Winners
Conformists of a feather
flock together.
Michael R. Burch, Nashville, Tennessee
The u of solitude allays the y of lonely.
The i in if precedes the o in only.
Michael Harmon, Scottsdale, Arizona
Runners Up
I sympathize truly my dear,
But as you see, I have a beer.
Robert Walton, King City, California
It’s always the common folk who must pay
When their leaders go looking for dragons to slay.
David Martin, Chantilly, Virginia
Honorable Mentions
Knowledge, bestow thy light upon the mind,
Lest pleasures waste and lucent trifles blind.
Joseph McKenzie, New Mexico
Face drenched with tears I wipe my eyes
with hope God hears my fervent cries
Jan Hersh
I want the facts that will inform my views.
I don’t need entertainment from my news.
James Ph. Kotsybar, Lompoc, California
Mid the forest, Dryad stood; hidden, oaken, silent wood,
Mid the glade, the Sun he splayed; folk content, they never strayed.
Neal Dachstadter, Knoxville, Tennessee
Participating Judges
Michael Curtis, Washington, DC
Joshua Philipp, Queens, New York
Damian Robin, Sheffield, United Kingdom
William Ruleman, Athens, Tennessee
James Sale, Bournemouth, United Kingdom
Bruce Dale Wise, Naselle, Washington
Judge Michael Curtis poetically noted:
If I could improve it
I didn’t choose it.
I looked for wit, precision too,
Heart-felt feelings wouldn’t do.
__________________________________________________________________
RULES: To celebrate National Poetry Month, write a two-line poem (couplet) that rhymes. It’s nice to have some meter or the same number of syllables per line, but not required. Paste your poem into the comment section with your name, city, and state (no need to list your last name or email address if you don’t want to). No submission fee.
DEADLINE: April 30 midnight (***Deadline extended to May 1, midnight EST). Winner announced May 10.
PRIZE: Free Society of Classical Poets 2016 Journal due out later this spring.
JUDGE: Classical poets staff and advisory board will judge (which means they can’t compete, sorry)
Featured Image: “Candidates for Girton College” by Frederick Brown, 1884.
If you don’t know what to do
Just zip dip trip flip dippity doo
Spring is right around the corner,
So it’s time to plant the corn, sir!
An oxen set free is what we aspire
Then our goal of due course is to retire
–
Addiction is the magnified passion;
Love in extreme is the current fashion.
Tis a contest I see, so I’ll post a rhyme,
Perchance I shall win a book this time.
Hummingbird, hummingbird, please do return,
we bought a new feeder and you must learn.
Phoenicans shared tall mountains and desert scapes.
Now we return to our wonderland of hills and lakes.
Compare the sadness and anger of westerners,
to the suffering ‘alien other’ of our easterners.
The u of solitude allays the y of lonely.
The i in if precedes the o in only.
Michael Harmon
Scottsdale, Arizona
At the fiery cauldron or high up in the sky –
Dance with the devil or with the angels, fly!
face drenched with tears I wipe my eyes
with hope God hears my fervent cries
It’s rare that one can enter things for free,
unless it’s competitive poetry.
An old woman in black lies slumped in the gutter –
Smart bombs should be smarter.
People kindness relevant
So simple yet elegant
On the world’s political stage honeyed words
But only God’s gifts truth, sweet persistent birds.
Riches
My sleeping collie twitches in the sun
And counts the sheep he’s herded just for fun.
Elizabeth Spragins Fredericksburg, Virginia
Diana, Missoula, Montana
Absurd thoughts for a normal thinker,
rational to me, mad freethinker.
I emailed this now so I wouldn’t forget it,
and hoped you’d like it because, friends, you’ve just read it!
Awesome and very clever!!!!!
Jason, Dorset UK
Bring the cool rain
To earase my pain
Goddess, you are my prayer of death
And the blemished lamb sacrificed on the altar of powerlessness of worshipping you, here on earth!
Goddess, you are my blemished lamb and my prayer of death
sacrificed on the altar of powerlessness of worshipping you, here on earth!
O sapience, to you! The brightest flame!
