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Literature Text
I miss the taste of oranges,
I miss how they tasted when I dug
Into their skin
And peeled them open with bitter teeth
(I used to do that back in the third grade).
Some people get an acrid grimace
Just thinking about biting orange peels.
But in my youth there were things far more bitter:
San Diego job hunts and depressions I didn't understand,
The vomit smell of so-much Rum and Whiskey
And piss-cheap beer,
And the screaming breaking apart of loved ones.
All I had were the orange groves
That forested the hillsides.
What did I care about bitter skins?
Or the orange-hoarding company that owned them?
I had a gang of third graders on muddy bicycles,
Four-foot hoods wearing Ocean Pacific T's,
A band of T&C Surf-brained kids
With Nintendo hands and electronic senses.
We would jump unguarded fences,
And we would fight,
And build illegal tree houses in the groves,
And we were chased by wild imaginary dogs,
Or parents with wooden poles,
And we would steal and steal and steal
Fallen oranges from lush skyscraping trees.
God, I miss the taste of oranges;
Not the taste I can buy today
At the Commie-Capitalist Superwalmart
For a little under a dollar a pound,
But the stolen oranges of my San Diego youth;
Because the taste, even the acrid breaking-
Skin-with-teeth taste, is more succulent
Than anything bought with hard-earned maturity.
I miss how they tasted when I dug
Into their skin
And peeled them open with bitter teeth
(I used to do that back in the third grade).
Some people get an acrid grimace
Just thinking about biting orange peels.
But in my youth there were things far more bitter:
San Diego job hunts and depressions I didn't understand,
The vomit smell of so-much Rum and Whiskey
And piss-cheap beer,
And the screaming breaking apart of loved ones.
All I had were the orange groves
That forested the hillsides.
What did I care about bitter skins?
Or the orange-hoarding company that owned them?
I had a gang of third graders on muddy bicycles,
Four-foot hoods wearing Ocean Pacific T's,
A band of T&C Surf-brained kids
With Nintendo hands and electronic senses.
We would jump unguarded fences,
And we would fight,
And build illegal tree houses in the groves,
And we were chased by wild imaginary dogs,
Or parents with wooden poles,
And we would steal and steal and steal
Fallen oranges from lush skyscraping trees.
God, I miss the taste of oranges;
Not the taste I can buy today
At the Commie-Capitalist Superwalmart
For a little under a dollar a pound,
But the stolen oranges of my San Diego youth;
Because the taste, even the acrid breaking-
Skin-with-teeth taste, is more succulent
Than anything bought with hard-earned maturity.
Literature
Losing It
I'm kind of going crazy,
I'm caught inside my mad mind.
Ten different things weigh me down, but I'm still fine!
The words are coming slowly, my mind is on a slur.
I can't string this poem, because the brain is on a blur!
And I get so frustrated, I tear away at skin;
The hair is falling down and the voices make a din!
I wanna shut them out, but I can't find a key,
So all that I can do is simply shut away the ME.
Literature
Skies of Arcadia
Welcome to the world of ADD in HD.
Give me your hand and follow me
To where the wild things come to play
And freedom is always free.
It’s all a dream sleeping beauty;
Keep your eyes wide shut and see.
Come embrace your insanity
And come dance with the child in me.
Welcome to the skies of Arcadia
Where dreams become reality.
Where zero and zero make infinite
And freedom’s the only salary.
Literature
You are More.
You are more than a number, statistic or fraction,
You are more than a stranger’s glance or reaction.
You are more than a puzzle piece or a missing link,
You are more than what the world may think.
You are more than a stigma or sign which you're labeled,
You are more than “special”, diseased, different, disabled.
You are more than a whisper, you are more than a name,
You are more than rejection, you are more than others' blame.
You are more than vibrations that torture your ears,
You are more than disorder that drives you to tears.
You are more than emotion you can't read or display,
You are more than the words you’
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Written by Frank Jaspers in 2015.
I didn't live in San Diego for long before my family moved to a different state. However, I still remember my friends and all the crazy stuff we did there.
The poem belongs to a collection called Images from a Street Journal
I didn't live in San Diego for long before my family moved to a different state. However, I still remember my friends and all the crazy stuff we did there.
The poem belongs to a collection called Images from a Street Journal
© 2015 - 2024 Frank-Jaspers
Comments19
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I really enjoyed this, you talk about your childhood in such rich detail. I don't like oranges but I can relate to playing in forests (for me, it was the honeysuckle that me and my friends loved to steal).