DWT Poetry Competition: Eleventh Round

1. I Was Not Ready by Douglas

A question I asked as a child,
A question I asked as a teen,
A question I asked as a young man,
A questioned I asked even today.
I asked my mother, father, preacher, wife,
All said the same; my name is what your mother gave,
That is who you are.
I see a picture of who I am, the man of a given name.
I see a reflection, looking deeply into the eyes of this man, not knowing who I am.
When it is time to go home, I will ask, “Do you know who I am?”
God will tell me who I am and I will never have to ask again, “Do you know who I am?”

2. Faulty Memory by Shelly Holder

I don’t remember re-reading
some favorite book when I was small
a certain title that I would beg and plead
to be read aloud—just once more!
by long-suffering parents who already read
that particular book 8 times this week alone.
No, I don’t remember that.
I don’t remember long afternoons
curled up on my mother’s lap, drinking tea and
looking at the photos as beautiful maternal words
flowed around me in a story. I know it happened.
There are pictures—many pictures, albums worth
all with various family members, reading to me…
but I don’t remember that.
I honestly don’t remember much
of my childhood. When others talk
about their favorite childhood games, or movies,
or similar things, I have to search around
at the bottom of a long dark well. I found out
the other day in one such conversation
I watched children’s TV shows such as
Eureeka’s Castle and Fraggle Rock,
but pressed, I could only parrot back to say
I watched Reading Rainbow as well.
I know, because someone told me,
but I don’t remember that.
I remember books covers, and I smile
when I see Amelia Bedelia or Dr. Seuss
The Rainbow Fish or The Very Hungry Caterpillar
sitting on a shelf in the bookstore.
I’ll pick the book up, and exclaim
“I read this as a kid!”
I only know this because
I still have the books at home
but I don’t remember that.
Some pictures I remember, from the bright colors
two guilty expressions, a parallel parenting lesson
about cleaning up my own room just like them.
But while I recall events around the book,
sometimes the type of finger-sandwiches
or china pattern for our “Story Time Tea”
I don’t remember re-reading over and over
my favorite books when I was small
like I must have done because
I still know the plots today flawlessly
even if I don’t remember that.

3. "            " by Vicky Ellis
where am i?

"            "

I am here

"            "

I am Here

"            "

i am Here

"            "

i was T/Here

"            "

where was i?

4. Memories by Jaideep Muthiyan

Everyday, as she wakes up, the glint in her eyes makes my sunlight.
The lovely smile on her little face spreads a blossom in my world.
Innocence is divine and though I’m a nonbeliever I find my god in her.
Here, I am an ordinary human thinking how I can keep the magic going…
How I can give her good memories for all the life that’s coming.
A yellow balloon fills her heart with such joy that won’t even fit the sky.
She is no toddler but I can’t resist lifting and making her reach high like an airplane.
Like some supernatural, she can make the somber turn into delight.
Here, I am an ordinary human thinking how I can keep the magic going…
How I can give her good memories for all the life that’s coming.
She runs around the house, makes the wall her canvas.
Fearless because of the oblivion and frightened because of the little known
Wish the evil of ill keeps away from her as she steps into a new dream…a new world.
Here, I am an ordinary human thinking how I can keep the magic going…
How I can give her good memories for all the life that’s coming.

5. New Life by Lorna Hewitt

The innocence and purity of a new fallen snow,
a carpet of truth which no one shall know.
Diagonal planes of reality drift, with ice sickle chimes
and currents of mist.
Painful awareness is a dark train making its silent
run through the night,
the low muted whistling is a siren song of fright.
Transcendent experiences appear with persistence
then quickly hide and deny their existence.

6. Say “No” To Quitting by Preetham Pais

How easy it gets for an unsaid good-bye
Some would think twice before they try
Leaving behind, the world they had hardly seen;
Living a partial life without forthcoming treasures to redeem
A grim escape, decides a naïve mind of a teen
Every person has its own set of worries to handle
A human is known to overcome all obstacles that come
Love, exams, money, pain… are these who make them numb?
Treasure is not easily found, never seen above the ground
Failure brings no joy; welcome it as an enemy on a battleground
Can’t we try harder to turn our fate?
You decide not only for you, but, your families and mates
A thought of them over your decision can win the debate.
Make that stop button to your life inaccessible
It only makes you turn away and act irresponsible
All you have to do, is give it just another try
Leave no stone unturned, explore your hidden spy
Arrest success; produce your hard earned alibis
It is you who decides how problems for you end
Try everything apart from the forbidden route of dead end!!
Illegible