Do taketh thee? Or giveth do you fame?
Corey Browning
Brooklyn, NY
Mid the forest, Dryad stood; hidden, oaken, silent wood,
Mid the glade, the Sun he splayed; folk content, they never strayed.
Neal Dachstadter
Knoxville, Tennessee
Modern Cynics
Distrusting, thus starving, with an ungrateful suspicion,
they murmur at their Moses in their Wilderness of Sin.
Pawling, New York
Heroes mown down like poppies in the field,
switch to the acoustic guitar, a worthy weapon and shield.
We sing comedy in our sour dreams
causing tragedy in their children’s tears
Radu Spinu
Bucharest , Romania
in the midst of fog and haze
a light will always steer the way
Mommy don’t be mad if I shout scream stomp and loudly vent
When I master my most obnoxious behavior I’ll run for President
Knowledge, bestow thy light upon the mind,
Lest pleasures waste and lucent trifles blind.
Fleeting away with each passing moment,
Only fools spend all time in atonement.
Susan
Brooklyn, NY
Suchitra G. Das
Temporal bodies of endless desire; bustle to create, hustle to acquire,
Seeking immortality in Hades’ lair; we succumb to lures beyond repair.
After Practice
I am really thirsty and tired.
Too bad the milk’s expired.
Carly McGrath
Fifteen
Pawling, New York
I sympathize truly, my dear,
But, as you see, I have a beer.
Beer and old men she doesn’t see.
She has an older brother: Me…
I bid you adieu and out the door –
Much better the night than on the floor.
Real love comes not with Cupid’s arrows
But with shovels, picks, and wheelbarrows.
Earth is a sphere of poverty and wealth;
Its two sides nurture and betray its health.
From age to age treat all as equal.
Then at life’s end you’ll love the sequel.
very good/succinct
Thank you. I hope this couplet will earn me a copy of the Annual anthology.
I can’t afford to buy it. I’m just a poor pensioner in South Africa!
I lived as best I could, and then I died:
be careful where you step; the grave is wide.
“Epitaph for a Child of the Holocaust,” Michael R. Burch, Nashville, TN
What comfort, by such fairest vision made,
Gives heart unto the fondness of parade–
What is word and sight, this poetry?
If not a bird and flight and soul to free
Jesse Laine, Toronto, Canada
Fear not, in the crisis, you are not to blame
Weep not, Goddess Isis, it’s just a name
Fear not, in the crisis, you are not to blame
Weep not, Goddess Isis, it’s just a name
Gayani Siriwardena
Colombo
Sri Lanka
George may have kissed a girl and made her cry,
But now they’re married and she bakes him pie!
In the skies a flying white dove,
gets lost in the endless sea of love.
In the skies a flying white dove,
gets lost in the endless sea of love.
I spent all night chasing the white rabbit
but I never could grab it
Muncie,IN
People calls her a whore
But she lives behind that door.
Silently witnessing the madness of the world,
The pine tree stands, arms upstretched towards God.
A hundred birds on still seas sleep,
As one sinks soundless towards the deep.
A.R. Harmon
New Orleans, LA
Die stances! What’s accord-conversation?
Instances of discord-conservation.
Change
Glancing over my shoulder, but the horizon calls again
Another place is waiting for me to attend
It’s happening inside, the change of mine
Long fingers are shooting out like new vines
Bubbled up expectations are squashed together
Gone is the emptiness of despondency with whatever
Beautiful in the distance of its own kind
Leaving the way open for new possibilities to find
The first steps might be uncertain and daunting
Fuelled by an eagerness to bring relief in a world that’s haughty
Uncomfortable at first, hope, faith and love covers the rough edges
Push and pull slowly, holding steady the growth of relationships
A map has been laid out, even before our time
Roads, directions and signs are there to choose, yours and mine
In our hearts and hands the ability has been given to do
Walking our paths of life in who we are and following through
Transition to something different or new is never easy
Moving from one place to another doesn’t happen immediately
What a journey and adventure it could be?
Exploring the unknown with people and things to see
Change is all around us and can’t be stopped
Life is in our hands and what is the cost?
