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Winners Announced Here.
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CONTEST:
Begin with a favorite line from another poem, (or other literature) and “take off” on it in a different way.
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PRIZE:
$100. (You must have Paypal if you live outside the United States in order to collect your prize.)
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SUBMISSION FEE:
None.
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WHERE:
Post your submission in the comments section below. Include your full name and location. Example: John Smith, New York. One poem per poet.
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DEADLINE:
Sunday July 18, midnight EST. (Winners announced July 25.)
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WHO:
Anyone. Any age.
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JUDGE:
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EXAMPLE FROM THE JUDGE:
“Across the pale parabola of joy” from P.G. Wodehouse’s novel Leave It to Psmith
Across the pale parabola of joy,
Beyond the fountain spouting youthful streams,
Beneath the universal truth of dreams,
Eluding even Everyman’s envoy,
And looping past the point where paradox
Is juxtaposed on marrow meeting bone,
Beyond the tyranny of ticks and tocks,
The Answer lies—or stands, or sits—alone.
There, where the questions quake outside his gates,
The crux of time’s eternity awaits.
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Kathy Bahr – California
“What ails the midday sun?” From Constantijn Huygens “Good Friday”
What ails the midday sun?
Before or since golden sun, Earth exhaled orbit.
Passing through leaves, sunset skies, see as the birds arrive.
Emotions be revealed: glorious golden yellow and gentle day went by.
A red surge came, engaged with the sky.
Flux of change to darkened sky, was reflected on the water of the veins.
Piled on a water cloud beneath the sunset high.
Bird wings to stir over our space of golden weight against the sky.
WORDS OVER THE WIND………
Today the wind seems to blow very fast
The refreshing beauty it still seems to hast.
It appears to have no sound
But only some can hear the leaf crashing bound.
Birds are chirping here and there, crying
But, I here, sitting alone seem to dying.
Dying to hear them once again in life
Dying to have this moment again after thrive.
I want this to freeze,
And enjoy this smooth calming breeze.
But deep inside even I know
That this fulfilling seed I can never after sow.
This is what makes memories,
Memories, that will be said to children like stories.
I wish I had many life times,
So, I can live every moment and sing their hymns.
I wish I could fade with the wind
And forget the throbbing hind.
I wish I could travel with the blow
Travel and travel the world with a sudden throw.
At night it seems more calm
Blows over the cities and over the farm.
May some cannot smell
The sweet fragrance that makes me dwell.
The fragrance that is very dear to me
Which reminds me of my village where I loved to be.
Sometimes of flowers and nature
Or sometimes of past that are more stranger.
I hope I feel it the next time
I could even see its melodious chime.
I hope the next time I would flow with it
I could request for it to be with me off my acquit.
Today the wind seems to quell,
For me, but is always same whether heaven or hell.
By ANUSKA SAHUKAR, Hyderabad, Telangana, India.
gave you comment its at the bottom.
‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood’ from Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
Being lone traveler, long I stood,
Roads with the ways of no evidence
Left me in a sea of indifference.
O, perhaps the falling leaves
Of evident possibilities of existence
Or autumn trees would cease
The endless time, for instance.
Both the roads were equally torn
By the immortal tries, they had worn
Of travelers from some shady haunt,
Bearing with sake their desired want.
To all those steps, I asked around,
Once again, the past rewound;
Its shallow folds and paradoxes untold,
Making no choice was the only thing I found.
Impeccable.
are you the poet?
to the one liner?
Your form is so perfect.
SAILING TO SALAMIS
“Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness: from Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats
Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness
saw many drown beneath a burning sun.
Before the battle song had left their throats
the solemn priests brought death like a caress —
in fitting sacrifices, quickly done —
ensnared by huntsmen on these captured boats.
A bow, each back was bent, each hand stretched out,
so like Apollo’s, bringing death and drought.
They say we live within unchanging spheres,
so change is mere illusion to the eyes.
Death, then, must be just such a trick of God,
and vain are our imaginings and fears.
But like the basin set when someone dies,
the ripples of our life escape his nod.
The Hellenes sailed to meet the King of Kings,
while I conversed with ghosts of passing things.
Perhaps the same unfeeling Power keeps
the courtesans at Aphrodite’s shrine,
who beckon sailors to the waiting ships,
entice the cripples, even, to the sweeps,
and toast the winning side with honeyed wine —
the red of Persian paint upon their lips.
The temple women watch our fleet prepare,
while weaving festive ribbons in their hair.
“I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.” (Marianne Moore, ‘Poetry’)
Beyond the Echo
I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.
Accepting fun and leisure, still, be wary not to quiddle.
If you spend too long touring imaginary gardens,
marveling at real toads and counting every star in
the deep black sky that stretches far beyond the garden gate
where the unreflected image scornfully awaits,
you may doubt the hope from birdsong, the joy of apricity;
you may doubt the calm of winter nights, and related felicity.
