Summer breaks, it goes to bed,
The sunburnt country is no longer red.
Autumn’s breath begins to creep
Across the plains and gullies deep.
It plays an eerie, thoughtful tune,
Beneath a warm and amber moon,
Whispering amongst the majestic gums
To warn the scrub the season comes.
While the changing leaves don't hit the eye:
Bursting gold appears beneath the southern sky,
Bright wattles along the dirt track
To push the longer shadows back.
A flock of cockatoos takes flight,
Screaming at the angled light.
For me, this wind is pure relief...
I find no need for any grief.
He stands by the window,
a glass of whiskey in his hand,
watching the rain pull the city
into little fractured mirrors.
Ten years, he thinks, ten years
since the house fell quiet,
since the brother turned thief,
slicing chunks out of their father,
not with blades but with empty words
and promises that tore at their seams.
Love is a joke some days,
a noose others,
and tonight it’s the weight
pulling down hard
on the bridge of his nose.
He pictures his brother now,
tall, sharp-angled laugh,
skin folded with time
and shamelessness,
the guileless predator
preying on the man who raised them,
left him lighter in the pockets,
heavier in the heart.
And though he loves him
doesn’t he always?
he could snap his neck clean
if the moment called for symmetry.
But Cain and Abel,
he wonders,
were the gods wrong to decide
who bled first?
Some sins stink worse,
and guilt is always tender.
Evening breeze entices mortal souls,
Tangled dreams drifting amidst stars.
Harmonized vocals whispering with promise,
Elated to bask under heaven's dome,
Reincarnate bold ideals that strive to flourish.
Exhaling goodwill at every beat.
Audible gasps at the strike of midnight
Laden with hope for humankind.
AP: 1st place 2026
The three-quarter angled moon -
like a monstrous, baleful, cataracted eye -
blindly searched the dark beneath
where death was heard in a cut off cry -
nothing else but a rustle in the undergrowth;
a struggle to breathe between two jaws.
Something kicked twice and then was still;
an unseen end in teeth and claws.
I froze to hear both a victory and tragedy;
for something was fed and something died;
and somewhere the babes in a den would be full;
and somewhere the babes in a nest be denied.
The moon will not always look down at creation
cursed to this time of predator and prey.
The lion and lamb will lie down together
because even death will die one day.
I sit in the hush beneath my thoughts,
my memories drifting like dust in angled light,
nothing rising quickly
or asking to be named.
The world outside softens around the edges,
its colors dimming~
being pulled toward the quiet center
where my soul waits, listening.
Shadows move gently here~
not with fear,
but with the tenderness of things
I once turned away.
They open slowly in my hands,
their stories trembling
before settling back into my chest.
In this interior stillness
I feel myself gathered~
not polished,
not resolved,
simply held
by the truth of being here.
I WEAR IT, LIKE I MEAN IT
Brim dipped low enough
to make you look twice
high enough to let you
catch the heat in my eyes
This isn't decoration, its declaration.
I wear it like I mean it
I wear like I heart it
I swag it out, add my sauce, and wear it just like, I like it.
The Brim traces shadows down my cheekbones
across my mouth, resting like it knows it's framing temptation
My posture deepens, My voice lowers
My walk slows into something deliberate
I wear it like I mean it
I wear like I like it
I swag it out, add my sauce, and wear it like just like, I like it.
You really dont know, you haven't been told
being unforgettable is not the goal. Please hear me, queens
I must speak bold. Sexy isn't noise, Sexy is control.
So when I step into the room, uplifting the gloom.
hat angled, confidence charged
understand, I didn't come to be noticed
I came to be remembered.
I wear it like I mean it
I wear like I heart it
I swag it out, add my sauce, and wear it like just like, I like it.
One, two, three, angled
Toes, fingers, teeth, mangled
"We WiLl bE fReE tO FiNaLlY sEe!"
The stomach's foot wriggles with glee
Amalgamation is the only way
Our Smith knows and begins to pray
No warning mouthed before the clasp
Gluttonous gloop scoops the foot in a grasp
Triple digits move swiftly and quick
The Stars lucky they are not here to see sick
Lashings, fingerings, scars and rot
Devoured by a trap the other sought
"HoW cOuLd YoU? wE WeRe pRoMiSed fuel...?"