7. Strings by Chesley Kirk

Simple fibers spun together in wonder to form strings
which are weaved and woven together to form a rope
which forms a noose to lynch the last inch of hope from the planet,
can it be possible for us to watch the rope unwind as it releases its grip on our souls
so we can feel the noose of hate loosen,
loosen into strings of love
to be hung from above every door frame of every household
to leave us reaching, preaching,
teaching another generation that in order to reach those strings
you gotta have wings to fly high
and you have to have grace to rid yourself of hate
and you have to push through the lies so the truth can make its way inside
because too many lies have been told in this lifetime,
too many people mistaking hate for love,
too many people not willing to rise above it all
to answer the call to stand up to hate
and say let there be light, and let there be life, and let there be love.
There is not enough love in this world as there is far too much hate
as people continue to discriminate based on race, religion, gender, and sexuality
and this has affected every person including me,
and the reason I spew these words so fluently is because
when the words finally meet the page, I feel like I’m on stage
and my heart escapes from its cage as I vent all of my rage
because you look me in the eye, not knowing whether to laugh or cry
and it makes me want to crawl in a hole and die because I am…
was…
daddy’s little girl, but he won’t look at his girl anymore
because she’s a girl who likes girls and I know…
I’m not the daughter you asked for.
You asked for the daughter who had the boy that bought her a diamond ring
and those sorts of things, but I am still that daughter you asked for…a happy one.
It shouldn’t matter who I love because love is love and nobody is above being loved,
but don’t apologize because apologies are just words,
but words make up poetry,
and poetry is my life so I guess tonight, in a way, I’m apologizing for my life…my existence.
I know I’m not what you had hoped for or expected, but this is me and I will be respected.

8. Locked Away by Diana Watson

Sorry I didn’t write, I was lost behind my eyes,
In that echoing place with blue walls and black skies,
Of disparity, discontentment, deficient of choice,
Locked away without a voice.
Your song did not reach me and words ran away,
No life nor inspiration nor reason to stay,
Bundled away in an echoing corner,
Fearing the reaper, fearing the mourner.
She’s gone again to the greener side.
She heard it is where her dreams reside.
Running from pressure, running from fear,
Running from me, running from here.
She called me to say “Thanks again,
For inquiring as to how I have been.”
Does she know now, at the end of life’s route,
Her error in judgment when she sold us out?
I want to know what haunts her thoughts.
Does she realize the way her memory rots,
Within me, amidst the whistling calls
Of wind blowing through these echoing halls?
The man you are viewing does not reside here
He lives in the house embedded in fear.
Does the realization make my inner beast mild,
To know he suffered more than the swollen-eyed child?
I’m tired of these voices screaming at me
From the judicial halls of self mutiny.
I cannot listen to the burrowing bug.
I must emerge from this hole that I’ve dug.
But anyway…
I am very sorry that I didn’t write
But, I’m afraid that I was locked away tight
Beneath the raging rapids of a frozen river.
But keep extending that branch, although you may shiver
I can almost reach it.

9. She Is? by K. M. Dinesh

Under the sky so pretty…
She is the only eternal beauty…

Even the sky tries to impress her…
Trust me its not a metaphor…

Sky is not the only one in the race…
Sun and Moon are also awestruck at her face…

Sun keeps admiring her during days…
And expresses love through his warm rays…

Moon goes gaga about her during nights…
And praises her with cool delights…

She has been glittering since her birth…
She is the most sensuous and sublime “The Mother Earth”

10. Perfection…? by Carlos Eduardo

The drawings on the chapel are of a perfection such
Works of an artist to a future generation as much
And even that lady who’s armless and still
Holds everyone by the beauty she reveals
Where does it live
In Rome or in Greece?
The mythology tells us of a lady that’s perfect
Eminence among gods, a touch in the heart
And within pictures that a few pay attention
He enchants everyone with those unique creations
Ross when drew Aphrodite in his mythology
Had he created the perfect syncrony?
The beauty was so much, he got paralysed
Threw himself into the lake, drowned deep inside
But the symphony was so rare and magestic
Even the deafest one could creat music
Beethoven’s tail or Narcism’s lake
How does it look like?
An ornamented chapel or an incomplete statue
Where would I, an average person, find you?
At the depths of a lake or the pictures of an artist
Where would I meet the one I have searched?
Then He told me I’d never find
Whilst I didn’t look at me inside.