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Background image: Barbara Bresnahan

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The golden shovel poems in this presentation were inspired by lines from three poems featured here: https://michellehbarnes.blogspot.com/2018/03/classroom-connections-with-nikki-grimes.html

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Carol Varsalona's golden shovel uses a line from the post itself:
"revealing heart, truth... and, I might add, hope."  ~Michelle Heidenrich Barnes

Posted at http://beyondliteracylink.blogspot.com/2018/03/march-musings-9-inspired-to-write.html

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I’m asking you to listen,
No derision, as I try to
Be true, peel off my
Life like story.
And if
I drift away from you,
So blue, you can't
Judge or rant, just
Sit in my dust, must listen
Until my mission becomes clear to
You, no fear of you, and why my
Life time has always been in rhymes.

By Donna JT Smith 3/2/18

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i wanna get you thinkin’, i

wanna get you outside of yourself. i’ve been

inside out and upside down, looking through

all different windows drenched in storms

of other’s pains cryin’ for rains

of  joy.  i’m fed up with this status quo hell

of inequality, it’s gotta go–i ain’t just watchin’, and

doin’ nothin’, how ‘bout you, wheels gotta move forward, not turn time back!

© 2018 Michelle Kogan

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THE WORLD
by Erin, 6th grade

The world is messed up. If
I had one wish I
would wish for world peace, But could
I? I would wish no more war, but I guess
that's how the story goes. Its
violence and guns and a
homeless man on the side of the road. What has this world
come to? It's full
to the brim of
hate and pity and blurred
lines.

WHAT AM I?
by Faith, 6th grade

But when what if
sometimes I
wonder. What could
I do. Maybe I could guess.
I have doubts. it's
not right. Bad things happen a
lot. In this world
horrible things full
of crime. What am I made of?
Sometimes I am blurred.
What am I made of, circles of lines?

SNAKES
by Austin, 6th grade

All the things that I
have done you and y'all been
some little snakes through
all my life. While I been in thunder storms
y'all were slithering through rains
of fun. This world of hell
has been nothing but darkness with y'all and
best believe I ain't taking y'all back

NEVER ANY RHYMES
by Andrew, 5th grade

If you listen,
the world will tell you to
stand for what's right. My
world tells me different. Listen to my story.
My earth tells me, " if
while you're alive, you
need to be strong. " I can't
be a wimp. I just
do what i'm told. I listen
to the world to
make my decisions. If my
and your world were a poem, it would be full of blurred lines and never have any rhymes.

GAME OF LIES
by Chloe, 2nd grade

When my friend and I
were telling lies, it was
a joke. I've been raised
not to tell lies. Lies are wrong,
not a prize. Say sorry
when you lie if
it makes you
cry. People think
lies are bad. I'm
playing a game of telling
big, fake lies.

A LOVE POEM
by Noah, 6th grade

Just look forward not backwards I
can't feel your pain I don't know
how you
feel every day. All that I know
is that you
are meant to love
me.
I know that it can be hard sometimes but if you and I
are together we will become divine. I can
easily see and feel
it
in us from
the bottom of my shoes
to
the top of my spine

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Evening fatigue, voices rise. I listen

but look out at the sky to

find a way to quiet the sound my

breaking breath makes of their story.

He loses all patience when and if

she cannot comply, says, “You

grieve in all the ways I can’t”.

I scream inside but here I just

choose quiet, quiet, knowing no one will listen

when I bravely go to bed to

face the dreams--not my

dreams, after all--no longer idyllic rhymes.

Linda Baie © All Rights Reserved

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There are only so many ways I can say I'm
sorry. I know that you're tired.
I am too. Weary of
searching for words—names,
places, and all the everyday things I once
took for granted. If only you
could read my mind! Say
what you will, I probably won't believe it.
Because unless you
can dip a net into my fishbowl world, you can't
imagine how slippery it is. Let them take
my memories, my dignity, my hope. None of it
matters as long as you come back.

© 2018 Michelle Heidenrich Barnes. All rights reserved.

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OMG! You’re not gonna believe!

So Ryan Magee just texted me!

This Friday night, just him and I!

And don’t say he’ll bail cause he won’t.

I am SO lit! We are SUCH a good fit.

© 2018 Mindy Gars Dolandis

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Ah, don’t you dare make fun of me, in

ways I contemplate the case

of wild world changing, I

mean to make those all forgot,

those down and out, and raise them to

a heap of joy in livin’, so tell

the news, I’m writin’ words for you!

Linda Baie © All Rights Reserved

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I target them and find my mark

It’s always been me versus them
The one who teased me is called geek
The one who blamed me is called wimp

The time has come for me to be called Bully.

by Angelique Pacheco

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Everyone tells me, “just believe,”

but all I hear is “It’s not you, it’s me.”

Somedays, I want to hide or burn everything, but I

know giving up is not an option. I can’t. I won’t.

Not when Hope keeps whispering - one day I’ll be the right fit.

© Maria Marshall 2018

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How do you believe,

when “we” becomes “me”?

All that remains is I.

Surrounded by dreams that won’t

come true. And futures too big to fit.

© Maria Marshall 2018

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Don’t show me belly fat, underwire bras or tell me what I’m

to think. Or want. Shut down. Back off. I’m allergic

to your diet pill ads, your voyeuristic snidery, asking me to

feel incomplete. For money. My dreams aren’t found in your boxes.

Copyright 2018 Brenda Davis Harsham

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Uncertainty sneaks in.
It’s always the case
when dealing with what I
want to lose or wish I forgot –
things I left behind come back to
remind me, you never can tell
what’s going to hold onto you.

- © 2018 Matt Forrest Esenwine, all rights reserved

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The storage unit is pitch black.