By Lizelle Cloete
In China where the great wall stands, live sadly shackled human hands.
I want the facts that will inform my views.
I don’t need entertainment from my news.
this is not the last chance to win the contest,
but this is a good chance to try my best.
sun will rise and sun will set,
ever thought why little rabi in the window,is so upset?
you can’t always win,you may have failure,
but you are learning the proper things,make it sure
asansol,west bengal,india,
i am a high school student
Love is born in your soul through soft, tender sighs
Then flies out of control as it Personifies.
A Drive I Used to Know
Road of pink blossoms to Majestic Woods.
Once was Phillies Bridge, now Nostalgic Way.
Newburgh, New York
So lonely, creeping each his way
Go only predator and prey.
Brisbane, Aus
All faithful, down the caterpillar highway
Go others – I insist it isn’t my way.
Brisbane, Aus
There is no fire, how wild soever it rage
To beat the printed word upon the page.
Brisbane, Aus
Still, torture’s not designed to kill
Till all has failed to move the WILL.
Brisbane, Aus
To see with eyes of love is but
To see the dough and not the nut.
Brisbane, Aus
Unless my life should mortal be
It renders not eternity.
Brisbane, Aus
For though to some death is a bitter end
It is to others mercy, and a friend.
Brisbane, Aus
Without my life should draw unto its end
Forsooth I must go clean around the bend!
Brisbane, Aus
Who Can Awaken
Divinely Inspired Poetry, is
my Heart
To Revere the divine, is the origin of Art
note: my own project is called
Divinely Inspired Poetry
What did the icy temperature forbode?
We saw the rocket lift off, climb, explode.
A Rhyme for the Times
It’s always the common folk who must pay
When their leaders go looking for dragons to slay.
David
Chantilly, Virginia
Choice is the eternal doctor of fate
Medicating the Millennium’s great
Old hawks or new demagogues, to the right or left bent,
Weighs not, where drones their gift, to its next young recipient.
My room
My room to speak is closing in
As walls of talk around me spin.
A witness harassed by government goons
And protesters are called Vince Foster loons.
Move over sweetly fathomless, there’s a new stranger in our bed.
I asked him only for a little warmth. well, he pissed on me instead.
andy, colorado springs, colorado
Spring Tulips
The searing wind sighs and folds into morn,
soothing pink budded mouths like a newborn.
Poppy Crazy with no relief kiss
Poppy Crazy opium bliss
Experience and innocence join hands,
enabling us to thrive through life’s demands.
In the midst of this summer,
Blooms the seasons of life’s desires.
The loss we endure is a wound unseen.
Internal stitches are so tough to clean.
Conformists of a feather
flock together.
Michael R. Burch, Nashville, Tennessee
When the cloud eclipsed the sun it became the bright full moon;
Distilled in fragrant euphony, untouched but loved too soon.
Moonlight was showered
down the valley like an eternal perfume
Down a gauntlet of eyes I cringe my way
In the shadow of the man not beside me
I work from dawn to dusk for my bread
I work the hells ye angels fear to tread
The trouble with using half-rhyme
Is that it tends to sound rather tame
Please give me one more night,
I just wanna make things right.
What a fine sight – a child full of delight,
laughing and running and flying a kite!
Catharsis
If each poem would mirror a writer’s sin
There would be nothing left for priests to deem.
Frail, but resilient, emerging from drifts,
Wan petals, yet brilliant, as Winter’s coat lifts.
Soliloquy.
……………..
Between all that we’ve forgotten and between the things we’ve shared
There is such a warm sensation in the ways that we’ve both cared…
The world must change its borders
This land is not for hoarders
A word absurdly dreams of belonging.
To be forever phrased — longing’s longing.
Ted
I am six
Do you have anything to fix?
Kidz havta wear kevlar pjs 2 bed
2 wake up not shot dead
Chicago
The thing that she regretted most:
not putting poison on his toast.
Plymouth, England
The border is vast, majestic, and tall
That’s why it is called The Great Wall
A sign of life that flits from tree to tree,
‘Tis spring’s hello–the errant bumblebee.
