters should be stronger,
So in came me, your little imp.
I can look back now and laugh.
It all seems so silly.
Doesn’t it frizzbuzz?
Ha ha ha! Doesn’t it?
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Poem of the T.V
I’ve given you everything!
Over the years you have
Seen the future through me.
I’ve shown you the past.
I’ve changed your perspective,
Helped you to see new light.
I know I’m old but it’s quality that counts.
These young’uns, what do they know?
32inches! It’s all mouth.
Who needs 50 channels?
Here is where it’s at!
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A Dream
I saw you watching,
Wondered why you were there.
No-one else could see you,
Though you were just over there.
You weren’t smiling.
It set me on edge.
I turned over and
You told me,
There was something special
You needed me to do.
The golden river called,
And the dragon I managed to slay.
I brought you back your treasure,
Then you were gone. Again.
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Best Friends
You and me,
Where would we be?
Hiding somewhere,
Or up a tree.
Always together,
Cheeky forever,
My best friend
And me.
They split us up in brownies,
But couldn’t keep us apart.
’
Cos we were best friends,
In yours and in my heart.
We grew up and
Went to different schools.
But you still came round to share
Jacket potatoes, pancakes, and kid food.
Then boyfriends came
But it wasn’t to change us.
We calmed each other’s tears and
Gave hugs through those messy break ups.
But now, what’s this?
A baby to love!
Will there be room for me,
Now he puts your attention way above
The silly things
We used to share?
Yes, ’cos you let me love him too.
Now I know you’ll always be there.
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Belong
Some things in life were
Made to be together.
Like custard and bananas,
Spag bol and sultanas.
Baked potatoes with cheese,
And pancakes with lemon juice-just a squeeze!
Sax and jazz, ribbons and twirls,
Daddy’s with their little girls.
Love and marriage,
Horse and carriage.
Those things you know,
Were made to be together.
And yes, just one more,
That’s you and me, forever.
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Rock Monster
Rocks in your pudding,
And rocks for your tea,
Would you like rocks
For your breakfast too, Daddy?
I know now I’m all grown up,
But it still seems so alive,
So surely you can remember.
We were five.
Flying dragons and talking trees,
But best out of ‘The Never Ending Story’
Came our rock monster!
A timeless memory.
email: pink_angel_17@hotmail.com back to top
Commentary
I do not usually write poetry and so when it came to writing six poems I was not sure where to start. I based all six poems on instinct and wrote about my encounters in life; things that I know about and feel rather than anything surreal. The first poem, Blue. I started by thinking about the title first and built the poem around that. To express the words on the page with effect, I altered the structure. For example, the first line : ‘…snatches unfinished.’ I cut the line off at unfinished and out the last word on the next line so when reading it the line feels ‘unfinished.’ Later in the poem, where it says ‘sinking feeling,’ I put the two words on separate lines and indented the second to give the reader a sense of the feeling I was trying to portray. So in a sense it seems as though the words themselves are sinking on the page.
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The poem entitled Whispers of life was written about a fellow pupil and his three friends who were killed in a terrible car crash. Firefighters said it was the most horrific crash they had seen in fifty years service. Although I didn't know him well and the boy had left school the previous year, a lot of his friends and other pupils who were close to him, including his younger sister, were still in school. The poem describes the mood around the school and my feelings on the day. For example, on that particular morning that we learnt of his death, there was a fog, and in my poem I describe my feeling of the school being hidden and enveloped, somehow closed off from the rest of the world.
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The Nature In Me, I wrote on a day that I felt miserable! My boyfriend had upset me and again, the words of the poem describe my emotions at the time. I was looking out of the window and the weather was slightly turbulent. It felt like something was building up outside as the leaves were picked up by the wind and whirled around and the rain started to spatter. It felt a little like a storm was brewing and I likened this to the way I felt. I tried to give the poem the theme of nature and my feelings being connected, and nature mocking me in a way by trying to create what I was feeling, e.g. the rain was nature mocking my tears.
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Goodbye was written after my grandfather passed away. The poem shows a log of my memories, a little like a diary entry. It is not a flowing or smooth poem. The ideas do not follow on from one another simply because I wanted to create the idea of memories being unconnected and patchy. Memories do not always follow on from each other, I remember different things from different times that particularly stick out in my mind. The theme of the poem is as the title suggests, goodbye. It is supposed to be ambiguous because it is like I am saying goodbye to my granddad, but also the theme that runs through the poem is the importance of always saying goodbye, because you never know when you will see your loved ones again. Or indeed get the chance to say goodbye. I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to my grandad as he passed away very suddenly and the conclusion to the poem shows my feelings, possibly of guilt on receiving the news that he had died.
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The poem Odd, is about being misunderstood. In some ways it represents me but I think it can be applied to most people, as I am confident that a lot of people have had experiences of being shy or coming across to people that you don’t know well, in a different way to how most people know you or the way you behave around people you know well. The first stanza describes the feeling of meeting new people and being nervous around them. The second stanza goes on to describe how you feel people perceive you and wanting to show them the real you. I likened myself, or the reader, as like I said earlier it can be applied to different people, to being a bit like a plant that opens out in the sunshine. This is I suppose a metaphor for becoming comfortable with people and starting to be yourself. The last stanza is about attitude. In this stanza I was trying to show that if you start off with the attitude that people don’t you then they will probably never get to know you. It is like putting metaphorical barriers or defences up so people don’t see the real you. Once you have got off on the wrong foot with somebody they probably will not try to become friendly with you because they think you don’t want to be friendly with them, ‘they won’t try again.’ However, the poem describes somebody scolding themselves for getting into that state. They wish they hadn’t said some of the things that they did, e.g. ‘cut out my tongue and slap me with it.’
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The last poem, is a light hearted verse that did not take long to write. I took the inspiration for this poem from my own ‘little cat.’ I kept wondering why he followed my around the house all the time, and that began the poem as the first line. From then on I began to think of other little things that the cat did, like sit on the furniture when he had a perfectly good bed of his own! As the poem goes on, the tone, though still funny and light hearted, gets a little more annoyed with each question, with the cat doing more and more naughty things; until the conclusion of the poem where he does the unspeakable, that many other cat owners have probably experienced, and toilets on the carpet! I thought of what I would say when my own cat did something like that and of course your first instinct is to shout at them. However, when the cat starts to walk off, you feel guilty for shouting at it because it is so cute and you don’t want it to think that you don’t love it, so you forgive the creature instantly and it starts all over again!