come with me my love
I will wait untill you do
do hurry my love
Parents have a sacred responsibility.
Children need to be surrounded by harmony.
Adults, get your priorities straight.
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
The library is a well.
Everyone drinks here without coins,
without proving they deserve water.
Come inside.
The old man reads his newspaper by the window,
teenagers cluster around computers like moths to light,
a mother spreads picture books on the floor
while her children build towers from blocks.
This is the hearth where strangers warm themselves,
the table where rich and poor sit down together,
passing knowledge like bread,
hand to hand.
Outside,
the world charges for everything,
a chair costs money,
warmth costs money,
even standing still in the wrong place costs something.
But here the door opens.
Here the librarian says How can I help you? to everyone,
no matter what's in their wallet or their past.
This is what democracy looks like up close:
bodies in chairs,
hands on books,
people teaching themselves to grow
toward light like seeds in a shared garden.
When the library closes,
we scatter back into the cold world.
But tomorrow the doors open again,
the lights come on,
and we return to this last free place,
this harbour,
this home we're learning to protect.
Fire and ice don't mix.
She and her ex will never agree.
Must kids pay the price?
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Broken Charger
My phone at 1%
Love's battery runs empty
Who gon' charge me now?
Dusk hums low again
I scroll through old convos-sigh.
Ghosts read ''typing...still''
(Sedoka)
Drum
Beat
heart loud
in freedom
rising,broken-
dance!
(Lantern poem)
Mzantsi Bus Stop
Minibus honks, dust rise high-
vendors shout,wives wave koebaai.
Wind smells like pap stew.
prayer and perfume too-
Time flies-
So do I
(Clogyrnach)
Heilbron Love Song
She wears my T-shirt.
Famo music follows her hips.
streets lights blink approval.
I forget my sorrows
The world dances small.
(Gogyohka)
Truth
Revolutions begin the day you whisper, ''enough''.
(monostich)
Taxi Ride To Wepenaar
Rain drops on glass so slow
city lights blink-I see hope glow
(Luc Bat poem)
Wi-Fi Gospel
No signal again,
but somehow Jesus still calls
bless the hotspot Lord
(zappai poem)
Last night silence spoke,
with fear and with dread,
a language whispered
only in the dark,
spoken by shadows,
heard mainly by kids.
Few adults could hear
what light would not bear
but darkness conveyed—
that language of fear
spoken in silence.
But who taught us
how to speak and hear?
What spirits cannot spit,
yet phantoms cry out,
to our trembling ears.
The night holds its breath,
its secrets confined,
trees bend to listen,
their shadows arise,
to echo the hush.
Fears stagger and fall,
as silence takes shape,
a face without form,
a voice without sound,
that silence still dread.
The star-planet is straight above
Two kid-adults on a trampoline.
Side-by-side they watch the sky
At one a.m. on the months eve
Quietly, they're waiting, staring
As time tosses and turns between
The adult-kids who prep like vets
For the other kid-adult to leave
They lay solemn side-by-side
Distanced by a lack of sleep
They make their vows on satellites
Shooting stars, and falling wings
Today-tomorrow, when they wake
They'll find their voice on everything
But tonight, they're kid-adults
Side-by-side on a trampoline
d
e
e
p blue sea f r e s h n e s s
like the c o o l n e s s our love b
r
i
n
g
s~
two adults in love
l e f t to r i g h t,
we ~ d ~ r ~ i ~ f ~ t ~ ~
though the ~s~e~a~~ w~a~v~e~s~ rise and
roll~
our love, remains fresh
Contest: YOUR CHOICE o
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
Contest Judged:May 26th, 2025 9:49:00 PM
Placement: First
This type of poem is called a tricube
3 syllables each line, 3 lines per stanza and 3 stanzas
Fountain
a fountain
in the street
water flows
children splash
play all day
mothers watch
with utmost
elation
life is fun
Children skip and run
sing and laugh…
as if the anvil of humidity
reaches down to crush the will
of adults only
When debate gets personal and inflamed,
You cry: 'Why can't you talk like an adult?'
'Why can't you engage in adult conversation,
without the claptrap, rants and rage with hurls of abuse and name calling?'
But, I wonder if this is really wise.
For out of the mouths of babes big things grow!
Little voices, utter unfiltered truths.
Resplendent in their concise simplicity.
Unbound by convention's constraints.
They see the world with profound clarity devoid of taints.
They ask easy questions, from their inquiring minds,
That challenge adult's cluttered and confused assumptions.
Their untamed and unabashed honesty in talk,
Cuts to the quick of the question's inner core and kernel.
Children see the world with fresh, clear eyes,
Unfettered by custom fetish, bias or disguise.
Innocent voices, unfiltered and all too true,
Speak simple truths, we've forgotten we knew.
Adults need to speak more child-like,
to be truly useful, helpful and truthful.
We get the blame so very often,
Less life experience they say.
They think they're so much better than us,
because let’s face it we’re
merely children.
Pure and simple no worries on our mind.
But even when they scold and frown,
the blame certainly is not always ours.
What really puts them and us apart,
except hours?
The only thing they want is something we can’t reach.
Since we are us and they are them,
neither perfect nor willing to admit it.
And with time passing our differences shrink
our status molded into one,
the story repeats once again,
with the children of our own.
She made the biggest mistakes
When suddenly put on the brakes
From going all the way
With a guy named Play
So, he ended up giving her the shakes
Snowflurries Swirl
Snow falls inside the glass globe:
A swimming, swirling vision
Where four youngsters pose frozen
In their run to leap to a win
For the longest sliding glide
Along an icy, country road
Where no traffic flows;
Near a row of evergreens
that do not grow;
Overseen by a pair of pinpoint specks
for the black, button eyes on
that morning’s made snowman;
And from across an ever-white yard,
In front of a tiny, stone cabin,
Stand some adults, bundled up
To guard against freezing in flying snow —
All huddled together with arms raised
And their painted mouths wide open
In mid-cheer, “Go! Go!”
So loud…So excitedly set to see
Their youngsters, who will not age,
Leap and slide into a race
That has no distance and no winner
— Over ice that does not melt…
All figured to be a vision of some
Heartwarming winter life
That will not end.
—————————————————————————————————————
(c) sally young eslinger 11/1-6/2023
Thanks be to God——-
Skipping to the ending of the page, kids growing up too quick
No longer scared of dentist and being alone, no longer a kid
Caring far too much about being an adult, a poor young mind being tormented with a stick
They promised blue skies creativity without a lid
Well rest on the floor trying to cope with the emotional baggage of an adult
My respect is yours I'm not ready to be an adult, I'm only a child
Let me paint my painting without correcting it's mistakes but you care for results
Mother and father are brick walls that I must obey or I'll be a burning pile
Of a useless kid who fears growing up
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