Emily Ellet

No one scolds the beach when the waves are angry When they froth with rage and foam with fury When they gnash their sharp, shell-strewn teeth When they pound their fists in impotance and grief Sure, we prefer them sunny and soft Teasing our toes with demure, kissing caresses Or sometimes laced with steely currents to make our pulse race But there’s a fascination with a storm’s power With the violence possible from a drop of water With the co

March was National Poetry Month. While I read poetry all month long, I squeaked in writing my own poem on the last day! It’s only a vacation If I see the ocean Beyond, the soft sandy haze Borne aloft by the sea salt scent I can almost forget The harsh horns of humanity My eye follows The gentle curve of the hills With a lover’s awed, Astonished caress How do we deserve this Tenderness and majesty of Our nature matriarch My heart leaps to my eyes and Trickles down in soft rivu

Twisting, wringing, Plummeting to the earth With no parachute I’ll land on my feet (I always do, though my knees crumble from repeated slamming into rock) With my hand in the air Trumpeting my smarty-pants For all the world to mark With a sneer and a smirk But My pens wait neatly for me Ready to bleed my soul onto the page Crisp notebooks are my friends More than any jealous child The brand new backpack Sits eagerly in the corner As leaves tumble softly So do

Sometimes I wonder what I am doing In a city As I pass a hidden forest And the smell The sweet, fecund perfume Assails my nose In an exuberant wave Of childhood And freedom And peace #Poetry #homesickness #trees #nyc #CityLife #forest #Childhood #Colorado

i can feel it rising the ocean of bilious emptiness sweeping away my peace i thought i’d built on rock it’s these days at home restless in my “relaxation” a song, winter light, anything pulls me under and I’m drowning in memories i mourn who i was and who i’ve been and who i might have been and mostly who I am now trapped beneath the thrashing, roiling waves smashed against the jagged, searing memories breathing salt tears and tears where will i wash ashore

beside water’s lap she bows her head alone with herself and her dreams suspended in an afternoon hazy summer sun sighing in harmony with her melancholy and a questioning duck she paints her nails with the satisfied certainty that he will find her there, and thus – taken with the storybook picture woven of solitude, devotion, and glitter – begin her happily ever after after all, she is twelve #Poetry #lake #memories #romantic #dramaticchild #Childhood #Melancholy

A breath of family did I feel While hours passed within that meal. The glow of friendship, soft and deep, Into night’s chill did ebb and seep. I knew ahead of me a train Did wait to speed me toward my pain. And so my best I did delay, Within that hearth of home to stay, Until no more excuse was there To guard me from truth’s cruel glare. Adieu, dear friends, on this cold night With you, I know, walks out my light. photo credit: ЕгорЖуравлёв night_train_is_coming via

The thrill that comes from Being the only one to Ride to the next block Is not a small thing. Your bike is your noble steed Driving towards freedom. Blood singing with birds, Feet pedal on eager joy To ditch your siblings, Drawing into lungs Crisp responsibility: Fin’lly an adult. #Childhood #memories #Poetry

Giddy shrieks drift through my window On a musty river of moonlit air Its damp nostalgia recalling Capture the Flag at midnight On the dew-drenched lawn A charged haze of freedom On a cloudy night of teenage summer Copyright 2014 by Gingham and Steel.  Please ask for permission to reprint. photo credit: Psicoground via photopin cc #teenager #Poetry #summer #sleep #GrowingUp #NewYorkCity #Night #capturetheflag #Emily

Eighth Avenue at midnight is a murky sea of smoke and rouge, on which the battered hulls and tattered sails of the impoverished struggle to stay afloat, the jagged rocks below the waves, more stubborn than steadfast. A grey cloud tries to rise higher in the mire of fatigue and fails. Copyright 2013 by Gingham and Steel.  Please ask for permission to reprint! #Poetry #UrbanLiving #NewYorkCity #Night #Emily

the dark, navy Hudson sparkles beneath a gold and rosy skyline, the orange sun bouncing off, a swathe of trees, deep green, separating the two, and the cloudless sky is so clear, the world is high-definition. all the haze of summer has been swept away by this crisp fall breeze fluttering down the train tracks, from the Verrazano Bridge standing nobly at the mouth of the bay. you can taste autumn and it is cool and clear like a mountain stream. the city of skyscrapers is scrub