All the dishes fell down broken
Favorite cups, you won’t believe
Smashed to bits, but it’s unspoken
Myths don’t mention human grief
They don’t want us to come close
Private troubles doesn’t count
If you ask, nobody knows
What was their crime about
The collective guilt is fake
There is no such thing on earth
Otherwise we’re God’s mistake
From the accident of birth
Trevelyan, a sole survivor
Is the one we should remember
See the picture of white rider
On eleventh of November
Of one thousand ninety nine
He escaped the great excess
Of the punishment, confined
To the Land of Lyonesse
Then the plot disintergrates
To the pieces that don’t fit
Well together, so it fades
To the dishes crashed in bits..
natural disasters for not taking care of the earth
Everything eats; everything is eaten.
The law is older than hunger,
older than teeth,
older than the first creature
that learned to want.
We pretend we stand outside it—
Diners, not dinners,
yet mortality is only the moment
the oldest bargain is kept.
After a lifetime of taking in the world,
the world takes us in:
not as punishment,
but as returning.
Remember don’t do the crime...
Unless you're willing to do the time.
Be good, you’ll get treats.
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
Around the age of six i received from my maternal grandpa
a very special present , he had styled a home made kite
Thick brown paper for the body , newspaper for the tail
couldn't get this kite to fly, tried with all my might
One day i heard my father loudly yelling
in reference to this kite
He had found it in a paddock
where I'd left it overnight
So the down the hill I ran
to retrieve this special kite
My father, reins of horse in one hand stock whip in the other
punishment for the crime, stock whip round the backside, most painfully it did bite
For a minor misdemeanour the punishment a trifle overdone
for my lack of care of grandpas special kite
Much shedding of tears from the bruising pain
I endured on that fateful night
I woke to see disoriented infinite shelves,
Enormous books lay with utmost silence.
In the floating dust, identity was found,
And under the endless meanings, the self was buried.
The turning pages reminded me of the unremembered hands,
Meanings were blurred, voices were invalidated.
Every dawn made me welcome to enjoy the curse,
For time had lost its aim.
Sometimes I met sufferers, while others were not counted,
Their tired eyes seemed to be of the weariness of traveling to eternity.
Voices filled with vain efforts, unable to be comprehended,
Since the mind was stuck in endless letters and pauses.
I understood that hell is not about fire or pain,
Though punishment was given through endless reading or searching.
I looked for a respite but was forever denied,
When properly ordered, souls drift astray forever.
they sit him down, strap the arms,
not the old chair, not the rope—
this is cleaner, scientific,
no blood, no sparks,
just the mask.
the lungs beg first,
pulling at nothing,
a vacuum of sky
swallowing itself.
the heart beats like a busted drum,
then quieter,
the eyes go wet, then far—
a man drowning on land
without water, without storm.
the state calls it mercy.
but death is still death,
as the body visibly shows us.
I felt as small as a winter’s flower
yet as tall as an old oak tree
the seconds dragged on for what seemed like hours
when my world turned in on me
the cloak I wore was of little comfort
just to bridge between present and past
I held onto this and other secrets
no more a peasant but a king at last
by the time I had finished speaking
the crowd erupted with applause
then towards me they were reaching
as the judgment came into force
the mask was meant to protect me
from what no one should have seen
a noose was placed just oh so gently
I thought it was a bit extreme
I sank into the grain that supported
absorbed deep in the fibres below
my legs gave way it was reported
I wriggled until they let me go.
Little boy drops over,
The boys playing in the streets.
It is done in the name of
Stopping war, but punishing
The fellows who don’t know
What war is, how to fight,
How to use weapons.
They only ever fight with words
And hands.
She barks, "Turn your cheek!"
She leaves her handprint on it.
"And now the other!"
My dogs have been running lose
Now that they weigh a hundred pounds each, I am trying to control them
Our digger has dug his way out of one of our fenced areas
We are sitting in the other one – both dogs and I
If he had not dug under the neighbor’s fence
This would not be happening
The clouds are breaking
a prospect from the hilltop
Visions have been starved
Magnificent and awful
Mother earth canceled the deal
On the sport’s field we started to set up
To play cricket but the ground was hard
And the stumps would not go in. So my mate
Used the cricket bat to hammer them home.
The game’s master was soon upon the scene,
Shouting. “That’s no way to treat the willow,
You cretin.” Sir then snatched the cricket bat
And with hefty sideways swipe cracked my mate
Across the head. The lad collapsed and was
Shaking violently, lying on the ground.
Then his shaking stopped and he was still.
The whole team went silent and stood and stared.
Then one lad shouted: “He’s dead. You’ve killed him.
You’ll be hanged for murder”. Sir was silent.
He looked worried. But the victim came round.
He then stood up, a bit wobbly and we
Carried on with our game of cricket.
An orison to hope
Shattered into smithereens
Its keened tongues and teeth gnash and lament
A despairful cry of a cutthroat womb.
Cacophonies cry out
Cellos and violins bow, inexorable and unforgiving
Until then, of their finale the southern bells will ring;
A testimony that God has returned.
Savior of humanity,
Entwine us with arms that bleed
For those arms' warmth and nurture
Extricates us from a demise with a lamenting dissonance.
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