3 poems
by Michael Pratts
Michael Pratts is an 11th grade high school student at City Honors who’s been practicing poetry for 8 years. He was recognized in 2012 for his “Writing With Light” combination of photography and poetry, as well as in 2014, earning 2nd place in the WNY Drug Free New Year Poetry Contest. More recently, his poetry has shifted toward songwriting with his solo album in production, as well as his band The Public set to tour this spring around downtown Buffalo and summer along Main Street, Williamsville.
Urban Grass
The crimson settled as
Mutant deer and the aluminum grizzlies alike
Froze at the sight of the freight.
Holes in the chicken wire and no carrots.
It could be considered nothing short of an
Everyday occurrence.
And as seasonal slumber dropped its barbell,
The waste could cease
And give way to a gauged image
The stars brought down to whisper
Goodnight.
While this far from wicked woman,
Dethroned and natural,
Took to the open grass of this urban jungle,
The silos sat still.
Relief and Sigh
Having spent so many
Short moments in the fruit aisle
The faces began to appear
Mine began to loosen its grip
The healthiest of radicals
It must be the change
This unfamiliar expression
Meeting my dark wintry eyes
In the final moments
Before the bic severed the tangent
That would release me into peace
Planetary and content
She grabbed the rope
Even if it was to redden her
Knuckles bare and bitten
She stood finally there
How many wax wishes
Had melted before my fragile gaze
Before the scissors came
And cut out the yellow, purple
I suppose they went somewhere
Perhaps some larger ears
Condescendence
Never sounded dissonant as the correct.
To Please
It was her geometry
Or perhaps that it was soaked in white lines
Through the blinds
Who knew rocks were so full of life
With every good intention he would recycle the pink
Rediscovering every centimeter all over again
With the goal of finding three in-betweens
Pointed away from the stars that lit up the mud.
Lime was to be licked
A cold tip reaching the creek over the tongue
Time to be ticked
The slit never to open
For the exes and why’s had already stitched it closed.