DWT Poetry Competition: Tenth Round

1. I Was Not Ready by Trine Grillo

I was not ready to let you go
You fluttered through the restless clouds of your days
A colorful kite
Strings snapped and carried you away
Illness changed your body, but inside you were strong
Floating on the breezes of your fate with a song
A drifting sail
I reached, I stretched, I tried
I saw you turn and wave good-bye
I was not ready to let you go

2. Guilt by Dina Kupfer

There’s the present, past, future
And then there is guilt.
Stranding you between the time zones
Leaving you bereft of yourself
Of your truths
Of your certainty in Being.
It unsettles your circadian
It upsets your equanimity.
It makes the face in the mirror
Twisted.
Perhaps with resignation on its lips
And self-contempt in its eyes.
Yet the face in the mirror
Has been blessed
With the miracle of soft skin
The miracle of human-ness
And the miracle of being able to Move On.

3. See This Tree? by Jenny Scott

See this tree?
Tall and proud it stands.
From a tiny seed, it emerged.
From a tiny seed, it broke free.
Through the soil it stretched and strained.
Through wind and rain, storm and gale,
Tall it stood. Tall and proud.
See this tree?

See this tree?
Provider for many of earth’s little ones.
A home for the songbird.
A home for the brown squirrel.
Shade for the small deer.
Shade for the moss and the fern.
Provider for so many.
See this tree?

See this tree?
Hear its leaves singing?
Watch as they dance in the Northern wind.
Watch as they change as the seasons pass.
Emerald green to brilliant gold,
Green to red, orange, and yellow hues.
Hear their song?
See this tree?

Where is this tree?
It is no more.
Years to take root and thrive.
Years to flourish tall and proud.
Gone within minutes, they destroyed it.
Gone without consideration, industry removed it.
Where will the songbird make nest?
Where will the brown squirrel make home?
What will dance in the wind, and paint the earth?
Buildings will always be grey.

It is no more.
See this tree?

4. Love and Envy by Jean Ten Cate

Love and pride is a potent combination.
It can be delightful and it can be dreadful.
Love is a longing for something or someone.
Envy wants what someone else has.
Love and jealousy is intertwined,
It hurts to love, and it hurts to want.
The heart and mind mix and muddle until it is perplexed and about to go wild.
The mind becomes suspicious of the heart. The heart demands loyalty; the mind demands a sense of peace.
What a struggle it is to keep it straight.

5. Don’t Open the Door, Mother by Abdul Hamid

Don’t open the door, Mother!

They may seek shelter during the night
They may ask for food for the night for the number of them
These civilian soldiers carrying clots of blood in their eyes.

Every sunset
The unnatural people of this land
Cannot even collect together their compose
Since it has gone astray.

During the pervading nights
If the sharp spiked booted people knew
Of the shelter inside the house
They will surely knock on the door
In search of the youths
Engaged in a game of catching the dark,
They may charge you too
Heaping upon you terrible acts.

So let a gesture of the eye be sufficient
To undestand the impression on every face
The result of living the life of a commoner.

6. A Simple Kiss by Jamie Compton

At times, I know I should resist,
resist the urge of wanton bliss.
But hail! Thy kissable, gentle lips,
they call me; beckon me for thy own sweet kiss.
Nay, I try to comprehend,
the deceit and betrayal of my own skin.
I try to mend and defend,
against my nature’s instinctive trend.
I fail to fight thy spellbound lure;
the desire grows as we find ourselves skewered.
I fear, to no avail,
that my nature will prevail.
Inside I try to fight this curse,
now it has only gone to worse!
Your hungry gaze and luscious smile,
makes me feel all worth wild.
I tense, burn, and churn with fright,
will I ever win this fight?
Those succulent lips, so full and soft,
they pull me into a mind-sweep froth.
Temptation brews and lust transpires,
should we quench our primal desires?
I pant, I slowly breathe in every breath,
this will be most certain death.
Those lips entice and drug the senses,
when I finally enclose our distance.
A taste of those devil-made pair,
would surely ensnare me, as we stare,
into our longing glistening gems,
we cease our fretting and begin.
Wild abandon engulfs us whole,
sparks fly and take control.
Oh, how I longed for this one moment,
to find myself lost and full of torment.
To trouble myself for one single kiss,
a kiss of longing, burning need,
a kiss that lingers and pleads to be free.
I wanted to evade this fiery passion,
yet, this kiss went beyond its ration.
It churned and bubbled my carnal hunger,
to devour and to surrender.
A simple kiss from your alluring lips,
cannot end in simple bliss and simple fashion,
it brings forth new meaning to utter passion!
We surrender to our primal desires,
as we explore our inner fires.
No longer lust, should I trust,
that I feel only love?
This kiss, this breathtaking bliss,
has surely turned everything amiss.
I dread and fear the unknown answer,
and hope those lips cease their banter.
Do you feel the same sweet bliss,
the love that makes this more than a simple kiss?
Oh, how I wish your lips expel,
as I try to compel,
all the secrets you withheld.
I beg your lips to repent,
to pacify and relent,
all the anguish you induced,
the nerve-wrecking you infused.
Tell me lips; am I yours,
to have, to relish forever more?
Oh lips, sweet, desirous lips, you have me entwined,
bound tight and out of mind,
I am completely at my own demise.
Pray, succulent lips, quell my fear,
you captured my heart, my love, my soul,
will you not complete me and make me whole?
Dread transpires as I sweat,
awaiting your answer with ill-regret.
My carnal nature prevailed the fight,
Now, I pay with mere delight,
with my heart and with my life,
as I wait in utter strife.
Your answer is blasé but then you smile,
and tell me that you’d longed for me all the while.
Pray, I ask, why the wait,
how could you leave me in such a state?
But those beguiling lips of yours,
beckon me and implore for more.
How can I decline such a pair?
That beckons me to declare,
the love it entirely ensnared,
and my sanity it impaired.
Despite the better judgment known,
I find myself overthrown,
by your devious, tempter’s smile,
I’m compelled to stay awhile.
Those lips, the call, tempt, beguile,
Oh, this was all so worth wild!
As, I give into your smile,
your taste, your feel, even your guile!
I now know I will never win,
against your lips, they are utter sin.
I am forever under your spell,
compelled to do your bidding well.
I see the power you possess,
you are magnificent in all your dress.
Your lips are prime in my distress,
I pray, kiss me quickly to satisfy and repress,
all signs of mounting stress!

