DWT Poetry Competition: Thirteenth Round

1. Unforgettable by Sarah Mathews

While you were holding my hand,
As we were walking on the sand,
I started to wonder why,
What made my breath so high,
There were too many times when I felt this way,
Each time I decided I could not say,
I did not know that you could read my mind,
And just exactly find,
As you guessed my fear,
That I was afraid. . . if you were not near,
You gave me comfort when i was broken,
Which I have still kept as a token. . .

2. I Love Nice Sunsets by Margaret McCartney

I love nice sunsets I don’t know why
But every time I look to the sky
I see God’s work in every cloud
And wonder if he is thinking aloud
“What have they done to my best creation?
The earth, the sky, the deep blue oceans?
I hope they stop before it’s too late
For one day they’ll meet me at the Pearly Gates
And I will want a good reason why
They are destroying my earth, sea and sky”
His wrath we will feel, His displeasure see
For once our earth is gone
So are we

3. Disqualified due to improper language

4. Destroyed and Gone by Rachel Letsche

I didn’t think it would be this way,
I didn’t think it would happen like this,
My little son, whispered in my ear,
“Mommy, where is our house?”
While I silently cry.

I don’t have any money,
What am I do without my husband?
He was here for me,
And to support this family, he was in our house,
All I hope is that
Little Jimmy doesn’t ask,
About
His Daddy.

The red cross symbol comes to my reach,
Speaking in a foreign tongue.
I speak back, “Help my husband.”
But instead he takes little Jimmy from my grasp.
I try to get my baby boy,
But then another stops me from my son.
My son is gone,
Along with my love,
Why God, have you

Done this to

Me?

5. The Lonely Traveler by Sunitta Raman

The horizon seemed far and out of sight,
The lonely traveler slept in the desert and gazed into
the starry night,
The air seemed cold and chill,
‘Life was hard and sad,’ he thought
He lost track of the caravan he saw a few days back,
His favorite camel carried his merchandise in a big brown sack,
A dry fruit seller by trade,
He wandered on the mountains and sand dunes unafraid,
‘Afraid of what?’ he said to himself,
His own life was an avalanche of tragedies,
But who could unravel life’s mysteries.
His eyes glistened with tears,
He began to question his own fears,
He travelled for miles and miles,
His face a contrast of tears and empty smiles,
He reached an unknown city to seek solace and peace,
A few days later he saw caravan dwellers,
A band of happy-go-lucky and merry revelers,
Among the voices and cheerful laughter,
He saw the lovely lady with blue eyes,
Wasn’t she his long lost daughter?
Tears of joy flowed down the old trader’s cheeks,
How on this war ravaged nation could he justice seek?
He approached the caravan dwellers with trepidation,
They all eyed the man with suspicion,
A civilized stranger was not too welcome in their band,
The old trader reached out for his daughter’s hand,
‘Beat him up!’ shouted one of the revelers,
‘He’s a scoundrel he’s come to kidnap her’ shouted the other.
‘She’s my long lost daughter’ pleaded the old trader
‘You expect us to believe your tales’ shouted their leader.
‘Take him to the city jail’ shouted his long lost daughter.
The old trader’s body lay in jail all fettered,
Nothing in the world now really mattered,
In his unconsciousness he cherished memories
of his long lost daughter.
As tears trickled down his weather beaten face,
The old trader left this cruel world without any trace.

6. Ice and Snow by Walter Smith

Quiet, a bleak winter’s night
A lone figure moving across the frozen terrain
Moving like the fresh powder
Driven before the snow
His hair long, flowing, grey
Grey like the clouds
Grey like his eyes
It begins to snow
The flakes wrap themselves around him
Like children hugging their father
With a wave of his hand the flurries depart
Destined to chill the village in their path
Binding ice grasping at everything
Howling winds rattling windows
Chilling you to the bone
Chilling your soul
Stealing your hope
A storm has come

