Poems & Writings Here are some of Rhys writings. He wrote them for school projects - which means that they were written under duress and are about as short as he could get away with :) But you can still feel his passion in them. The Hackey Sack Sweat   Rhys wrote this poem for his grandmother when he was 13. It was published in a book called "Gifts of the soul". His grandmother never talked to him about her coming to America as a little girl - he just guessed what it must have been like.   To my grandmother As I stood in the middle of the boat. I clutched my stuffed bear as it was my life. I could feel every drop of perspiration as it went from my forehead to my brow. The stench and heat from hundreds of people sweat, was enough to make me faint. As I held my mothers hand in fear. I dreamed of what America would be like and hoped that every thing would be all right               Rhys Jenkins   Age 13     12 Assorted Lives 12 assorted lives from now, I’ll sit and wonder why and how. Wonder why things, are the way they are, my mind only grows more distant and far. To be a great composer their, or perhaps an artist in love affair. I’ll wonder why where and who, only to wish that it were you. You are the one I hope I knew, am I nothing but a blister on their closed minded view? 12 assorted lives from now, when all is young, old and new. I’ll be me and you’ll be you, and all will be beautiful to the choosen few. -Rhys Jenkins Rhys wrote this when he was just 16. When you smile at the "bleeding bit" note that they were practicing ten hours a day on drums and guitar. If he wrote an update today, it would end with "artist". Auto-Biography rhys jenkins 4-24-00 Ms. Jacobson When I met Will Chapin on the rusting rubber swing set that late summer morning, I had no idea that I’d have some of the most interesting times of my life with him. And when I started playing music three years ago, I never thought that I would still be doing it now, but I was wrong. When I was six years old I was at the elementary school swing set when a child that I had never known before came up to me and told me that his name was Will. Now, nine years later I’m doing gigs with him almost every week. A lot of things have changed since then, he started playing guitar at age 11 and I started playing the drums at age 12. The day of my 12th birthday was the day I started playing drums. In the summer, when creativity was at it’s peak, we would turn out song after song until our hands would literally bleed. But we both loved it so much, that we kept on going until the late hours of the night. I learned a lot about myself on those long summer nights. I learned that when you do something that you love to do for a long enough at one period of time, you start to slowly fade away from reality, totally engulfed in music. You can’t feel one part of your body and you often forget that your playing music at all, and every now and then a cold wave of heat comes swirling up your back. We both felt it, and every time we were hit with the euphoric feeling of music, we were once again reminded of what we would do for the rest of our lives. After my 13th birthday, my father won a trip/party to Webster lake in a school auction, that weekend changed my life forever. All that I packed was my bongo and my toothbrush, and Will packed his acoustic guitar. On the second night we were there, a slow blues band showed up to play a small gig. After they were done with there set, will and I asked them if we could try out there instruments, When we asked them this nobody was around, they were all swimming at 11:00 at night. We started out with a fast jazz song that was made up on the spot. About half way through everyone started coming out of the water to watch us play. Ten minutes after that we stopped and immediately picked up again with a switch solo beat signaled only by Wills right pointer finger pointing two different ways. The audience was clapping and cheering the whole time, it was the best feeling I’ve ever felt. We were lit only by a dim blue bug zapper and the moon. The soft look of the cigarette smoke reminding me of a serene lake, only adding to the moment. Every day after that weekend I’ve yurned for the cheer of the crowd, and every time it happens a small smile grows on my face because I’m having the best time of my life. This year I’ve found two new fellow musicians that are willing to play with Will and I. A bass player, Matt, and a singer, Jon. We’ve started a small band now known as Phoria. The thing that I like most about music is that you get to learn so much about a person without even talking to them. Every time we play music together we seem to learn more and more about each other. It’s hard to explain but ask any musician, it happens. Now, after only three years of playing music, my whole lifestyle has been dramatically changed. I feel much more relaxed than I did before music. I think that’s because I now know what I want to do with my life, be a