The boxes

are stacked right where we left them. I kick one with my shoe

and wonder what I’m going to do with these boxes

once I get them home. There will be new

piles of boxes

in our basement. I’d rather have you

back than all these memories stuffed into boxes.

© Mary Lee Hahn

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A newborn season is waiting backstage hidden in

the icy folds of winter’s velvet curtain. In case

April dusts the stage with snow, I

shall think instead of crocus

pushing their heads through frozen ground that forgot

it was time to

thaw. With the silent presence of a robin, Springtime will tell  me she is near. And then, so I will not rejoice alone,

I shall pass the good news on to you.

LeeAnn Blankenship

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Oh, for a

good story! A poem

with a beating heart that can

make me sob like a lonely cat, or turn

me, for a moment, into the

ancient snail, slower than the small hand of a clock,

escaping dark forces with my house on my back.

by Janice Scully

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Ride the waves, rough and high—

filled with fear of crime,

tales of loss, and

far from their homeland,

full of insecurity,

captives they are,

because of the

sacrifices made in order

to be “part of”

yet worth the

risk at the end of the day.

© 2018 Sherry Howard

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Because we hold truths of life, liberty and the pursuits to be high

on the priority list of American ideals. We find it a crime

to deny deferred action for childhood arrivals and

therefore, refuse to obey unjust actions of our adopted homeland.

Your hatred, arrests and deportations, America, have revealed your insecurity.

© Linda Mitchell

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Let this betrayal linger… a
puncture wound of a moment no poem
or platitude can stanch. Let it build. Can
you feel your excuses strip
from your curdled conscience? Away
they go. Tell me— when does determination overcome fear?

© Sarah Grace Tuttle 2018

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For years, you’ve kept your head down and
others have filled in the blanks. Today let
your silence become a shout while your
heart flutters and becomes your truth.
Sprout kaleidoscope wings and fly
while the universe sings loud.

© jone rush macculloch

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With words you select and
commit to use for communication, let
patience, kindness, decide your
commitment to truth.
This is your chance to fly,
to live your life loud.

by Kathleen Mazurowski

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Hey, turn your life on

and live now, this moment, this instant.

There will be no replay.

Cindy Breedlove

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Put your passions to good use

Ponder them

and pursue them to

fulfillment. Don’t cry

tears of regret. Work! Find a way to

bloom! Then pump fists and shout!

© Karen Eastlund

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We have the power to use

words to put them

down or raise them up, to

make them cry,

or find a new way to

shout,

Words have the power to

whip, wise-up, or whisper,

a weapon--whichever.

Margaret Simon, © 2018

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Unkind words―
sleight of tongue swords that scar spirit and soul. You

and I wield great power― hurt harm or heal. How will we choose?

© 2018 Cory Corrado

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Your words were stabs, yo
Sharp barbs left scars, yo
Wounds deep,  still fresh, I
Can't let go, yo.  You know?

Dianne Moritz

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No one is as surprised as I

to hear these rumors I hear.

I trusted you.

I wanted to believe they were lies, but

facts are facts. Now that you're...

exposed, it's all gone wrong.

by David McMullin

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you whisper and

let

your pen scream your

truth

words unsaid choked now fly

unbound you breathe made brave to speak them loud

© Rebekah Hoeft March 2018

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Pack your bags. Go on, Leave!

What do you want? A gold star? An “A”?

I’m tired of your games. They’re messed-up

Brain games toying with my mind.

I’m done with your abuse. Vamoose. Am I clear?

Rebecca Herzog, 2018
(posted on my blog as well: https://tinyurl.com/ydcggrpa )

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For some reason, I got the concept wrong and started writing from the end words of a poem rather than a line.  I liked this portion of "Truth" by Tyrone Bittings:

since, suddenly, unnatural disasters
crash the nightly news
on instant replay.
High crime and Homeland Insecurity
are the order of the day.

Here's what I wrote:

Disasters
such as love are not often in the news.
No one needs to see a replay.
Still, I'm wracked by insecurity
and play the tape in my head hoping to relive that day.

© Diane Mayr

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Poetry can hang around, or leave

and then again drop in, easy like a

friend who understands the messed-up

hour, day, year of muddled mind

and helps to find a thought that’s clear.

© 2018 by Sydney O’Neill

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Words dig deep —
then germinate inside
the very pores of skin; flourish in the
softest tissue of the heart.

© Kathryn Apel 2018

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Like a tree root surging up through a

patch of asphalt, a poem

may persist until it cracks open your ribs. It can

expose your heart and split

your chest into sinew, bone, and skin

M. Hogan 2018

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In the inky darkness of a
room, the lines of a poem
hang in the shadows. Can
the newborn worm moon strip
the harshness of winter away
refusing to walk in fear

© jone rush macculloch

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By Carol Varsalona

Posted at: http://beyondliteracylink.blogspot.com/2018/03/march-musings-9-inspired-to-write.html

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The fearful thing about trust
is you must give your heart to me.

© 2018 Doraine Bennett

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Remember, take one day at a
time. Don’t underestimate what a poem

is capable of, what it can

do, how it can turn

rain clouds to blue sky the

minute it matters most. Don’t listen to the clock

tick-tick-ticking. Look up. Walk forward. My hand is always at your back.

© Ann Magee

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One winter afternoon, a

crocus, peeking through the snow, is reason

enough to smile, hope for

warm days ahead, thawing ice uncovering a

pond full of peepers, trilling their song.

Catherine Flynn, 2018

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Dance a

jig for no reason.

Tell a joke for

none to hear. Then climb a

tree and with the birds belt out a song.

Copyright 2018 Juanita Havill