A new poetry contest about choices. Twenty lines maximum. Due June 30, 2014. One poem per person, please.
Scroll down and press Leave a reply to submit your poem. Winners will be published in my new anthology about choices. Published date around December 2014.
There may be a delay in the post since I have to approve it. I check the blog usually in the evenings.
Thanks to everyone who entered. The contest is now closed. Winners will be announced by August 1st, 2014
J. Kleist-Corwin 
THE MEETING
On my fiftieth birthday, I met my daughter for the first time since she was a few days old. At the park, at the appointed time, a woman walked toward me.
“Susan?”
“Monica?”
I hugged her. She felt stiff, so I let go.
She handed me a gift. Inside the gray box was a rose pin.
Hot tears spilled. I handed her a small photograph. “Here’s the picture I asked the adoption agency to take.”
She looked at herself as a newborn. Her eyes brimmed with tears.
I hugged her again and this time she hugged me back.
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By My Choice
I do not look before I leap, I do not think before I speak.
I do not listen when I am warned, I do not learn from my mistakes, I’m scorned.
I only know the way I feel, I only know my love is real.
MonaD
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Thanks Vee and Mona. I’m happy you entered the contest.
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Mary Lou Haugh
Submitted on 2014/03/13 at 3:26 pm
Last Night
Illusions are full of life. They feel like
deep beliefs and ancient myths. They
took the lead through dreams, the
catastrophies that have come and gone
through me.
Freedom is my only resource now.
No attachments, no excuses, no songs
to sing, no need of that. I rid myself of lies
and hope, everything but my truth & love.
It’s time to live, to let go of comfortable ideas
handed to me; instead, I make my work count
with every word my pen now camly puts to ink.
Last night, a place of revelation
lead to a Private Refuge.
Like a wildflower, full of deep magic
and the lure of life, I seek my nature
pure and clear, like clean water from
the well of cosmic oceans that come
from glass mountains on the other
side of dark nights.
By Mary Lou Haugh
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Thanks, Mary Lou. I moved your poem to this contest page.
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Vee Byram
Submitted on 2014/03/13 at 10:54 am
UNSAID
I stand on my side of the river.
You stand on the opposite bank,
our pain mirrored in the water.
I cry out, “Come across.”
You cringe, turn away.
I don’t understand.
Softly I say, “Please.”
You hold your ears;
my word falls short.
I wade into the torrent,
to meet you part way.
Icy chill stops my breath.
You put one foot in,
pull it right out,
tell me no, you can’t.
I crawl back to shore.
Legs frozen, my body
shivers in the wind.
The words of healing remain unsaid.
The current of pain is too strong.
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Thanks, Vee. I moved your entry to this contest page.
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ABOUT CHOICES
We very seldom have choices really.
Because choices are an illusion,
From the minute we are conceived and born
We move forward in states of confusion.
Indoctrinated and conditioned
We are individually structured and raised,
And conforming is subtle but strong
To follow our life/culture is valued and praised.
It is hard to make changes from this norm
Regardless of choices we see,
Conformity is expected
How can we break free and just be?
Whatever the culture and expectation
Of that time is the road we travel,
To escape or live different it seems
Would cause our families unravel.
Conformity, conformity becomes our only option
What else is out there, we don’t even know,
How can we break free and be who we are
From this conditioning and strong undertow?
By: Kate Ann Scholz 3/14/2014
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Thanks for your submission, Kate.
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I keep seeing ‘I moved your message to the Contest Page.
Where IS The Contest Page?? Pray-tell.
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Nighthawk, you are on the right page right here. Some poets posted on the general blog page and I moved them here.
Please submit in the reply below this message or scroll down to the last reply on this page. Thanks. I look forward to reading your poem.
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A LINE WITHIN OUR HEADS
There’s always a line within our head
To do what’s right, when wrongs have lead
To reap the fruits for sufferings sake
When thoughtless regrets have tempest takes
When shadowed blossom’s mist and die
And valley cads just laugh and cry
When festering wounds rule woeful storms
Their twisted rally shaped human forms
We etch deep strokes with stylish flair
The urge to purge, we cross when dared
Within this battle of inner slew
A bottomless well, a conquered you
Volleyed shots of battery-shells
The jaws of death, the kiss of hell
Who will rise at thunder’s gate?
A horse, a hero, or blundered fates?
Hung smelted horns remain askew
That bright land game ‘tween him, and you
To prove the best man’s valued worth
Your ego buried, your destiny berthed
Copyright September 2013
by Mary L. Palermo
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Whispers of the Lake
My choices often find me
standing alone in deep water.
I dive unafraid—
cutting through the resistance.
Shouts from shore warn me of danger.
A loved one hopes I won’t drown.
He has resuscitated me before—pushed air into my lungs,
until I spurted.
But I can hear the whispers of promise.
The secrets the lake holds about
those that failed at their attempt to swim.
They did not stop, until eventual death.
It’s those whispers of hope—
I look to find in friends.
Aloneness is easy, comfortable and sure,
solitude is a place of peace.
Yet a shimmer off the water
lures me one more time—
to try—until someone
pulls me under, from below.
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Thanks, Mary and Elaine for your entries.
Nighthawk, you are on the right page right here. Some poets posted on the general blog page and I moved them here.
Please submit in the reply below this message.
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If You Want to Exist Do Not Choose Left
By Tanda Clauson
Perhaps because it’s sinistral,
I cannot comprehend
Leftness. Left is
An enigma… an unsolvable riddle.