musician. Reflection The creative writing unit was my favorite part of the year. This is largely due to the fact that short stories and poetry are my two favorite parts of any English class. The biggest improvement in my writing over the last year is my ability to take control of what I’m writing. I use to just go from one idea to the next without any explanation of what happened. But now, I find that my writing is much more fluent then it’s ever been. I would define poetry as a way to put out your emotions through writing, And good poetry makes you think also. Good poetry in my opinion is not to long. That’s one of the difference in prose and poetry I think, is that as prose usually improves in length, but it’s opposite in poetry. I really don’t have any writing process at all. When an idea comes into my head I write it down, and when I’m done I don’t try to interpret it at all, I leave that up to the reader. I usually like shorter poems, mostly because there’s less said so it makes you think more. If there’s one thing that I hate most about poetry is cliche. To me, there’s nothing more annoying than an unintelligent person writing cliche after cliche. Overall, I think that the creative writing unit was very helpful and I think I learned a lot. Anti-conformity Rhys Jenkins 2-3-00 Pet peeve speech When the world takes on a different hue of gold, that’s when life changes. Our lives have changed hundreds of times since the beginning of conformist majority, from one fad to the next since the beginning of human life. My question is, why must we keep living like everyone else when there is so much more in life to find? Conformism is when people try to have the same images and views as the majority of people around them, ultimately resulting in almost everyone being the same. One of the consequences of conformity is that everyone has the same views so nothing can get accomplished. Imagine a world where everybody’s ideas were able to be worked into society and what a great world it would be. The largest reason for conformity is a basic need for security. A need to be like everyone else so that nothing unexpected will happen. It isn’t this way for all conformists though, some people conform because it’s too much work to be an individualist, or they are tied up in getting a good education. What I’ve found after looking at conformity for years as a downside n society is that conformists are, for the most part, very insecure people. They are the same as everyone else to avoid being looked down upon by the majority of society. At the same time, always looking for acceptance from other conformists by either making fun of the class genius or indiscreetly laughing at the class free thinker, both of which seem to be in fashion these days. The need for change is at its peak in your youth. If you’re the class genius, you might grow-up to a computer programmer or study atomic medicine in the deepest bowels of the F.B.I. laboratory. If you’re the class free thinker you might grow-up to be a neo-impressionist or join the peace cord and get carried off to one of the most remote part of the world, for the sheer pleasure of living differently. If you’re a conformist who hasn’t changed a bit since high school and still wants to be the same as everyone else you might be a secretary or an office attendant, both which make good money, but it’s highly unlikely for a secretary to change the world forever. The greatest feeling of being an “individualist” is walking down a hallway of conformists and laughing inside at how much they don’t understand what you are trying to accomplish. All they understand is that it’s different, and the common misconception is that being different is awkward and bad so why give the people that aren’t conformists any respect. I wouldn’t mind conformism that much if the “thing to do” now a days wasn’t unfairly judge people who are different, and I turn make poor comments about a person’s personality, beliefs or clothes. Overall, conformism if not stopped, needs to be greatly reduced in order to have a world where everybody’s ideas become a part of everything else. But for those of you who still conform to this day, try to imagine yourselves as one of the last cheerios in an almost empty bowl, or a neon yellow in a box of browns, then I think you’ll understand why I feel this way. -Rhys Jenkins As the Bee flies on Is that the sun in the summer sky? Or the vibrant wings of a butter fly? The way it flies flies fast as a bee. It’s a frisbee gliding from sea to sea. It slips through my fingers and on to the sand, Where it makes the sound of a marching band. It melts into and through my hand, This of-course, I had not planned. Clean like beam The thick liquid sloshed into an old coffee can. There’s no rust on the inside, just a rainbow of oil paints swirling to the bottom. If it wasn’t for turpentine, my brushes couldn’t be clean. If I ran out of turpentine, I might have used Jim Beam Heavy Spaghetti Spaghetti is