The Literary Giants by Patrick Sean Lee/Kenny Montoya (best books to read for young adults TXT) 📕

I was 14, a freshman that year at Saint Joseph High in Denver, Colorado. Kenny Montoya was my best friend. We shared our poems and secret dreams with one another…the way kids do. We read and loved the same genres of literature, and so decided one Fall day to create a book…handwritten and bound in a three-tab folder. I’ve lost track of Kenny, but I still have our book with all its yellowed pages. I often wonder whether he became a writer, like I did?

Here is an excerpt (precisely as we wrote it in 1962):

I call upon Almighty God, enthroned in Heaven above, to witness and guide my pen, so meek, in this book of life and love.

I entreat the muses to aid my cause of verse still rough and quite unripe. Come hither Literary Giants all, and read my penscratched type.

Brothers Hardy and fellow Literary Giants. We are a haughty and proud sect of writers in an unimaginative group of teens. Together we read Will Shakespeare, Shelley, Poe and greats, to live a while in their worlds of fantasy. Literature is truly a noble art, and as we enjoy the words of those Greats gone before us, let us bind our intentions to leave behind a collection of verse and pen of which perhaps one of us or even a lonely poem shall survive the biting critics for the future teens on this fair earth to read.
Patrick Sean Lee

The following sketches, poems, verse, and pieces are the innermost expressions of Man’s fears, hopes, and desires. All are experienced; one has found love, the other hopes to find.
Kenneth Montoya

To My Valentine
By
Patrick Lee, esq.

Leap joyous heart from the chamber inside,
Sing me a song of the love you can’t hide.
Speak through your rhythm, sweet as wine
Your tidings so tender To My Valentine.

Wild though you beat in your message of love,
Gentle you are as soft clouds above.
My words can’t tell of the way that I feel,
So chime in the morn like church bells that peal.

O love, my heart for you does pine;
Say three sweet words and forever be mine.
I’ll pull you a twinkling star from the sky
And pin it on you with a soft yearning sigh.

Let the strings of our hearts forever twine,
I’ll love you forever my dear Valentine.

Why Do You Love Me?
By
K. Monte

I wonder why you care for me,
As deeply as you do.
I wonder why you gave your love,
And promised to be true.
You could have had your happy choice,
Of many hearts of earth.
And any of them might have been,
Of more enduring worth.
And yet you took me in your arms,
And gave yourself to me,
And you have been as wonderful,
As anyone could be.
But, oh, I love you darling,
In my imperfect way.
And constantly I struggle for,
The words I want to say.
I cannot thank you half enough,
But by the stars above,
I know that I will try to be
Deserving of your love.

To Kathy
By
Patrick Lee

When I am old and silent sit,
Like all old men must do,
I’ll sit a while, then dream a while,
And stray my thoughts to you.

If I am old and sick with years,
Like most old men I know,
Your memory will ease my heart,
And once more make it glow.

Should I grow old and weep for rest,
Like most whose days are spent?
No, no my love, it shall not be;
I’ll always be content.

Oh, I’ll recall the time long gone,
When first I saw your face,
As sweet and young as we were then;
Like satins, silks, and lace.

And I’ll relive that lovely spring,
When shyly we first kissed,
And hand in hand walked home from school;
Yes, those days will be missed.

But will I see us years from now,
When old and old am I,
Yes, will I see the time so sad
That I could not but cry?

Or will our love have lasted ‘til
A blue is no more blue?
I’ll only know when old I grow,
And sit and dream of you.

So gracefully I’ll add the years,
Remembering those gone.
And even if you leave my life,
I’d trade those years for none.

Kat died of cancer in 2009

Found Love
By
K. Monte

On my bed at night I sought her,
Whom my heart loves;
I sought her
But did not find her.
I then arose and went about the city;
In the streets and crossings,
I sought her
Whom my heart loves.
I sought her
But did not find her.
I went about in search of her,
Asking those who trod the ways:
“Have you seen her whom
my heart loves?”
I had not but left when I found her;
I took hold of her and would not let go.

I’ll Remember You—Part I
By
Patrick Lee

I walked atop a moonlit hill
One balmy, starlit eve,
And saw your face in everything,
Though my eyes could not believe.

I saw you in the rolling clouds,
Playing tag with God’s grand sea.
I visualized your breathless face
Smiling down on me.

You twinkled shyly in the void,
(Its fullness somehow grew)
And the fullness of my dazzled heart
Burst out for love of you.

So I shouted to the mighty oak,
I cried out to the pine,
The earth below, the sky above,
That you at last were mine.

Oh, they were happy, first as I,
They yearned to be with me,
But little did they know, my love,
The heartaches that would be.

Part II

I strolled up to that hill each eve,
And reveled in your grace;
I loved the freshness of your smile,
The beauty of your face.

But, as I guessed, it happened,
This love would never be,
And just as summer turns to fall—
You turned your eyes from me.

The rolling clouds turned deathly black,
The smiling moon was gone;
The stars which once did wink at me
Burst, like a dying sun.

The ground on which I’d often sat
(each night in days now gone)
seemed, now, to shiver under me
and radiate the cold.

The mighty oak was weeping, too,
Its leaves turned brown—and fell,
Then lightning flashed and split my oak—
Yes, surely this was hell!

I was not frightened by the night
So much as by your thought,
For cold winds blew away your love,
Which I had truly sought.

Part III

--and you are part of time now passed,
And I am something new,
Yet, day by day, I live a dream
Of Someone I once knew.

She was a rolling, carefree cloud,
A child of God’s great sky;
She was a smiling, lovely moon,
She was a soft wind’s sigh.

I used to see her in the pine,
As nightly she did pray;
I saw her standing as an oak,
So proud, yet soft and gay.


But all good things must end, someday,
And ours did long ago,
And even though I miss your love,
It was destined so.

Text: (c) 1962-2011, Patrick sean Lee and Kenny Montoya (K.Monte)
Publication Date: 11-26-2011

All Rights Reserved