And Now the Winning Poems...

MIDDLE SCHOOL CATEGORY

Katie Bateman

1^st Place Winner

Grievers, the Glade and an Unsolvable Maze

I begin my new life standing up

Surrounded by cold,

darkness,

and the stench

of dusty air.

I suddenly hear a lurching shudder

Of metal against metal

rises.

me

beneath

floor

the

As

I fall down at the sudden movement

I’m on my hands and knees

Sweat beading on my forehead

Despite the cold air.

jolt,

With another the room jerks upward

Like a lift in an old mine shift.

The lightness elevator sways and

back forth

Turning my stomach sour with nausea

As a smell of burnt oil

Invades my senses.

I want to cry

But no tears come.

I can only sit here

Alone

Waiting for what horrors that are sure to come.

Amber Palma

2^nd Place Winner

Revelations

Revelations

Words and words

A poets mind

Shall fill the holes,

Click, click

The keyboard keys

Word for word

Begins to ease,

Calm beginning to

Tragic end

Something that can

Scare the dead,

Millions of words

Float through my mind

But only one completes the bind,

Revelations

Liam Peterson

3^rd Place Winner

Revolutionary Tilt

The Earth revolves and tilts to make the year

First it’s winter, first season of the year,

Glistening, the snow, untrampled, with all its beauty

But when it is trampled it is just ugly.

The Earth revolves and tilts to make the year,

Then comes spring, releasing winter’s fear,

Beautiful, the new flowers, and the fireplaces sooty,

But the weeds can make the flowers ugly.

The Earth revolves and tilts to make the year,

Next there is summer, great for roaming deer

The rippling waters, full of beauty, may hold secrets, like hidden pirate booty,

But when people disturb it more than ripples, it will just get ugly.

The Earth revolves and tilts to make the year,

Finally comes fall, bringing signs of winter’s fear,

The changing leaves show great beauty, but the ground is rooty

And the barren trees, and the leaves trampled, are ugly.

HIGH SCHOOL CATEGORY

Ambrielle Army

1^st Place Winner

Nuclear Holocaust

Mushroom Cloud Watching

And the world lay beautifully exhausted beyond these four fragile walls,

As God’s breath exhaled across the earth.

Fields, planes, and cities alike shed their delicate petals

Among the ashes of the forgiven.

They crumble so peacefully,

I can barely hear their lovely tears.

Scorched at the roots,

Life itself shall not awaken,

And the beautifully optimistic and innocent practice we used to call

‘Progress’ withers in the dust.

We may be alone, but the world

Is more precious now.

The last flashes of blinding light have

Danced across curious eyelids,

Leaving only lightning to appease Nature’s boredom.

We await the day when our divine symphony

Filters out into the final song of silence

Our world has so deserved.

Our day marks closer with each tumbling snowflake.

Here, in this desolate world of our spinning,

A gentle smile plays across its lips as its heart

Surrenders the final sacrifice.

And here, there are more ends than beginnings.

Paige Frarey

2^nd Place Winner

Kaleidoscope Sky

Time.

The silent thief.

Dragging away

flickering glimpses

of memories.

Tenuous memories.

Stealthily abducts my thoughts.

A burglar creeping. Tiptoeing around. Identity unknown.

Takes.

Steals.

Rips.

Tears.

Snatching.

Always snatching.

A crystalline bracelet.

A bracelet of memories.

Sparkling with the remembrance

of better times.

When my grandma lived

we sailed on the lake

of forgotten memories.

The sky painted with fire.

D r i f t i n g.

Floating on a lake of indigo.

Weaving through waves of gold.

Aimlessly wandering

along aisles of dreams.

Defying the realms of possibility.

Getting lost among waves of silver.

Hopelessly misplaced

in retrospection.

We leap.

Fly.

And

p

l

u

n

g

e

into

the azure lake.

Scattering the pebbles of wishes.

The water biting.

The frigid chill tilts my bones.

Bitter as the burglar’s soul.

Swimming faster.

Racing.

In hopes to leave the thieving behind

in the ripples of sorrow.

Stalking.

Lurking.

Lingering.

The lake sparkles like an opalescent pearl.

Its dazzling brilliance

stunning.

Competing

with the glimmering radiance

of the sun.

The memory of

the house of

3

6

7

6

Obliterated from my mind.

The longer the burglar stays,

The more I lost sight of

two little girls

who

sway on a hammock in the shade of a willow tree.

The hammock silently swings

with the recollections

of the forgotten iridescence of a certain kaleidoscope sky.

Natalie Newton

3^rd Place Winner

History

Lost words,

Separated by the spacious chasms of time.

Long since bounced off a wet tongue,

In potent words piercing the silence,

The long since lost their sting.

The parts of the story,

That used to mean the most,

Parts where you pause, let the breeze whistle quietly,

Or the rain drizzle rhythmically,

Or maybe the transparent silence arise,

To let the feelings set in,

To let the air thicken with the reality,

That what you say has substance,

Disappears slowly

First went the words.

Then went the faces.

The glances.

The places.

The secrets.

Time passes swiftly.

Selfishly confiscating moments in its wake.

as if in a moment, in a year,

in a span that allows the hair to gray,

the skin to wrinkle and eyes to fog,

the parts you like pause for,

to let the feelings set in,

to let the air thicken with the reality,

That what you say has substance.

Vanishes

In the end all that you recall,

Is the consciousness of your mind,

The madness of the moment,

The sensations still resonating underneath your skin

The nervous gasps for breath,

The chill of a cold breeze across your cheek,

The perpetual beat of your own heart,

The rest is history.