heavy when thrown like confetti. It buried my aunt ‘cause her name is Betty. It covered her unbearingly, which worried her terribly. She said it was fillin’ in spaghetti, she’s chillin’. Staring at my third eye Sitting on top of the world, it gets very lonely up here. Poems etched in stone on the orange, chipped factory. Pipes shoot out of the building like a hydra. It use to roar every hour, on the hour. But since my mothers been waiting in line for butter and cheese, it’s stopped. My only teacher is staring back at me when I look into the bottom of the lake. I stand next to the hydra and her teacher, day, after day. Most of the time I’d rather be alone. That’s what I said the day when the tree turned into dirt, a cloud formed over my thoughts, and melted into the glass of orange juice that I had for breakfast this very morning. The Spider slid down by the moon The gasoline slid exceptionally well that night down the spider’s silky web. A moth seeking a place of momentary bliss glides down into the stream. The spark of the web leaving the spider’s abdomen is what burned down that small cottage on the corner of king and queen St. The chemicals sliding off the moon reminded me of newly cut grass on the far outstretches of the airport. I’ve spent many days there, waiting for the hot dog to roll of the belt into the hot oil where it would then splash the young girl working there, Pacing there, Sleeping there, She said she felt like a slave. -Rhys Jenkins Poem response The poem, “the raven” by Edgar Allan Poe, is probably the single best piece of literature I’ve ever read. It appeals to almost everyone who reads it because it touches that lost moment of mystery inside of them that they can’t reach on their own. It has such power that you can’t put it down. He uses such words as, raven and nevermore to cast an erie coldness over the reader. The whole poem is about someone hearing different things at the door, that’s it! Who knew such a simple plot could turn out so amazing. When you’re up-side down Up is like down When you’re up side down. A smile is a frown When you’re up side down. A laugh is a cry When you’re up side down. To swim is to fly When you’re up, side down. Baby Food The new baby sat in her wooden high chair. A small bowl of carrot baby food on the tray in front of her. Her mother pulls up a stool, and grabs a plastic spoon from the drawer. The baby, still cranky from just being woken-up is already starting to move around anxiously in her chair. With grate anticipation, the mother gets a small spoonful of the slushy food into her mouth. Things were going well so far, but the loud sound of the father mowing the yard started her screaming. As the second spoonful got close to her face, she slapped it away sending the food flying through the air. The mother tried for another spoonful, but it just wasn’t happening. This time not only was the food in the spoon lost, but she hit the whole bowl off the tray and it shattered on the hard tile floor of the kitchen. Her mother was finally fed up. She ripped the baby out of her high chair and threw it onto its baby swing, then stormed out of the room. The baby sat smiling and quietly chuckled it’s new baby laugh to herself. Destruction Myth Rhys Jenkins 1-30-01 Destruction Myth I was made in turkey. A medium size tree, some paint and plastic and I was born. I was one time called the best snare drum around. When I was about twenty-five years old, after being in hundreds of clubs and gone through several owners, I heard the news. A cymbal next to me, Harry heard it first. People have created a way of copying what we sound like, than playing it back in whatever order they like, and I was no longer needed. The day the equipment arrived was the worst day of my life; it came in big brown boxes and was set up right next to me. Than I was put in a small cedar closet with me friends from the drum set. It smelt horrible! It was supposed to keep the bugs away from us. If our biggest worry is if bugs are going to get to us or not, then I might-as-well be destroyed. We spent about two and one half years in that closet. I know this because at the holidays, people would some times shout out the names of them, giving me a brief sense of time. Every day the dust got heavier. Luckily, I’m the smallest drum in the set, so I’m on the top. I feel bad for Marilyn because she’s at the bottom for being the biggest. When we got out, in was because the people had found out that you could never truly match the sound of a drum, because each time you hit it, it was a different sound. So after that we were used with the electronics for the rest of our lives to make more possibilities for music creation. Rhys Jenkins 4-30-03 Sound device poem No car tonight Wednesday night, Walking down Main Street. The rain thumping down on my head. Now past the gas station, The wind gave a violent hiss through the trees. How many miles have I walked for my legs to be screaming like this? Only a little