Lost Thoughts

I only wanted to write.
I stopped making notes on my phone.
But I lost
so many ideas
because I need to move
with upward
swings.
Not against them.
It would be like
moving against the current.
Just because the sand
seems different
upstream.

Riley Welch
8/27/2015

100, and 100 more.

This summer my goal was to write a hundred poems. Below I bring you, my hundredth poem of the summer. It is, of course, about words and letters and how incredible it really is.

Stretched out
letter by letter
line by line
solid stacking
up.

Although,
if you stared at the top,
then down.
There's so much overlap
in 26 letters
and spaces.

Endless combinations
tears,
shivers,
laughter,
grins.

Searing sun,
prickling goosebumps,

and here I read the end.

But it may be the start.

8/25/2015
Riley Welch

Bossy

Green leaves
overlapped,
rich and rooted
on a big, brown, bossy
oak tree
outside a mother's house.

[The particular mother in this case is not important, but it is important to note that it is a mother.]

And the leaves fell
occasionally
as squirrels would run
under and over and under
the turbulent
twisty
branches of that big, brown, bossy oak.
And as the leaves fell
the oak willed them
to stay.

[Because, remember, the oak tree is bossy.]

But
they did not
because once they

detached

without a place to go
they had no choice
but
to litter the mother's
lawn.
And it became coated
in all these
leaves.

[Although the squirrels aren't really to blame here, this is just nature.]

And eventually,
so many leaves piled up,
the mother-

[Just a mother, specific mothers are still not important to this story.]

-had a son
or daughter
or helpful neighborhood kid
rake up those leaves.
Usually for a couple of bucks.

[Probably a crisp five, or four ones, because it seems like as much, but isn't.]

And a soda,
because sugar is invaluable.

But in a few months,
Fall would set in
and all the leaves could fall at once
and the squirrels
wouldn't matter
anyway.

[The squirrel would still matter, just not in the context of the leaves.]

And then the son
or daughter
or helpful neighborhood kid
would rake in the big bucks
in raking up yards
for more than just
a few
off-season
fives and sodas.

And the big, brown, bossy tree
would be glad
because it would have willed the leaves
to fall
this time.

8/24/2015
Riley Welch

Waves

Nightmarish
seas
full of
fish
salt
plants
monsters
a deep
black
drowning
crashing
open ocean seems
to vast
for my mind
to grasp.

8/23/2015
Riley Welch

Check

Right
and
wrong
seem unfairly determinable.
Let's do a majority vote.
So many situations
check
yes
check
no,
could we even get
everyone
to vote
for
anything.
At all.

8/23/2015
Riley Welch

5, 10, 15, 20

Addition.
Two and three make five.
And five is even.
Technically,
it is odd.
But the clean way
fives fall into tens
is even
and nice.
Ten fives, make fifty.
Twenty fives, a hundred.
And that is a wonderfully round number.

8/22/2015
Riley Welch

Baby Blue

This is a strong disclaimer that I am not writing about today's gloomy Saturday in the below poem. 

I'm sure there is something I am forgetting,
but for today,
at least,
I have a strange
wash of contentment
I am not used to.
I'll visit those 4 corners
and probably find
nothing,
but
that is something
I am okay with.
At least for
this sunny
and blue
Saturday.

8/22/2015
Riley Welch