Poetry Wheel Challenge: August 24, 2026
Theme: Destiny
Emotion: Joy
Color: Sapphire
Season: Midwinter
Form: Free Verse
Object: Crown
Verb: Carry
midwinter holds a sapphire clarity,
a brightness rising where the cold thins,
as if destiny were forming itself
in the quiet geometry of light.
you carry a small crown of joy~
not gold, not ceremonial~
just a precise glint of future
resting in your hands
An antique shovel pushes into sacred dirt,
sprinkled with cinnamon and crushed obsidian rose petals,
while a blazing bonfire roars,
lighting up the night sky.
Ravens watch with intense scrutiny,
the voices in my head quieting,
as snakes slither around my neck.
Opening a weathered pouch,
I remove ceremonial offerings:
bottles of blood-red wine and pristine garnets.
I place them among shedded snake skin,
gingerly replacing the earthen soil.
The intoxicating scent of dragon's blood surrounds me.
Orange flames crackle, mutating into the deepest blues.
Claret clouds partially cover the full moon.
Shadows of ebony horns dance within the in-between.
Melodious gothic hymns fill an anticipating soul.
Warm breath flirts with the back of my neck.
Razor-sharp nails gently glide against pale flesh.
A beautifully savage silhouette forms in the corner of my eye.
Tonight, I dance with Lilith
among the ashes of glorious destruction.
My left sock filed taxes on a Tuesday frog,
while a cabbage sang opera to a confused log.
The moon ate a stapler with mustard delight,
then borrowed a canoe from the darkness of light.
I purchased a banana for seventeen clouds,
but the receipt was allergic to yodeling crowds.
A rhinoceros teacup performed ballet cheese,
and a watermelon sneezed in seven languages.
My toaster proposed to a decorative brick,
their wedding was speedy, suspiciously quick.
The minister hamster wore cinnamon pants,
while unicycling ferrets performed tribal dances.
At midnight a turnip became Vice President,
its policies largely were soup-oriented.
It promised free waffles for every raccoon,
and declared every Thursday a ceremonial spoon.
The end is approaching, or maybe a chair.
A penguin just shampooed the national air.
I leave you this wisdom, profound as a sock:
If potatoes can whisper,
then gravy can rock.
Fin.
Or asparagus.
They changed their flags before sunrise,
and called it weather.
By noon the microphones were blooming
like plastic flowers in dust.
Reporters asked straight questions;
answers arrived sideways,
oiled and smiling,
wrapped in patriotic ribbon.
A man declared himself the nation,
the worker, the owner,
the speech, the applause,
the hand that signs its own praise.
He wore green glasses in famine
and praised the harvest.
He wore dark glasses in fire
and admired the shade.
Truth stood outside barefoot,
waiting to be invited in.
No one heard her knock
above the cutlery of ambition.
Wherever the platter was fullest,
there rolled the faithful.
Principles were folded neatly
and kept for ceremonial days.
Someone asked why the hen
still sat upon the egg.
The minister promised progress,
a cushioned chair by evening.
We laughed, because laughter
is cheaper than revolt.
We laughed, because the room
was wired to record our silence.
And still, every season,
the chair arrives before justice.
Hands hold tight to the loose ends of hope
As we toil and crack, night and day,
Hoeing up bits of earth and its fragile retributions.
Our crops and little beads of sweat drip to waste
On the ground’s boiling soils.
Eyeh is another name for a deceased generation.
The ones that sprout stubbornly through restive
Delays get re-greened, losing vibes of communal
Watering, ceremonial baptisms.
Birds build their nests in haste,
When bent cusp-blades sprout secretly at twilights,
Behind ethereal curtains of dawn falling
To the consternation of treacly, bitter syrups of time . . .
Is this continuous planting . . . and delirious season?
Has it come to that —when drunken war mongers
Form weapons from slats of pallid bamboo stationed
At the guard posts of violated yams and their flaccid
Tendrils?
I fear.
