Poetry Contest Winners 2010 Please enjoy these winning entries from Word Wise, KDL’s 7th Annual Teen Poetry Contest. These winners were chosen from close to 150 poems. With topics from love and loss to music rehearsals, or even boating, there is bound to be something in here for you. Remembering I’m sitting in a corner, My eyes open. eyes closed. Remembering the beeping of the monitor. My life like a movie reeling inside my head. Having flashbacks of a time of joy and comfort, but now the movie’s over. The feel of the IV tube hooked up to my arm. The scratchy sheets. The picture next to my bed... Everything is gone. ...of him. Remembering the way you held my hand. Remembering the memories flooding into me. Our fingers entwined together. The road fading off into the distance. Unfathomable. Unforgettable. Inseparable. The tangle of leaves and branches waiting to consume us. The never ending downward slope. Remembering the long and winding road. The look of panic on his face. Holding hands...never letting go. Beauty everywhere. A shower of glass raining down upon us. Then darkness. Then blood. A crash. Darkness. Slowly slipping away, holding on. Calling your name. Remembering the way you were holding onto my hand. You let go. The feel of your fingers slipping... slowly, every so slowly. Then darkness. Slipping, slipping, slipping. Never ending darkness. Then you were gone. Remembering your face inside my head. Surrounded by a bright, blinding light. Your hand outstretched toward me. I reach for you. Author: Emily Plants Holding Back She holds back the words That itch to be released That would tell how she feels About him Things that are better said Face-to-face Not through a text message. Things that are terrifying Things that she means, Lord knows, But that she’s too afraid To say. To say such things like, “Come back to me”, “Be safe”, Or “I love you”. That she needs to have him hear From her tongue, Not with the metallic taste the phone Would lend to the words Author: Mollie Stahl One Morning’s Rehearsal As if you’ve been playing all these years, life flows from your fingers. When you lift a violin to your shoulder, you take the bow on a journey across the strings. The baton raises in my head, and my inner orchestra accompanies you. “Moonlight Sonata” runs in your veins, flats and sharps mix with your blood and lend your heart its beat. While I take in mere oxygen you inhale a cadence and lurch into an adagio waltz. I’ll test your tempo and run away with the melody: a dolce dance of violin, viola as a symphony joins in my head, rising in a grand crescendo, while you sweep the solo off the page like leaves in an autumn breeze . . . Author: Olivia Ezinga Just Let Me Cry They wouldn’t just let me cry. He had been in my life for so long. And now cancer was slowly taking him away from me. When I got the news I sat down and cried. Not caring if my mascara ran. Not caring if my hair got messed up. Not caring if anyone laughed. Two months two months two months. The doctors say two months. I say don’t put a time limit on any life. But what do I know? I’m just a kid. I don’t cry at school, no one knows. I can’t ever tell. Food tastes terrible, my eyes are always glazed over with tears. Always sad it’s so hard to put on a happy face for my friends, but I do. I can’t just cry. My life is charades. I put on an act and everyone thinks it’s real. Only I know it’s not. He’s gone now and memories of him haunt my family. My life in slow motion as my eyes filled with tears and one tear escaped down my cheek. And that was it. I had cried all I could. I didn’t cry when I saw his pictures or at his funeral. They said these are happy times. He is no longer in pain. So no more tears fell to the floor. I don’t want to scream just let me cry anymore. Because I know he feels no more pain. When I got the news, I just stood there. Author: Leanna Gorney Untitled her voice was a leaf whispering in the wind she lay there breathless unable to tell me that little secret her hand grew cold and she stopped shaking I knew what was going on but I didn’t want to believe it so I tried to run and chase my problems away but that isn’t possible in this world because no matter how fast you run those problems will be right behind you trust me I know Author: Mary Verberg The Cemetery Across the Road Has Been Filling with Fireflies They land on gravestones and gather in trees to blink at us. Once I knew the language of fireflies. I knew how to tell if one was male or female, and whether one was hungry. That’s long worn from my mind, but tonight there is no mystery about what they say. The dead are not gone. Here, on the front porch we watch the souls we thought far away all wrapped up in delicate tiny wings and