Because you learned to like it first as a theory or idea,
you may fear everything is spurious; there is no Dulcinea.
But the rainbow, with its colors, can still remain itself.
A library is more than bricks and the books upon the shelf.
So like the sun that rises despite the gathering clouds,
allow yourself the hope in spite of all the doubts.
While it’s true you are, in part, the thoughts of others echoed,
you’re still more than what you’ve learned from the gardens and the toads.
“The scariest thing I have ever had to encounter.” (Reflection by S.S.W)
We Are Not Owned
The scariest thing I have ever had to encounter
Property is the house with no freedom or power
Flesh is the hollow cone that you think you own but is out home
Will is the power to not break but is seen as an object for you to take
Virginity is the construct of a man deciding what a woman can’t and can
An option is the line in the sand so easily blurred by the feet of a man
But no matter what you think you can do
We will always stand up think you
And believe the truth that I will speak across the land
For I am and always will be a woman
“The scariest thing I have ever had to encounter.” (Reflection by S.S.W)
We Are Not Owned
The scariest thing I have ever had to encounter
Property is the house with no freedom or power
Flesh is the hollow cone that you think you own but is our home
Will is the power to not break but is seen as an object for you to take
Virginity is the construct of a man deciding what a woman can’t and can
An option is the line in the sand so easily blurred by the feet of a man
But no matter what you think you can do
We will always stand up to you
And believe the truth that I will speak across the land
For I am and always will be a woman
Andrew Elliott – Georgia
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Or so I first believed
When idealistic youth was wed
To staunch naïveté
But with experience I have learned
The World prefers its Lies
So Truth must suffer fatally
Lest every man be wise—
Nivedita Karthik, Gurgaon, India
First line: “On either side the river lie”, from The Lady of Shalott, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The power of a poet
On either side the river lie
dissidents of the written word,
yet poetry’s flag flies on high—
printed, spoken, read or heard.
So here we stand now, proud and strong,
sharing our thoughts, baring our souls,
voices echoing like a gong
helping humans reach their goals.
Our words hit all the right spots
such that you just can’t deny
it’s poets who call all the shots
and stop things from going awry.
“To be, or not to be, that is the question,” from Hamlet
To be, or not to be, that is
The question lined with luxury
That padded princes sit and spout
From flasks that flow with empty fizz:
A foaming of frivolity
That obfuscates their kingdom’s drought.
“To be” may fill a logic quiz,
But for the man in poverty,
His straining, starving limbs cry out
For fate to stretch this toil of his
To long, lean years of c’est la vie.
He has no time to toy with doubt.
The brokers of the brainy biz
May deal in vague philosophy
And wonder “why” and “what about,”
While warriors wince as bullets whiz
And fight the urge to flee, “to be.”
The question, they can live without.
Ananya Kamath- Cupertino, California
“Hold fast to dreams”, from Dreams, by Langston Hughes.
A Generational Dream.
‘Hold fast to dreams,’
Said the man with guile,
But his woeful life
Was betrayed in his smile.
‘And nurture that dream.’
The old man sighed.
‘This world is cruel
And dreams may die.’
‘Hold fast to dreams,’
The jaded girl cried,
‘The dream is the payment
For a life enjoyed.’
‘And may you live that dream,’
Said my mother dear,
‘Your forefathers killed theirs
To get us here.’
‘Hold fast to dreams,’
Said a man full of guile.
He led a woeful life
For the sake of his child.
‘And… nurture that dream.’
An old man sighed.
To keep his child fed
His dream had died.
‘Hold fast to dreams!’
A jaded girl cried.
Her parents’ dead dreams
Laid bloody by her side.
‘And please live your dream,’
Said my mother dear,
‘It took many a weary man
To get us here.’
Elizabeth Bennett
Searsport, Maine
“Once upon a time,
Sixty years ago…”
—opening lines to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “The Little House in the Big Woods
Once upon a time,
Sixty years ago,
I told the story of that day,
Related in a different way,
Although.
I was younger then,
My world was different, too.
I’ve heard you cannot change the past,
But, at the least, today recasts
Its hue.
“The wheel of the roaring stillness” from G.K. Chesterton’s “The Ballad of the White Horse”
The wheel of the roaring stillness
Rolls ever on in flame.
Behold! All properties in One,
A glory greater than the sun,
And yet always the same.
The wheel of the roaring stillness
Rolls ever on in fire.
The fount of goodness here is found
To which all goodness does redound
And satisfies desire.
Oh Trinity, the Three in One,
“Three orbs of triple hue,”
A doubled rainbow here is shown
(With colors yet to man unknown)
Ablaze with Something of Their Own–
An ancient, secret Living Throne
Remaining ever new.
The wheel of the roaring stillness
Does not begin or end.
By love constrained He keeps His art,
In everything He plays His part,
Suggesting to the human heart:
The Godhead condescends.