Such suzerainty over yellowing crops
Transcends the coats of black dust hiding from the disease
Of identity.
It is still planting season, brethren.
The deafening sounds of cannons shake the stalks yonder.
There's a smug dance of weevils on the graves of tubers.
[Placed 2nd : Standard Contest
Sponsor : Tania Kitchin]
______________________
hug
extracts
incense smoke
penetrate veins
woody breast opened
rooted solid
smiling leaves
waving
dance
_____________________________________
Poet’s Note : Cedar is an important Native American ceremonial tree, the bark used for incense and as a purifying herb. It is associated with prayer, healing, dreams & protection. Many consider the Cedar a symbol of sacredness & providence. Its bark, used in sweat lodge ceremonies has a sweet, strong smell ~ making it conducive to spiritual work. This tree symbolises purification & inner transformation.
In ancient Native American rituals, tribes danced around Cedars saluting their attributes. I start this Ninette with HUG & end it with DANCE as salute to the POWER OF ONE.
The faithful bow their heads
at the call to prayer
and kneel down in humility
but what if no one's listening
what if no one's there who cares
then it's all futility
a crime a waste of time
throughout the ages
what makes them willing to follow
like lambs to the slaughter
a purposelessness inside needs filling
an empty shell wholly hollow
it's all man-made solemnity
with ceremonial trappings
a means to control the soul
disguised in thinly-veiled wrappings
the so-called spiritual leaders
have much to answer for
no matter which religion
not a one guilt-free of shame
to make the penitent cower
tho' all is done in the name
of a higher power
Each time I see her face, there is a spark of immense desire
The flame dances in the wind of despair
My heart feels like it is being set on a ceremonial marriage pyre
Oh but his heart does not need to be in a state of repair
The external pack sees his happiness as a cause of joy
Each step he takes they applaud his actions and give him praise
Others may see it as a thought to destroy
To him it is the opportunity to go through the phase
A kiss from the flame is done through words and actions
The dancing flame shows his passion
He knows that her heart is not in other factions
During one night of stress, she gave him compassion
As he dreams to one day hold her in his arms
He promises to protect her from all harms
I butter the toast as if it were a pardon,
its crust breaking under my knife
like a sealed envelope.
The coffee is bitter ink,
a confession cooling in its cup.
I swallow it fast,
as if speed could trick the executioner.
When I buy myself flowers
I imagine them lining a witness box:
petals trembling,
each one swearing I once existed.
I take long baths,
the water climbing like hours,
the body softening, rehearsing its exit.
Every errand feels ceremonial:
the grocer weighing apples,
the cashier stamping receipts—
as if recording my presence
before the page turns blank.
I buy the trinket, the sugared cake,
because why shouldn’t the condemned
glitter a little,
lick the spoon clean?
The hours leer,
their faces blindfolded.
Any minute the rope could tighten—
a phone could ring with pardon.
So I go on feeding myself,
scraping honey from the jar,
gilding my throat
for the last song or the first acquittal,
as though I might vanish mid-bite,
or else be called back,
my name suddenly rinsed clean
from the record.
The natives have
(since the seventh month peeped
through the lean crescent eye of the moon)
worn cloaks of festivities.
They dance the rites,
squelching proudly in mud and green pools
of water.
On their heads are smouldering fires of corns
And pears, and ingredients of a lush season.
Behold their mothers’ breasts!
Flopping tonelessly with life and ceremonial milk.
The engaging flesh of birth.
And their fathers’ ribs —bare and fractured—
Like splinters from bamboos of white; strong bows of
A fragmented hunting group.
Their daughters dance with frenzied gaits,
Insisting on frantic melodies.
Drums throb on with the vim of restlessness.
Flutes hasten with the speed of departing tunes.
Ogele* sounds with the rhythm of fraternal bliss . . . .
The village sons bend their torsos in tremulous dance steps,
reluming low-burning
ancestral fires.
Breathe in now the image of a raging ceremony,
Symbols of a rite,
which hang on the rafters of a community,
this seventh month of the yam calendar.
