The Thrill of Airplanes

The hum that cloaks your ears at take off and landing.

The bite-sized people roaming the streets.

The rolling wheels of the food cart appending.

The flashing lights: Seat Belt! Seat Belt!

The equally rediculous outfits on the innocent staff.

The whining kids, wiggling and jiggling on their mothers laps.

New friends.

New enemies.

The purr of the engine gives you time alone with your thoughts.

Then you land down,

Smooth as a gliding eagle

Or rocky as the carcass it carries.

Loud, yet exciting.

Then you’re there in your new place.

Whether for a while,

or a lifetime.

It all adds to:

The Thrill of Airplanes.

Autumn

The glazed brown leaves,

brush the bank by the river.

Hot chocolate in a mug,

now tastes quite bitter.

The trees are naked and bare,

But people do not seize to look to them for shade.

It’s not summer, nor winter: it’s just not there.

Bustling kids prepping for snowmen, still yet to be made.

Away with the bikinis,

no sunblock needed here.

We’ll store it in a large, black trunk,

At least until next year.

The Old Me

When I think of the old me, a picture I see

A girl with a gun, and an all-knowing smile,

Scattered and torn, with joy for a while.

And I’m thankful that that girl, she is not me.

No one to hold her close their heart,

She stopped and she stared,

As the mighty gun flared,

While the blood poured out, her friend began to part.

She sprinted down the lane,

The distant call of sirens sent a panic through her body.

Her feet barely skimmed the moor.

As she turned the corner, her heart saw a jerking pain.

She ran up the driveway, she could see her mother nodding,

She got inside the house, slammed the door, and was a pile on the floor.

L O V E

Love is an unpaid check.

Unrequited, maddening.

No answer, but a constant yearning.

They don’t give it back.

Painful, wanted.

Love is an lightening strike.

Unpredicted, seizing your body.

Your mind entranced.

A momentary flash of the future.

Hand in hand.

Love is an oak tree.

Stable and firm.

Defining a person,

as another ones half.

Ever lasting.

Love is a buried treasure chest.

The hope of finding it leads you on.

A long, long journey.

But once you’ve found it,

you know you’ve struck gold.

The Diary of Anne Frank: What to Bring?

I can not even imagine what i would do or how i would reacte if my parents came to me at any random moment and announced that we would be going into hiding for who knows how long, and the reason: simply because of my religion. I would cry and ask why, why is this possible, and how is this only happening to us? What would happen if we didn’t go? What will happen to our friends and family who are also our religion? Do they suffer the same fate as us or even a worse one?

Unfortunately, Anne had no choice in what to bring with her to this horrible and mysterious place, but if i got to choose five things besides my family to take with me then these would be them:

-Some of my closest and dearest friends and their families (but picking who would be a terrible punishment and pain in itself).

-My ipod, for i do believe that i could not live without music in my life, hearing its beauty every day  to lift me up when i feel bad, and create life in times of hardship.

-My computer, so i could keep an eye on what was going on in the rest of the world, even though i would not be allowed to use things like Facebook or MSN so that no one would know of our existence in the annex.

-As many books as i could carry.

-Perhaps, a diary, simply in the hope that i could conjure up anything even remotely close to the magnificent diary of Anne, The Diary of Anne Frank.

The Diary of Anne Frank: Mr. Dussel

Mr. Dussel was a dentist from Holland who arrived later on during the stay of the Van Daans and Franks in the annex. He came into hiding and brought with him much news of the horrors going on in Holland and other European countries, as far as the Holocaust and the Nazis. He told them what was happening to the Jews in Europe that had been found by the Nazis: the Gestapo and the SS. He told them how many of the people both families had known before they went into hiding had been taken by the Gestapo and how they are rumored to be taken to a concentration cap, or a death camp. This news made Anne think about her old best friend a lot and wonder what could have happened to her: this was when she began to have her nightmares. Anne lived in the same room as Mr. Dussel and they had a very varying relationship. At first, they got on extremely well, but in the time to follow, they very rarely saw eye to eye on anything. Mr. Dussel must have felt very alone in the annex despite being in such a small space with many people, for he was the only one of them to not have a relative or real ‘friend’ in the house unlike most  of the others.

Mr. Dussel played his part in the tale, and even though him and Anne were not exactly best of friends, i don’t think he would ever wish harm upon her and I’m sure she really did respect him and take into account his feelings and opinions.

The Diary of Anne Frank: The Van Daan Family

In the three years that the Frank family spent in the secret annex, they shared every day in the attic with another Jewish family that went into hiding, the Van Daans. The Van Daans are a family of 3 that consist of two parents, Mr. and Mrs. Van Daan and their son Peter who was 16 when the family first arrived at the annex in Holland.

Mr. Van Daan is a man who in my opinion thinks very dearly of himself. Because neither the full or the play version of The Diary of Anne Frank describe to us in much detail what Mr. Frank looked like, my imagination has had to run a little wild on the topic of his looks. I imagine him a small stout man in his late 40s who is always smoking a cigar while rambling on to the rest of the people in the annex about his hatred and ‘passion’ for a certain issue. I hope that i never get to see a picture of the real Mr. Van Daan, for i think if i were to, it would be like a bit of my creation had been taken from me. In the diary however, you learn a lot (maybe even too much) about Mr. Van Daans mannerisms and how he treats other people in the house. From what Anne tells us in her diary, he is a very opinionated man who does not have much respect for his wife, his fellow annex dwellers, Anne, Peter. However, he does have a lot of respect built up for one man in the annex: himself.