Nonexistent in memory… Nonexistent in reality.
I enter a room without a door
Without a door, I cannot leave.
I eat my food and like a waltz
I whirl about, and magically,
My plate of food is here. I eat.
Although I’m told I came
So near to finishing my plate, I dance
And magic shows my plate is full again.
Like Zeno’s arrow I cannot move.
Though people tell me yes,
I know no left.
My universe is right.
Left is… a riddle… sinistral.
If you want to exist – Do not choose left
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Thanks, Tanda, for your entry.
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“Not Much Choice”
Abandonment is a painful exile,
an exorcism of the familiar.
A powerless isolation pervades,
adrift as human flotsam and jetsam.
~
Samaritans become perpetrators,
substances become solace and escape.
Patterns of self denigration imprint.
Poisons are mistaken for poultices.
~
I survived a systemic negligence,
emancipated to uncertainty.
Trails marking my past, overgrown with weeds.
The lonely woods dark and full of despair.
~
Parents made a selfish choice to leave me.
I must make one to always love myself.
Some days I find it difficult to do.
On those days, I choose to love much harder.
***
~ M. Zane McClellan
***
Copyright 2014
M. Zane McClellan
All rights reserved
Hi Julaina. I don’t know if it is okay to share this on my blog or not and still qualify for the contest. I wrote this specifically for your contest, but I am publishing it on my blog as well. Please leat me know if I need to unpublish, or write another poem. Thank you.
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Hi Zane,
Thank you for entering your poem. Yes, you may publish it on your blog and still be in my contest. My only requirement is that you have all legal rights to whatever you submit to me.
Thanks for checking,
Julaina
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All of my work is original. Please let me know if there is a limit to the number of poems I can submit. I will withdraw one or the other, and not submit any more. Great topic Julaina. Thank you.
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Hi Zane,
I can accept one poem per person for the contest and the poem can not be longer than 20 lines. Your first one qualifies (did you want a title or just call it Untitled?).
The “Two Choices” poem is longer than 20 lines so I will remove that one from the contest. The winners of this contest will be published in my next anthology that has the Choices theme. Whether you win the contest or not, you can submit a poem to be included in the anthology.
With your permission, I’ll put “Two Choices” in my submission file.
Thanks for asking,
Julaina
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The first poem is titled, “Not Much Choice”. I will appreciate you putting, Two Choices” in the consideration pile, and thank you very much.
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Their Pool of Pandemonium
Regina Puckett
Each day there are so many challenging choices
So many that I’m left confused by the babbling voices
Each one is shrieking and shouting to do that or this
How will I ever decide which ones to keep or dismiss?
So I’m covering my ears and shutting them all down
Before I fall into their pool of pandemonium and drown
Copyright 2014
Regina Puckett
All rights reserved
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Thank you, Regina, for your entry.
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Thank you for the opportunity.
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Hindsight
by G. Karl Kumfert
It was my choice, and I chose poorly.
I was true to my principles.
I didn’t give in to special interests.
I trusted my gut.
I was strong.
I knew numbers could be manipulated,
Evidence could be fabricated,
And people complained no matter what.
So I tuned it out — all of it — and stuck to my guns.
I made the tough choice.
I kept my promise.
And I expected to live with the consequences, effortlessly.
I was wrong.
Instead of critical thinking, I was just critical.
Refusing to compromise, I forbade myself to see.
They were my opponents, after all.
How could truth possibly be on their side?
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Thanks for your entry, Karl.
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Choose the Moon
Take one small step
Foot in front of foot
Journey’s end visible
But distant
So far that colors change
Air thins
Muscles ache
Plant your heel
Push against stony ground
Stretch sinew, bone, intent
Grasp the horn of the crescent moon
Breathe in the ether
Choose your next challenge
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Hi Lani,
Thanks you for your entry just in time before the due date. 🙂
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Hi Lani,
Very nice….
MonaD
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Patrick Coyle sent a poem before midnight but to my email instead of posting it here. I am including his entry in the contest.
Thread Finger Bowl
These words: thread finger bowl.
What would I choose to make of them?
We thread words from our minds and hearts through our fingers
— holding a pen, a pencil, or moving across a keyboard.
We choose words to put onto a page,
into a text, an email, a manuscript, a poem, a song.
We may chant them,
we may strike a singing bowl,
we may pray with them,
we may finger our beads,
we may dip our fingers in a holy water bowl,
we may reach ourselves or another.
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Thanks to everyone who submitted poems. The contest is closed now. I will send the entries anonymously to my friends who are poets for a consensus on the three top winners.
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Hi There! I was copied on an email by my writers group (CWC-TriValley) that My poem, By My Choice, was noted with an honorable mention for your poetry contest. I may have missed your note to me but I wanted to thank you very much!
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Hi Mona,
I didn’t know you were a member of Tri-Valley too. I will be sending you a release form soon since I’ll need your permission to publish your poem in my next anthology about choices. All three award winners and Honorable Mentions will be in the book.
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Wonderful, thank you so much! I’m honored.
Do you have my email?
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I forgot to mention that I’m leaving for vacation Friday the 24th and won’t return until Nov. 10th. Please let me know when you’ll need the release form.
Thanks again!
MonaD
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Hi Mona,
No problem. I won’t need it until the beginning of the new year. I might send it out sooner but no rush in getting it back if you’re on vacation.
Have a good time,
Julaina
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