7. Divorce by Katie Slavinik

It makes me uncomfortable
when you draw pictures
of your father and I
hugging
when the divorce
will be final
next month.

8. The Storm in My Black Belly by Bindu Saxena

When my lady held me – I quivered with dread; I knew of the ordeal that stretched ahead…
She took me at the corner, she took me in the street; I followed her swamped in a sense of defeat.
She took me to the market, the pavement, the stall; I tested my patience – no bicker, no brawl.

Invariably, too she would run into, “a friend.” And launched into chatter that signaled no end;
Her fingers fluttered, she waggled her head, secured in her palm – “I wished I were dead!”
And though, to her, this was joy & delight; it filled me with stark & unreasoning fright.
The minutes & hours plodded painfully by; her endless chatters & my battery, continued to dry!
Left, Right and Centre my face got pinched –until my lady’s ‘DATE’ was clinched!
She flew me skies, where I rested for a while; Network out, what a relief to my pout!
Here came Diwali. The fireworks, the celebrations , the lightings & thunder ..
For a friend anew, and Lo! Was I surrendered..
Back to Air Tel, from where had I come. Lay I appeased.
Quietly told myself & ceased …

9. Morning After The B & S Ball by Christopher Harris

Light shone in shimmer like hazier heads had seen
And the spectrum proved uncertain. For several hours
They courted cans in paddocks dank with stinky dew
Such light cannot consume.
These city sons, scratched and squalid, surveyed the scene
Each with one eye open and declared
Bathos in burps.

They staggered in too new boots and wrestled away their
Lack of success at this hour that was for the wooing.
Happy was he with both legs of his trouser and some
Semblance of shirt.
One turned over a leaf of charred currency to find
A phone number scribbled. Hopes crescendo and crash in
Moments like these.
Somewhere a khaki cocoon wriggled but no angel flight appeared,
Only she with plucked wings badly injured,
Wearing the night like hay wears a cyclone.
Even her markings are smudged and smeared,
A jersey too long is a dress too short.
Affecting a pout, she pairs a boy-man on a pilgrimage to a
Fallow paddock.
There the squatter’s son was speeding a plough
Not like the one his old man motored. The motion was in circles
And not straight lines. Neither season nor symmetry mattered,
Only a show,
For the pilgrims gathered and watched; the always attendant aloof
Spectator generation, looking at the world through
Their TV eyes.
And when the entertainment had ploughed the paddock for long enough
That the dust had settled,
All that remained was that audience of one thousand
Bachelor grooms and five hundred spinster brides
Detached around a drought cake,
Spitting their approval at the confetti flies,
City dreaming.

10. The Unconscious Mind by Viktoriya Zaevska

I step along a path untrodden
To revive a memory so long forgotten
Of times, and history, and places
To recollect those oddly faces.
But a step aside though I attempt
However strong may I exempt
From all those memories inside
Could never truthfully decide.
A whim of circumstance befalls
Then tonnes of whispers it recalls,
So many days and nights appear
That they can make me disappear
Out of the subconscious mind
And into real life rewind,
For it is far too simple to partake,
Yet just as hard to undertake
Of all the practices of whim
Indulgencies of the unconscious
to the brim!