*Metal gong
The natives have
(since the seventh month peeped
through the lean crescent eye of the moon)
worn cloaks of festivities.
They dance the rites,
squelching proudly in mud and green pools
of water.
On their heads are smouldering fires of corns
And pears, and ingredients of a lush season.
Behold their mothers’ breasts!
Flopping tonelessly with life and ceremonial milk.
The engaging flesh of birth.
And their fathers’ ribs —bare and fractured—
Like splinters from bamboos of white; strong bows of
A fragmented hunting group.
Their daughters dance with frenzied gaits,
Insisting on frantic melodies.
Drums throb on with the vim of restlessness.
Flutes hasten with the speed of departing tunes.
Ogele* sounds with the rhythm of fraternal bliss . . . .
The village sons bend their torsos in tremulous dance steps,
reluming low-burning
ancestral fires.
Breathe in now the image of a raging ceremony,
Symbols of a rite,
which hang on the rafters of a community,
this seventh month of the yam calendar.
*Metal gong
It falls with grace.
Metallic bawls hail the strength of zinc roofs.
At the mercy of the thatch,
Drops drip from needle points of skeletal
Palm fronds.
Particles of rain descend on thresholds
Among dewed terrains.
The petrichor befriends the atmosphere,
Caressing limpid warmth with floating cold.
Lightning, a white dancing Anaconda, races with speed,
Filling the tenebrous plains with lights of hope.
Troubled skies ululate through the power of thunder.
I always recline on that liquid voice!
Rainmakers cream their palms
And roast fresh leaves of
Epochal petals
Plucked from somnolent trees.
Bubbles, green and full of life, puke,
Filling up the mouths of burning woods.
Grey darkness suggests the pleasant wars of
May through October,
When distant wayward drops
Trickle before the deafening deluge.
I hail the blandishments of July
For the society of fattened yams and the
Worthy tendrils —festooned confetti of ceremonial
Harvests.
Droughts yawn in vain when the attitude of
Wet seasons befriends the skies,
Yielding fecund grimes that grace the soil.
This is when the old and the young,
beasts and confraternal drunks
damn the consequences of death
lying porous on crossroads upon
bifurcated paths, fractured junctions
and ceremonial cul-de-sacs...
The time is immaterial,
so long as the traffic lights — the veggie-green,
the claret, and the urine-amber —choose their slow
blinking and rapid-eyelid movement carefully.
And moon might decide not to power its own light.
Tenebrous tracks then fill our eyes with the age of
sea monsters blinded by charcoal waves.
Need I hail the neon signs of bordellos!
And the city’s restless constellations!
They sparkle with rage and with the brio of rioting stars,
thus adding celestial films to our already overloaded eyes....
But that’s another story.
C’mon... we are no Deer or Asahel descendants!
Closely related to sloths, millipedes and snails,
we drag our feet, which in turn drag the volumes of
stupidity in us, aggravated by drams and midnight parties
held between a flowing weekend and a stagnant Thursday.
(A reflective voice whispers)
In the Dawn of a new feeling of Life,
Maybe even at high school
Did you embrace one of its golden rules
To hold hands with someone you deemed so special
Encouraged by first love's, sweet kiss
For it to then carry you through, to meet the super cool, Twilight of your Life
With the only true one, whose love has never cooled:
And if you're still incredibly lucky, brings you such bliss
Or did the Shadows of Life appear
Smiling like a Nazgûl
Like a dark thief at night
To take back God's divine gift, and leave you scrambling and grieving
Daydreaming of the Dawn and Twilight of your Life
Before something cruel, caused you, to separate and drift
When everything seemed so perfect and nice
Before the deep cut, of The Shadows of Life's
Sharp, ceremonial knife
(C) Copyright John Duffy
i invite the freshness
of the mountain air
to fill my lungs
inhale replenish
and clear my thoughts
as i quietly await
the ceremonial rising
of the majestic sun
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
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