Justine's Final Project

Hey guys! Below is my final project. Thanks for reading!

A-maze-ing Laughter by Yue Min Jun

The Denman Walk

As I make my way among the

Wafting of international incense

And the cajoling of men in aprons,

I spy

8 tall men

bronzed in the sun;

not a demonstration of giants,

but a sculpture by Yue Min Jun

(says the plaque on the grass).

I look up at their grinning faces,

None of them look at me

But I feel as if I had done something wrong.

They have no clothes on except jeans.

They all look the same.

And I wonder,

Why are they laughing?

A Walk of Shame

I am falling

But I know that where I am falling

No one is caught.

I fall

And fall

And land with a

Thud

On cold worn earth.

I hope for redemption

But I know I have sinned one too many times.

My sins are wrapped in layers and layers

Of greed and jealousy,

Like a newborn baby in a hospital,

The only difference is that my sins

Are not swaddled.

Finally I come to them,

The decision makers,

The puppets,

Bearing down on me:

The sinner.

They mock me with

Their laughter and leering grins,

Show their teeth to me,

Pull faces with crude hand gestures,

While I shuffle down the long walkway

Arms held awkwardly against my chafing pockets.

Red Horizontal by Gisele Amantea

New Faces

The incongruous red line

In a staccato of grey

Somehow remains ignored

Amongst the yuppie mothers

in spandex tracksuits

And the high-flying businessmen

Who promote environmentalism

As they turn on their Range Rovers,

For sometimes,

it seems we live in a world of

hypocrisy and ignorance,

where standing out

becomes a national calamity.

The red horizontal stripe

Has a different interpretation,

For crammed between Designer Diane and Trust Fund Troy

Lives an individual who

Enjoys the company of cuckoo clocks and old things,

And the person living in the penthouse of that

Cookie cutter condo

Enjoys a mess of comfort

And has no idea who

Karla the cleaning lady is.

For art can tell a different story.

Art can find what has lost,

Or the truth that has been buried

Art can change peoples’ perspectives,

And art can give a new face

To a group of people

You thought you knew.

Writing to You by Yvonne Lammerich and Ian Carr-Harris

Puzzle pieces

Letters.

They flood my living space

And engulf me as I sit at my dining room table,

For these letters

Are all I have of him.

They’re not much,

But through these scraps of paper,

I feel closer to him;

Him who is thousands,

Perhaps millions,

Of kilometers away,

And suddenly our distance apart

Does not seem so great.

Letters give me a glimpse into a life

I will never know;

A life I can only glance at

Through a foggy window;

And the letters are like puzzle pieces

And try as I might,

I can assemble all the puzzle pieces I have

But there will always be gaps,

And these gaps contain the things

I do not want to know.

Death by Letter

Letters.

They flood my living space

And engulf me as I sit at my dining room table

Trying to write yet

Another one.

Their interminable flow pays my emotions no heed,

For even as I turn my head away in frustration,

They slid under the door,

Down the hallway,

And plop into my discouraged hands,

For they are slowly killing me.

My hands are cracked and peeled from handling the rough paper;

My fingers are blistered from holding the pen too tightly;

And my heart is slowly being ripped apart,

For these letters

Force me to think of you,

To think of the children,

And to think of me.

This cheery disposition I seem to uphold so well

Is disintegrating

Letter

By

Letter.

And soon enough,

When I bid the world farewell,

I will lie in the ground,

And the tombstone above

Will read

“Justine Lee,

Born 1911

Died 1943

Tragic death by letters."