Winner's Showcase

[Travers]

In an effort to give more recognition to the winning entries of the monthly Poetry Challenge, here we have the Winner's Showcase.
Each month, the winning entry will be added to this thread to give these poems the chance to get the views they deserve, and to inspire all you poets out there with the cream of our challenge crop.

So, come in, peruse with pleasure and get your creative juices flowing!



*** Links added to poem titles. Click the link and 'like' the poem in the challenge threads - NOT me re-posting it!! ***

[Travers]

July 2013 - "Books" Challenge Winner.

Kindles and Dinosaurs by pigletinportugal

​How can a Kindle be a treasured friend
this plastic book with no page to bend.
Not dog-eared or torn, stained with salty tears,
margins pencilled with notes from passing years.

They won’t change my mind or feelings cajole
for this plastic usurper, with no soul.
They say it’s great but I don’t understand,
so this Kindle book in our house, is banned!

You’re not listening I say, real books are fine.
I don’t care for Kindle’s latest design.
Gizmos and gadgets don’t interest me
I like the feel of a real book, you see.

I huff, as my battle with words is lost
what price a Kindle with the hidden cost?
Will libraries be a thing of the past
as Kindles advance and the die is cast?

Friends give me their best “I-know-it-all” look
as they chant: Kindles now replace the book.
I sigh, mindful of all the friends I’ve read.
I’m a dinosaur; are books really dead?

[Travers]

August 2013 - "Sunset" Challenge Winner.

Sunset's Promise by Chester's Daughter

Cotton candy skies
caress my eyes
and set twanging nerves
to rest.
Every day slinks away
with a vivid vow:

my cosmic cocoon
is on its way.

Succor to flay
the daily fray.

[Travers]

September 2013 - "Confessions" Challenge Winner

Kindly click to view:

cutting by lasm

[Chesters Daughter]

October 2013 - "Trust" Challenge Winner

Empty Hands by Gumby

She was daddy's favorite gloves,
often used, then tossed aside;
where every boy who picked her up,
tried her on for size.

With clumsy, adolescent dips
in between her thighs, to lips
that slipped around a truth
too hard to swallow—
like those empty gloves, inside she's hollow.

Passed from hand to hand
she’ll never find that perfect fit,
daddy saw to it.
With every crook of finger
across baby skin, he carved her up,
an open, tender bud from which he plucked.
She hates him? She hates him not?
Questions that the flower cannot settle,
a pet theory her McShrinks often peddle.

But late at night she wonders...
if life is such a precious gift from God,
why does living only make her feel so cheap?
Then she’ll chase another Xanax with Bacardi
and slip into the empty hands of sleep.

[Chesters Daughter]

November 2013 - "Being Alone" Challenge Winner

At middle-night, on upland heights by toddm

At middle-night, on upland heights
along a shelf of time-scarred rock,
he would wander beneath the lights
of the glittering celestial clock.

But untold the hours he tarried there,
while wind seethed past him in the grass;
the moon sailed on the night-sea fair
and none came nigh him to harass.

Ever and anon on such mild nights
he made his bed in heather deep
until dawn touched the upland heights
to gently wake him from his sleep.

[Gumby]

December 2013 - "Peace" Challenge Winner

I Am by Pandora



'An unmanned vessel goes in circles'


I am managing the river.

Learning the currents,

flowing and floating

weaving my way,

directed by land that holds me.


I am mother with unborn child,

my life blood shared.

I have a choice of dance,

the love of song.

I am conducted by miracles.


I am words,

the vessel of thought enlightened

and bright.

Carrying me to you,

then Us,

straight down

The River Eternity.


'Peace is at the helm'

[Gumby]

January 2014 - "Legacy" Challenge Winner

Pandora's Inheritance by toddm

In a strange way the light illumines
the whites of her eyes, the smiles
and happy balloons, floating away
into an overexposed collodion sky.
High clouds are knife-spread too thin
across the crimson-crusted morning.
The backyard is a frowning garden,
all monochrome and mildewed;
the birdbath brims with maple leaves
and black frozen water; a drunken
wheelbarrow slumbers and rots
amid shadows and unmown grass;
but dawn is fresh upon the hard mud
and fragments of plastic playthings,
little smiling girls and pink-glitter horses
with broken legs; the air is clean and cold,
full of serene indifference and the scent
of chimney smoke; a withered shrine
of firewood and cinder blocks is forgotten
in the shade of a dying brown fir;
the house is locked and empty; she breathes
on her fingers, and pines for her gloves;
an icy tear falls from the aluminum awning,
and shatters upon the crumpled earth.

[Gumby]

February 2014 - "Night" Challenge Winner

Scene Change by astroannie

with pen and inkwell
the writer closes the day
drawing forth darkness

[Gumby]

March 2014 - "Zero" Challenge Winner

Countdown by Squalid Glass


I often think about the universe
and loss. But meter is always scarce;
time is just God doing his worst,
so I guess I’ll make this terse:
You are no longer here.
I look at the far,
dark sky on clear
nights at stars
light-years
go--