Mrs Van Daan is a bit of a muddle to me. In many versions of the book, she is said to be somewhat of a good-looking woman who is quite a deal younger than her husband, but in other ones she is portrayed as a mean woman who has no tolerance for any one in the and she is not very lucky in the  ’looks department’. I think she follows her husband predominantly over anyone else in her life. I feel that she is one of the people in the annex who has changed most throughout the course of the stay. She went from being a nice woman who was friendly to Anne in many ways, to a woman who was constantly nervous and gets emotional at even the smallest comment by anyone.

Peter Van Daan. Peter is a character that i think i can relate to more than some of the other character that lived in the annex. I think that every class at school has the Peter: the slightly awkward one that when you get to know them, they are really nice and a lot of fun to hang out with. Peter is a quiet boy at first during his stay in the annex. At first, he is attracted to Margot, and i think that that is due to both of their quite mannerisms and ways of composing themselves but later on, we realize he likes Anne, despite her being 3 years younger. He became a more interesting person for Anne to have around her during her stay and they developed a very good relationship that was fun and one where they could tell each other things that they wouldn’t tell anyone else in the house.

The Van Daans are a key in The Diary of Anne Frank, and i do believe that the stay in the annex may have been greatly different if the Van Daans had not lived there. Anne would have no one to share her thoughts with (besides Kitty), Otto and Mrs. Frank would have no one in the house to have a proper adult conversation with besides each other, and I’m sure that despite their differences, Mr. Dussel would miss out on much had it not been for the Van Daans. Overall, after Anne, and Otto, i think that the Van Daans were the most opinionated and probably the most important characters in the annex.

The Diary of Anne Frank: My Response to The Frank Family

The Frank family consisted of four people, Otto Frank, Mrs. Frank, Margot, and of course, Anne. The family is a world-renowned family that is most famous for their survival of World War II until the Gestapo took them away from the secret annex in a townhouse in Holland in which they had lived for 3 years under the protection of two of Mr. Franks former employees and friends.

The first and most famous member of the family is Anne, the fiesty 13 year old who kept a diary write up to the capture of her entire family in November of 1945. Over the course of the diary, you see the development of a young girl into a smart woman who knows much of the world, despite being kept in an attic for many years. Anne is a girl who stands by her opinions and rights firmly, unlike many women living in that time, and she knows what she wants to do with her life. During the course of the diary, you hear her talk of her plans for the future in a time when they are freed of the annex and free of hiding, and i believe, that if she had not been captured by the Gestapo, that she would have made a name for herself in the world.

Margot Frank is the older sister of Anne who we meet as she enters the annex in 1942 at the age of 18. She is mature and sophisticated, and although the two sisters don’t always see eye to eye on certain matters, i do believe that Anne respects her for her composure. Even though Anne and Margot are sisters, they have very different ideas about the world: Margot appears to think that women should be quite and polite, inhibited, and keep their ideas to themselves, where as Anne on the other hand sees women and men as utter equals and believes with all her heart that she should speak her mind if something arises, with the same rights and respect from others that any man would get.

Mrs. Frank, the mother of Anne and Margot and long-term wife of Otto Frank, is a quiet woman, who posseses many of the same qualities as her oldest child Margot. She loves her entire family dearly and throught the book, you begin to see quite how much she longs for her family to love her back in the same un-dying fashion she shows to them. In the book, she and Anne have many disputes over things such as Annes behavious which at some times, she think is not appropriate for the times.

Finally, we come to Otto Frank, the only living member of the large annex family to survive the war to the very end. Otto Frank loves his family and would give anything to insure their happiness and survival which becomes evidential in the later bits of the book. He is a very brave man who cares for his whole family very much, and i think, his daughter Anne in particular. Although many people in the annex find Annes mannerisms very uncivilized and unwomanly, Otto respects her through it all and appreciates the fact that she likes to speak her mind about issues that she thinks are very important. Otto Frank has suffered many hardships in his life, with the loss of his entire family, and 3-year long friends and fellow annex dwellers. Even though Frank had a very trying and difficult life, he brought many happy times to the gloomy days in which the annex inhabitants survived in the tiny and enclosed space in the attic and Anne definatley had much respect and fondness for her father and i believe that liking increased a great deal over the period of time they spent in the annex.

Although many families in the Holocaust period of history have very dificult and moving stories of survival, the Franks have managed to remain the most talked about and the most respected families of all time. Whether because of their courage, exciting tales, lovable qualities, or terrible circumstances, the Franks are a family known by all as the greatest survivors and troupers of the time.

Poetry: My Opinion

I’m not the typical teen when it comes to my opinion of poetry. Most kids would say, “it’s boring and it’s for old people.”I think that that is nonsense. I think that poetry can be beautiful no matter what age you are. Poetry is a way of expressing yourself, and I KNOW that not only ‘old people’ like to express their points of view. If anything, teens could benefit more from writing poems because in some ways it is a more creative way of rebelling if you wrote a poem about the topic that you feel passionate about.

Poetry is also a way to let go of yourself and mould into someone who you are not. For example, earlier this year I wrote a poem from the point of a soldier and i most certainly was never a soldier. Poetry allows you to experience how life would be if you were a completely different character all together.

I love poetry a lot and i have some favourite forms of poetry like four-metaphor poems. I also like poems that tell a story but i do not like poems that warble on for ages about nothing relevant. I like stories that make you as a reader experience the magic that the writer felt when they wrote it.

I think poems, like most art, is just a way of making people feel the passion that you are feeling and letting them experience the smells, sights, and sounds that you are portraying in your poem. Poetry is like a new world to me: a way of showing who you are.

Numbers on a Clock

The numbers tell a story.

The numbers tell us when.

They tell us when and what and how.

In a future time.

That isn’t now.

The numbers on a clock.