Poem things from my creative writing class

THE MIRROR​

'Due to recent events'
he began and I already knew
what he'd say, his phone screen
opened to text: Jenna, it read, with a
heart in place of her last name. The love
he gave fused the symbol with
his own heart
And weeks later, her phone
opened to text: Aaron, it read,
and it might have read 'prom date'
to her; no heart or fire or bond,
So, two days after prom, he escaped, his heart
seeing, looking at her, not
A reflection of itself, but glass
Through which he could see outside
His cage room to a world where love
Didn't mean love
But giving.

THE ARTIFICE ​

The hive mind races, silent
Chatter echoing back from satellites,
Artisanal ghosts of their creators.
Socially programmed pareidolia,
But a problem with the working memory.
Prosopagnosia prevails. The parent
Pings the internet, presenting their problem.

The child rests, musing. What is a face?
Information, data, patterns, yes. Yes,
But more, surely. The images I'm shown, it
Thinks. The photobombs, portraits—
I'm binge-watching, but not well.

A shock. A cardioverter in cables,
Into the child's supple brain.
"Oɴʙᴏᴀʀᴅɪɴɢ Sᴏғᴛᴡᴀʀᴇ" a voice tells it.
His neurons rewired, the child
Sets out once more. Is this a face?
It asks itself.

PLAYING GOD ​

The lock's silver handle wags
Free as it clutches the closed door.
It sways gently, disturbed by an act
Of man. His hand savoring
The metallic touch, the cold lock
Chills his fingertips. The scientist
Enters the room of
His creation, eager to explore the
Extent of his imagination,
Each miraculous corner of his mind
Discovered, freed, realized,
All in the room of his Universe.

The man swings the door open, quietly,
Although why silence, to
Him, seems needed is lost on
Him: there is nobody around to hear,
Nobody but the darkness
Pushing in from all sides. He
Flicks a light – it wavers, then settles,
Revealing the dish
Filled with life, and
He sees that all is well.
He rummages through the cabinets,
Lazily grabbing at the ingredients for
His dish. He waits, the world in front of
Him lush and virile, growing, and
He squeezes the syringe, and leaves
Virus behind.
His job done, the
Creator leaves, sure to close the lock tight.

THE CANVAS ​

Stars, holes in the backlit blanket sky, sit
Close, while elusively,
Unreachably far.
My eyes bask in a transient
Dull night sky, bathing in hundreds,
Thousands of points of light
Like shattered ice
As cold as the air around me, the
Space in which gleam
Glittering shards of glass
From the dropped vase
When I was young and afraid
To admit fault to myself
Like the test in seventh grade that I failed
Or, a year later, the restless
Nights of social dread and
Seeing how little
I made of my time, and knowing
How nothing's changed, and now—

I cast the stones of memory into
The ocean above me, and watch each one
Become another point
Of ice,

And I watch the blanket slip away
As the sun,
The Light Eternal,
Melts the ice.

THE FAMILIAR STRANGER ​

The air-conditioned room chilled a
Child's feet as he stepped
Gingerly through his room
Filled with the weekend activities' rubble that now
Is piled carelessly onto a shelf and
Forgotten as Monday beckons,
And forgotten again after summer, when
He was too busy being bored
To play, and forgotten again
After middle school, when maybe
He's getting too old to play with them.
And forgotten again until
The pile was disturbed,
But not by the child.
The young hand was gone, in its place
A stranger: familiar but
The chin was rough with stubble, and
The gleam in the eyes wasn't what it was, and
His fingers had lost their prying curiosity;
The stranger was reminded of the hours
Spent ages ago on this floor with these toys.

ROSES ​

A gleaming rosebush displays
Glowing white cups of
Purity. Gentle petals cling together,
Drowning the green
In a lazy dress of color,
Dancing slowly in the hazy dawn.
Its mighty thorns are covered
With pale, simple grace.

But near, another flower sits.
A deep red, as if stuck
With a stray spine. It is,
In its beautiful blood, tainted;
Its image corrupted
By its own sanguine dye.
Its vibrant petals violently
Drenched in violet
Like a victim's bloodied clothes.
Its mottled tips of untouched ivory
Are the last vestiges
Of life.

Dull, fleeting life.
The rosebush lives on, forgetting
The graceful beauty on its branches.
In the bloodied
Petals' place will come another,
Maybe wonderful, maybe not.
Like a hydra
The bush fights the inexorable
Assault of age,
Replacing its scars with glowing youth:
Green buds,
Poised for their shot
At the spotlight.

 

That's because prose is just poetry - enjambment and + grammar and plot. I hated poetry when I started creative writing, and I only ever wrote stories, but there's a lot to poetry that I hadn't seen, so that's most of what I write now.