Conservatives are fools: that’s just hors d’oeuvreative:
Because not every fool is a conservative.
Leggy Girls Days
A clock: you’ve got to walk it straight and narrow:
Pyramid based on truth I built as last Pharaoh.
Monkey is a feeling in front of the window;
Smile is healing even the Caliban`sorrow;
You are my little bow and I am the arrow,
I have in my hands the joy of a sparrow;
You learn by heart my lyrics like mellow;
Because, really I am a good funny fellow;
Peoples burn pain all in my bone marrow;
No night will fall down like a crowing crow
And let the struggle for an other tomorrow;
Each day is a leggy girl who still can borrow
No moments of my poem: a cloak to wrap a sorrow.
The clowns and the lions and stunt acts are great.
Where are we, the circus? No, prezy debate!
San Jose, CA
I’ll come tonight, my love, tonight, she said
The perfumed words I wish I’d never read.
I wrote a verse
That was too terse
“Hamlet’s Least Soliloquy,” by Skip Hughes of Greenfield, Indiana
An owlish phrase, to wit to woo, or not to woo
Yon maiden fair, is not the question hitherto.
But, leaves` procession under the kiss of the wind;
Buds of faith and hope live in philosophical mind.
One Reliable Thing
Each year I count on just one thing:
The melting of winter into spring.
When you hear talk of green but spell it “grieve,”
Remember life will make you lief to leave.
Peter G. Epps
Oklahoma City, OK
When you leave liefer things behind in grief,
Remember where they’re pressed and turn the leaf.
Peter G. Epps
Oklahoma City, OK
There was a bird up in a tree;
he was so high, he couldn’t see.
Mountain clouds, foot-trodden ways,
And pale pink trilliums in the haze.
Chantilly, VA
I love the imagery of your verse 🙂
When your mind is open and your heart is gold
Life’s about more than what your hands can hold
The Roi du Bois, upon his gilded mushroom throne,
Oft recalls in loneliness his soldiers swallowed by the Rhône.
Will my wage be delusion, my plans overthrown?
She’s already pregnant and – with her own clone!
China’s moon is dark with corruption and grime
Suppressing free speech is a human rights crime*
*The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, section 17, subsection 19:
“19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression: this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Free Liu Xiaobo!
The Rabbit and the Hatter sat to eat a sumptuous tea,
Until a girl fell done a hole and spoiled their privacy.
Here’s proof that one should never rush poetry…
It should, of course have read:
The Hatter and the Rabbit sat to eat a sumptuous tea,
Until a girl dropped down a hole and spoiled their privacy.
Apologies.
We are shadows–from thoughts, half-heartedly
Looking through a broken glass darkly
It’s a feast for the senses to be showered on, kissed
As the twangy scent of rain rises up its tasty mist.
From age to age treat all as equal;
then at life’s end you’ll love the sequel.
An Untitled Couplet
Within you lies the Hope Diamond of wealth,
How fortunate you are to be yourself.
Copyright 2016
Lots of ifs and buts are ensconced in that couplet.
Maybe if it rhymed….
‘Or saunter along together amidst a chilly mizzle,
Not a bower nearby to conceal us from the drizzle’
My soul is now in pieces, my world has shattered,
My mom died on Saturday, took all that mattered
What does love made from you
You can laugh, cry but he doesn’t see u
Congrats to the winners here…
It was an honor to participate in the competition against so many talented poets, and a pleasant surprise to be one of the winners. Thanks very much to the Society for sponsoring the contest. I have won prizes or honorable mentions in 38 poetry contests, but this is one of my favorites because everyone was able to read the submissions. — Mike Burch
Congratulations to all the winners
I hope you are lauded over dinners.
Especially, thanks to Evan Mantyk
who works so hard though his life gets frantic.
Thanks also to the judges and the staff
who helped choose winners, where there was no chaff.
A toast to this poetical crew-
To each and all I raise my brew!
And to the host,
I lift my toast.
I love you more than I can say:
please, oh please, let me come to stay.
A crescent moon swing hung on ropes of stars.
We joined hands and, laughing, swung for Mars.