The question dwindles, quiet and cruel
As our Smith digests, then takes a rest
And soon hears, newly, a crackling crest
Further over into the dark
We who have eyes see it stark
A fierce Furnace, the Fire's Cot
Where many Names are burned and forgot.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~On hooks they dangle, memories spun in glass~
Refracting fire’s light like frozen laughter.
Nights hum softly against their curves,
As fingertips trace the year's last ghosts.
Mercury gleam of a childhood long since gone,
Each one a silent carol, waiting to be sung.
No two alike, yet strung together~
Tangled lights, untangling time.
Silvered edges catching the tree's last light.
Afternoon sunlight angled deep and low
Across the flooded fields of sunflowers aglow
Massive strips of sparkling yellow fairy light
Travelling over green and ochre tilled lands bright
With drops of rain, like tears from late day showers
On giant comic faces and trembling leafy hands
Each bizarre and staring flower posing in sunshine stands
And seems to laugh, echoes of forgotten renaissance heroes
Lost in breezes in farm fields of known and knowing flowers
Time has its quadrants,
past, future, inside and out,
mapping how we think
Yet the mind drifts across lines
Taking off-ramps into dreams
Fourfold reflections—
reason, desire, memory
with emotion too
Each one hums a soft refrain
angled back towards ourselves
Seasons share one throne—
spring, summer, autumn, winter
each a sovereign reign
yet the wheel's perimeter
pulls the spokes to turn around
Lines divide what's seen
yet center and rim conspire
to keep the wholeness
so the wheel quadrants can spin
around a time-wound axis.
Each day holds four realms—
dawn, morning, afternoon, dusk
daylight in quadrants
in the arc the sun sketches
to divide the problem pie
Beneath these quarters,
a hidden thread is woven—
inner, outer selves
then the collectives we share
in culture, outer systems
A girl traces her name on a lotus
wet petal,
black ink finger,
the blossom closes on blank water.
She pockets the air.
Pink sticky notes colonise the mirror:
Poet, Loved by All,
toothpaste specks between her futures.
Each morning she nods at the manifesto fogging under her breath.
The vision board:
a ransom note to the universe.
Magazine scissors,
glossy mouths smiling,
glue stick still uncapped.
She walks through doorways as if hinges are already singing,
her shoulder angled for the width of yes.
At night,
the lotus opens anyway moonlit,
empty,
holding nothing but its own white throat.
Jazz Composition
Common Verses Free
French Free Form Overature Jazz
5th 3rd overature
Circles. 2 twice trumpet
Haunting 3rd brass instruction
From further below
Than rise
Chirps measure
Blackbird is the altered blues draw
Birds chirp in a paired 3 verses 3 top measure of 2 in line
Over 3 verses 3 verses 3
Bottom measure of 3 in line circling waters break in flight
3d's in a separated pair
Second pair drifts in to flight
Bottom row
3 b's lilting right lift
3 p's
Inverted taking notes
Hanging for eyes dear last measure
Forty five angled plight swoons seating oft
Canary yellow wings of warmth oil a canvas
Jazz Composition
Common Verses Free
French Free Form Overature Jazz
5th 3rd overature
Circles. 2 twice trumpet
Haunting 3rd brass instruction
From further below
Than rise
Chirps measure
Blackbird is the altered blues draw
Birds chirp in a paired 3 verses 3 top measure of 2 in line
Over 3 verses 3 verses 3
Bottom measure of 3 in line circling waters break in flight
3d's in a separated pair
Second pair drifts in to flight
Bottom row
3 b's lilting right lift
3 p's
Inverted taking notes
Hanging for eyes dear last measure
Forty five angled plight swoons seating oft
Canary yellow wings of warmth oil a canvas
green, yellow, and red
angled planes catch the sunlight
dancing in the breeze
Pets Poetry Contest // Sponsored by: Rob Carmack
Contest Judged: 9/7/2025 6:49:00 PM
( 9th Place )
Written: September 02, 2025
He waits at the edge of morning,
ears angled toward a distant sound.
A single breath, a quiet length
then he bounds, unstoppable
through the thin gold sliver of sunlight
that slips underneath the door.
His eyes bring the weight of wonder:
Each step a question, a story.
The flick of his tail is a language of love.
cherishing quiet contentment.
I kneel and he rests in...
A soft warmth burning against my hand
and for a fleeting, perfect heartbeat
the world is nothing but fur,
sunlight and the trust
that lives in the spaces between.
Every flick of his tail brings
a story only our hearts recall.
Sub Categories
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