Poem By My Daughter

A poet

A poet is a liar with a silver tongue pen, and a bleeding heart on the other end.

We are anagrams and metaphors and sphinxes in sheep skin.

Every letter is an actor that we send into the wind,

And we're only as good as the words you believe in.

Erika E. Mooney

Copyright March 2014

Lila the Small

Lila the Small

An epic poem 

by E.M.

Listen now as I tell you a tale,

Of a girl who lived in the city of Dale,

Her name was Lila, who was an elf,

About half the size of yourself,

One day she was in the forge,

When a man named George,

Cried out “Help the orphanage is on fire!”

Faster than a pluck of a string on a lyre,

She dashed out the oak door only to be met by fiery flame,

And many a men that had been slain,

But some survived and took flight,

To escape the hells delight,

But some were left behind,

So she ran into the flames senses blind,

Lila heard the weeping of a child,

Surrounded by fire so wild,

“Please! Someone help me! I am above!”,

Lila scurried up a beam she did push and shove,

A little boy out from under a stove,

And two other children ran and dove,

Under the cover of Lila’s arm,

To protect their trembling bodies from harm,

Running out carrying the three,

In one arm she did flee,

From the breath of the devil,

Barely escaping the building as it became level,

A hero that she became,

But a person all the same,

When she saved three lives,

She met her own demise,

In the city of Dale,

Many a fold still morn and wale,

Over the death of Lila the small,

Who was only half your height tall.

Poem by Alexandra when she was just about 8

Swimming

I like swimming.

Swimming is fun.

We swim round in circles.

We go round and round and round.

When I go round and round,

I look like a fish

under the water,

soft and smooth

my arms move,

my legs push,

my hair waves

under the water.

When my mom calls me

we go home. 

It was fun!  I want

to go back again.

June 26, 2006

Erika's Valentine Poem to Us

L is for lots of laughter
O is for only you
V is for valuable for all time

E is for everlasting and true

Erika's Poem

My elder daughter Erika is showing signs of becoming a great poet! Check out this imagery.

Storm

Black clouds fill the sky,
rain lashed the trees,
thunder threatened the earth,
lightening clashed its bright blades,
the wind was like a banshee
screaming in the night.
The trees were bent over,
cowering and hiding their faces.
The storm has come.

My Older Daugher's Poem

Today the clouds look pregnant

as if they had a heavy load

soon they dropped their fat hail

much more than they could hold

down

down

dropping their balls of ice

covering everything in sight

making trees hard to see

Today the clouds look pregnant

as if they had a heavy load.

by Erika E. Mooney
Draft 2
2/22/08
________________________________________

Understand my older daughter (turning 11 this week) hates writing. She physically hates writing (because she says no matter how hard she tries, it's always messy) and she intellectually hates writing (because she has so much difficulty spelling).

In the back seat of the van, she looked up at the gray clouds yesterday and said, "The clouds look pregnant today." I almost whirled around in shock, but since I was driving, thought better of it.

"Erika!" I exclaimed. "What did you say?"

"Never mind," she said. I don't know if she thought she was in trouble or not.

"No really, tell me. Please?"

"I said the clouds looked pregnant."

"Oh my gosh, Erika, that's an amazing simile for a poem!"

"Well actually, I heard it from my Eragon CD." She is fond of listening to stories on CD before bedtime.

"Find some paper back there! Write a poem about it!" (Geek mom was all excited.)

So she did. She did it willingly. She was really into it.

Her first draft was wordier than this final piece (without a doubt, my child). It had parts that were too prosaic. She repeated "heavy load" too many times. I wanted her to use her own words.

Parking and walking in for our appointment I told her, "Now it's time to edit the poem. We can do that on the way home."

Big sigh. "I HATE editing!"

"Why?"

"The worst part of editing? You have to go through and fix all your spelling and..."

"No," I told her. "It's creative writing. It's not that kind of editing. First, we go through and get rid of all the unnecessary words. Then we go through and make sure each word is the right one to say what you want to say. You use similes and metaphors like you did." She was picking up little rocks she had spotted en route to the front door. She loves rocks. "Are you listening?"

"Yes," she said. "You said we are going to go through and fix the words."

Kids are listening even when you think they aren't.

Once back in the van, I told her to pick it back up. She kind of sighed, but she did it. "This is going to be easy," I said. "Let's go line by line."

She read each line to me. I pointed out where she had repeated words, and I asked her to write another descriptive word in its place. It was painful recall for her, but she did it. "Wonderful!" I told her, each time she picked new words.

I explained what it means to not need a word and why. We axed the words she decided she didn't need. There were parts she refused to ax (she has artistic integrity, after all), but she crossed out a lot.

"Erika, that is so awesome! I'm going to put it on my blog!"

She beamed. Nothing like an audience as a reward for hard writing work.

By the time I reached the poem this morning, I could see her struggles with spelling and her downward slope of writing. The paper had no lines, and she had problems with her pen. If I could scan the original, I would. (Stupid scanner isn't working.) I removed only one word that didn't make sense (an extraneous "but). You have to understand what went into this poem.

The writing process, in action, in the imagination of my girl who is usually more literal--how awesome to see live and up close!

She's definitely getting older, my dear child steeped in Eragon.

What We Did on the Snow Day

...an original poem typed up and emailed on an icy morning while off from school.... Understand how slowly she types and the concentration it requires to get the full effect of these efforts. Erika wrote this completely on the computer, and we edited together.


Snow
by Erika Mooney

Snow is extremely cold.
It can be packed and thrown.
It also could be a snowman.
Snow can cancel school!
Snowflakes are in many shapes and sizes.
Snow, snow, snow, I just love snow.
DO YOU LOVE SNOW????????

...an original piece typed and emailed (an arduous task), Alexandra had worked on this at school. The piece describes our...um...plump cat, Fiona. Thank you to Alexandra's fabulous teachers for bringing out the best in her writing!
My Fat Cat

My cat is huge. Dad just thinks that my cat fat, but she is not fat. So we put her on a diet and she lost two pounds, but she is still fat. My Mom just likes to pick her up and make her run, but she’s still fat. Erika thinks she needs good food, but she's still fat. I think she is cute, and she will be my cat forever even if she’s fat.

The End.
by Alex