Do you still have any poems you wrote from forty years ago?

Question

I just happened upon this poem I wrote as an 18 year old!

Would you care to comment?

Tomb of Sorrow

I live within a tomb of sorrow

Shadows fall across my soul

Walls glistened with tears

Surround me, air made pungent

With pain fills my soul.

Courage filled I venture out

Beyond the dark to discover

At moment's glance a blinding light

Causes panic, I quickly recoil

A response of absolute fear.

My soul flees this foreign brightness

Unaccustomed eyes must

Look away, away and back

To calm comfort found

Within safe walls of my tomb.

Death may be the sum of what

It steals, but for those whose lives

Have known no joy, death

Offers the absence of pain, where

In its taking, is also found giving.

I retreat back to the familiar

To my shadows, tears and pain

The light revealed my fate foretold

Forever I'm destined to remain

Within this tomb of sorrow.

Answer 1

As much as I loved reading poetry 40 years ago, I refused to write anything resembling poetry, and nearly flunking English because of it.  I wish Tom Hall, my teacher then, could see me now!  He might really decide to flunk me...

Answer 2

Really, really poignant! I wish i could've have written that way when i was young! :)  

Answer 3

I'm fast approaching 40 (Thanks for THAT little reminder! Haha!)

It sounds like you were a normal, troubled, "lost" young woman...

I think we all had those moments.

Answer 4

My mom has a few of them....

I hope you found your way out of that tomb......it sounded very lonely and painful.

Answer 5

i don't remember what i wrote 40 seconds ago

Answer 6

The writing was very good, the subject matter very teenager. The current generation of teens did not invent "emo." With time and experience you have learned that "this tomb of sorrow" is a temporary, hormonal trap.

Answer 7

Sadly, I threw them out. Wish now that I had kept them. This one that you wrote is just beautiful. I hope that you have kept any you have written in a safe place.  

Answer 8

No ..... but that's because i'm only 30.

I do however have poems from 15 years ago ... i think i have some from 17 years ago too.

Maybe some day i will share them with you. :D

xD

♥

Answer 9

Yes !!

It is.., they are.. scattered in boxes here and there and in who knows whose possession after all the moves and life uspets...

When I come across any I will sit and read for hours.

My daughter also had a lot of these bits.. I hope one day she will go back to writing down her thoughts as most of us here who had fallen out of the habit have done.

Thanks for sharing.

Answer 10

I was 12.

By then, I had written one skit.

But, that year, Mom bought the "Harvard Classics" (1 thru 24) from a door-to-door salesman. That was the biginning of my classical education, which abruptly ends at John Locke...

Answer 11

That doesn't sound like an 18 year old wrote it (well no 18 year old I knew when I was 18)

The oldest poem I still have dates back to '83/'84 and I would never consider posting it; it is absolutely horrible.

If that's the kind of stuff you were writing back then I can't wait to read more.  

Answer 12

I wish that all our teens could sort out their feelings, and express them in such elegant classy manner. The subject matter is of concern to old folks, especially those in nursiry homes, and those suffering from chronic diseases.For those people, the 4th stanza stands as a fact, and taken for granted, because the domain and reality of their suffering is way beyond comparison  w/ that of the teenagers. Most of them wish they could sort out their feelings, and express them in a such delicate poem.

  

Answer 13

You were an intelligent and articulate young lady then, and the years have only sharpened the edges on your words.  Yes, it is interesting that your reflections at 18 are not unlike those of some of our teen poets who post here; "emo" perhaps, but part of an evolving consciousness and surely interesting for you to read after all these years.  Thanks for sharing this one.  I am almost tempted to post a poem I wrote at that age, but I'll have to think about that one...

Answer 14

Wow! You have been writing meaningful and beautifully descriptive poetry for a wonderfully long time. My first poem was printed in Wee Wisdom; I'm too old to remember the dates. (Smile) Poetry is a part of us, even when we don't think about it. Somehow, it is a thought from something we see, hear, and think or feel. I trust these were only fleeting thoughts for the moment.

Answer 15

Another poem filled with deep emotion.. Some of which is youth and that which you were living in your life that caused hurt I would guess. I actually have none of the poetry I wrote as a young teenager.

Back then I wrote a lot  of poetry and put it all in a journal. A tragic thing happened in my senior year. A guy I was good friends with ,Tom, was working an extra job after school to earn money for college and to buy his high school sweetie an engagement ring. I had lent Tom my poetry book as he and I were good pals. He was at this job where he was vacuuming at a company and he got electrocuted. My dear friend died that day and I never had the courage to ask his heartbroken parents, or his girlfriend for my book back. I lost all my poems that day and a very special and very bright friend who had a tremendous future ahead.

Answer 16

I agree that it doesn't seem like something I or anyone I know would have written at age 18 (only 36 years ago for me), but I do have some poetry from back then. You were one of those "smart kids" weren't you, ma? I wouldn't have even considered calling something poetry at that time if it didn't strictly rhyme -I'd think "Nice words, but not exactly poetry" (but, of course, I was mistaken -that's a beautiful poem).  

Answer 17

I like this.

My first was at age 10, I was infatuated by Mrs. Wright, my 4th grade teacher.  She got sick and missed a few days, and when she returned to school, I wrote my first ever poem on paper and presented it to her.  I was instantly from then on, "Teacher's Pet".

It made us sad you were away,

We're happy that you're back today,

We hope that you are here to stay,

And that you're feeling bright and g*y.

My first, but not my last.