farther. Past the crashing lightning, And into my squeaky house. THE HACKEY SACK For my physics project I choose a hackey sack because I thought it would be a good toy to demonstrate momentum. To understand the physics of a hackey sack, you must first know how to play. Hackey sacking is a fast game of changing momentum in an organized team or solitary manner. The first thing involving physics in a hackey sack is the stall. The stall is when you drop the hackey sack and at the same time bring down your foot which increases the time your foot is in contact with the hackey sack, which in turn decreases the amount of force put on the hackey sack so it just stops. Very much the same way a boxer leans back when he’s about to receive a punch to reduce force. The second thing is when you kick it back up. When you kick it there is very little time for your foot to keep in contact with the ball which results in a large force. There fore the hackey sack goes shooting back up. If the boxer were to do the same thing in this situation, he would probably be knocked out because the time would be so small and the force would be so great. Then there’s the law that a thing in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. So when it is going up, two of the forces that act on it are air resistance and gravity which brings it down to be acted upon by my foot kicking it back up. The next thing there is, is the sound of friction. The sound of friction in a hackey sack is the beads inside rubbing against each other. The volume of the sound however depends on the size of the beads. The smaller the bead the louder the sound because if the beads are small than they have more surface area to rub against, creating a bigger sound. Friction also works when you slide the hackey sack down your foot down to your toe to be flicked up again. If there was too much friction than it wouldn’t go anywhere, but if there wasn’t enough friction than it would simply roll off your foot. The amount of friction also depends of course on how worn in it is and how smooth the thread is. So that’s pretty much it. I’ve covered Newton’s laws, momentum, forces and friction, pretty much all of the physics that are related to hackey sacking. -Rhys Jenkins sweat Rhys Jenkins 11-4 -99 Ms. Grehoski sweat continuation After the cries for help were over, Delia sat against a tree in the backyard. She thought about what she did and tried to decide if it was right or wrong. She sat for hours until finally it got dark and she fell asleep. When she awoke, she was in an uncomfortable bed with a thin sheet barely covering her whole body and a warm towel on her forehead. It was a soft grey colored room with a single wide window on the wall accross from her. The light streamed into the room filling it with the peaceful colors of the dawns green yellow light. Delia felt a sense of love and being cared for that she hadn’t felt in years. A tall woman with long red hair entered the room. “Ah! She lives!” said the woman with a strong Italian accent. In her hand she had a cup of steaming tea which she placed on the fragile table next to Delia. “ I saw you sleeping against a tree last night and people started to circle around as if they were gonna’ punish you, I pushed ‘em out of the way and brought you to my place” she paused, “ I claimed that you were my sister, hope you don’t mind”. She was trying to use as much American slang as possible to try to cover-up her Italian accent. “Thank you.” Said Delia as she in turn tried to cover-up her overwhelming gratitude. They discused for about half an hour about each others backgrounds before Delia finished her tea and they went into the kitchen. The womans name was Isabell and she was an artist who drew pictures of famous people for a living. Isabells house was pretty much one big room and one little room. The little room is the one that Delia slept in. The big room had a kitchen, art studio and living room all in one with black dividers cutting off a chipped toilet for privacy. The walls were elaborate murals that extended onto the ceiling done by Isabell herself. Isabell said that it was her own Sistene chapel. After breakfast which consisted of burnt eggs and uncooked bacon, Isabell said that if Delia had nowhere to go and that if she got a job that she could stay there for a while. Later that day Delia decided to accept Isabells offer and went to look for a job. After her second hour of looking she found a job at an antique shop across the street for minimum wage. It would take a while before Delia got use to the city life, but she was willing to wait. That night when Isabell got home Delia told her of the good news and Isabell was extatic. Delia and Isabell lived with each other for the next year and a half until Delia saved enough money to get her own place down the road. Thay stayed best of friends for their whole lives until Delia died in her sleep at age 97 and Isabell died of natural causes a few years later at age 101.