lights, we watch them telling us about the beauty of the oncoming dusk, how not to fear aging. One crosses the distance between us and lands on my cheek, wings gently beating. Author: Patricia Schlutt Spotlight The shimmer of my extravagant makeup, which is caked on every inch of my body, makes me chuckle as I wait anxiously behind the velvety red curtain. The stage-fright-butterflies flutter from person to person, yet never rest upon my stomach. Hummingbirds full of chatter and adrenaline instead waltz cheerfully around me. Every laugh from the crowd, Every cheer from the audience, All but helps the hummingbirds waltz faster. Their swift movements strengthen me, Along with the friendly stage’s delicate Scenery that seems to call me in, inviting me to break free. The spotlight beams on me as I daintily Allow myself to glide onto the stage, Bringing the hummingbirds with me. My arms feel a gleeful sensation As the spotlight hits. My legs feel a twinkling excitement, As the spotlight hits. My vocal chords expand with joy, As the spotlight hits. And my heart skips a beat, For it knows it’s back home. Home on the stage. Home, where the spotlight hits. Author: Brianne Stephens Porcelain I wear porcelain skin And break at the sharpest of words All my fragile pieces fall And clutter the floor I have yet to feel a helping hand One that’s not afraid of shards So here I am Picking up my pieces One by one I am covered in smiles To steer their attention away But my mouth is tired Of tasting lonely flavors Sometimes I am returned And I feel okay But just for awhile Until time hits again And takes me down I am folded inside myself Hidden behind a shell of pleasantries All my thoughts remain inside And dream a little dream But words dance on my tongue In need of a place to land A place to be heard Will anybody lend me their ears? Will anybody even care? Author: DJ DeSmyter Diminuendo Sol For me. It will Solo Sol Go into Soliloquy, Solo Obscurity. All by myself, Soliloquy, Just like One person, Perhaps this The horizon One Rhapsody. Tune isn’t just Disappearing, Softly For me. Sinking lower, Whispering Maybe it Never Shared To myself Was meant With anyone. A tune to Share, Sinking low That’s just A melody It is hidden For me. Ringing., Inside me Sol Rushing, Till my dawn, Solo Rolling, My dawn Soliloquy, Rollicking, Sinks low I walk alone Maybe this My dawn On this road, Was meant Is done On this quiet, To be: Dying Dry journey. This tune Done. I Stare That’s just Sol at the horizon. For me. Solo Waving like Sol Soliloquy The wheat. Solo A mournful Dancing to Soliloquy Tune A tune, And if That’s just A mournful tune. I keep For me A tune This song That’s just To myself Author: Evanne Zainea Starry Night Silence Screaming It all begins Howling I watch the night Silent Night is no more grow dark Sleep darker sleep darker sleep The little stars The town brightens dance across the sky The day glows The clock strikes twelve It is over and the new bell rings Only memories remain again Sitting in silence and again dangling sneakers and again above the city I sit upon below the cool blue blades emptiness remains Shadows haunt inside the slow Goodbye midnight sky city below Goodbye Crying Author: Bailey Green HONORABLE MENTION Dilemma No. 18267 Let us observe this man, this Corpulent creature, this Stout animal. The metal boat lies upon The wet sand, dimly expectant of What is to come. What is to come? Man is to push Boat. But man does not want to Push the metal boat, this Dimly expectant boat. This time, Man heaves his weight upon Boat, The generous folds of his flesh warmly Pressed against the cold hull. Push, damn it, Push! The task is now a prolonged fight, Man’s strained cries and struggles like that of A laboring animal. The Man is Aching, is Moaning, is Panting, Profusely sweating a fragrance of Human and frustration. He tries, Hoping a meager Push would do the trick. Such a fight is an everlasting deadlock, body and metal, Man and Boat. Boat does not budge. And, ah. Blast. Boat breaks forth across the moist sand, collides into the cool waters. Man had such hope that Boat would move, a hope that Occurred before in his life, a hope that Perished in such situations as this. Man triumphantly climbs into Boat. And though he may not view it particularly as such, Man’s fated Dilemma No. 18267 is now completed. Author: R. Park Kent District Library would like to thank David Cope for his work in selecting the winning poems. Mr. Cope currently teaches drama and creative writing at Grand Rapids Community College. Mr. Cope’s personal publications include: Quiet Lives (1983) On the Bridge (1986) Fragments from the Stars (1990) Coming Home (1993) Silences for Love (1998) Turn the Wheel (2003)