The lone figure slowly walks
The howling winds ripping through the town
Whipping around buildings
Shattering windows
Icicles broken by the wind
Now scratch at glass, wood, and metal
Like some demon’s claws
Seeking a victim
Snow turns to hail
Now over the roar of the wind
A percussion akin to a drum roll
Beats against houses, barns, and shops
Windows that had withstood the wind
Now broken like the peaceful sleep
Of the villagers
Shop signs ripped off their hinges
Devastation as far as the eye can see
Impassively the figure looks back
At the broken and battered town
As the barber’s pole falls and breaks
He waves his children onward

At long last
A glimmer of light
Peaking over the horizon
Dawn reveals a quiet and somber town
Its inhabitants still shaking
From the cold
From the fear
People stand dumbly in the street
Surveying the nightmarish scene
The signs thrown through doors
Icicles stuck in walls
Entire rooms filled with hail
With ice
With snow
In all the shock and awe
Nobody noticed
The single pair of footprints
Nearly covered in snow
Walking a bee line through the city
Or the whispering sighs of a breeze
Blowing through the few standing trees

7. At Eventime by D&HR Nicholls

Before the lamps are lit.
Beside the window, in owl-light dim I sit.
With silver glint the speckled rain
Hits against the window pane.
Shelves of books, a corner seat,
A wooden gate, an empty street.
Lamp posts in the fading light,
Waiting for approaching night.
A sudden gleam of dying day,
One pale and fleeting, golden ray,
Breaks from out the leaden cloud
As if escaping from a shroud,
Flits across the falling rain,
And quickly fades away again.
Then night-time, silent as the tomb,
Invades the stillness of the room,
While sitting in my window seat
I watch the day and darkness meet.

There is no joy where life meets death.
No beating heart or flowing breath.
No touch of wind on sweating brow.
No scent of blossom on the bough.

8. Eye of the Old Man by Ankita Sharma

Youth has its burdens and wonders
Its extremes and torchers
Seen in the eyes of an old man

The treacherous castles of love
Touch lost clouds above
Waking a dreaming sky
Seen by wisdom eyes,
The eyes of an old man

Centuries go by
Hearts go where birds fly
And birds fly and lleave heart-aches behind
This is the story of youth –
And a love unkind

The way the light loves is a slow longing
Castles in the air, lovely – but sure to bring despair
Empty caresses of light on a vast sky,
Will be still more empty when youth will die

And wealth has always been in the winds
Then what is it that we fail to touch
What, when we love so much?

This old man had once been young
He remembers now the song he sung
The tired old eyes of an old man look back and wonder
When there are blue skies above – then why do we blunder?
What is it that we have lost even when the sun rises on its own,
And gives light to all known…?
And amidst all this love bestows its longings on all mankind –
And young hearts seem to fall and lose their mind

Does happiness always have to live in the seclusion of anonymity?
And under the sky and its various joys, it opens its wings and showers pity
A slow longing – the mystery of feeling stretched out vast in the form of the sky
The sky and its slow tempers..
And mystery of feelings and dreams –
Everything way more than it seems
These paintings seem to have been done by a faithless hand
Beauty will be forever, but will it understand….?

Hurrying creatures and flying birds
The sky explains the unexplainable without words
Meanings lost and found
People drift around
The reward of uneartly bliss,
Youth and its fiery kiss
Blessings that came and went;
No one knows just what they meant

Cold remembrance of a beautiful night,
Keep this man’s heart alight
All this was just flowering pain;
He’ll never be young again
And what stays on when youth dies
Is the wisdom in the sky – and this old man’s eyes

9. A Flower Blooms in Winter by Cathy Irvin

One day underneath my Camilla tree, a flower looked out as to what to see, “Oh what is this that lies beneath me?

A blanket of snow, Oh No, I’ve come to bloom way to soon. I hope this is the end of winter and it melts by noon.

There’s no other flower in sight I’ll be alone day and night!”

This frightful discovery left the flower so sad when just then a child noticed the Camilla peeking out, she smiled at it and it made the flower glad.

“Now if only no one picks me I’ll hide under here and soon the sun will shine and spring will be near.”