'Write Thirteen Beautiful Lines' Poetry Contest: Sponsored by Constance La France (April/May 2025).
Where hills are alive
with imagination
carried by clouds
toward their destination
Lakeland fells and sheep
Liverpool of cormorants
Wales with its dragons
Yorkshire and terrier dogs
in Lancashire towns
of redbrick and cobbled folk
who worked with bare hands
to build a much better world
beneath these beautiful skies.
Categories:
redbrick, 10th grade, animal, beautiful,
Form: Free verse
In The House Of Dengbej
Three sisters sit
Each in crimson velvet
And veiled hair.
Relate tales
Of interracial love.
Of Armenian Boys and Kurdish Gals.
This is a town of
Cobbled streets and redbrick houses of the ancient Lore.
Diyarbakir, Sur.
Fidus Achates: an Armenian gal and a Kurdish girl
Are no more. The ghosts of the Armenians; translucent
Still linger on the mud walls.
Poplar trees cast melancholy shadows
Over the last remaining residents
Mostly Kurdish
Soon to join the ghosts of the Armenians?
Still the guerrilla resistance continues.
Behind the soiled curtains of white lace.
Death is a banality. Blood spills on baked soil
Daily.
Freedom is a distant land to be conquered.
Wine making and relating tales of ancient lores
And the allure. Lured the youth to Sur.
The House of Dengbej in Sur.
Finest stories are spun like sugar
And spread from tongue to tongue.
* Sur was once a very cosmopolitan town with a harmonious community. It is now a town of bitter conflict between the Turks and Kurdish.
Categories:
redbrick, allegory, appreciation, beautiful, city,
Form: Rhyme
Rain-drenched streets gleam
in the glow of the sodium lamps
as the second shift waits in the bus
queue, chattering like children after a
Saturday matinee. Moon-bright puddles
flash, and leaves tremble in the trees by the
park, sent shivering by the wind's insistent edge,
and the lights along the distant motorway glimmer,
red, bound for the harsh, gaunt hills to the north,
and white, for the cities below this ragged,
redbrick town and southeast to London.
The bus rumbles the people away to
their homes and silence settles on
this hill of dreams, where one by
one the porch lights go out, the
blue-grey TVs flicker off, and
the neighborhood falls into
a sweet and gentle sleep.
Categories:
redbrick, solitude,
Form: Verse
Rain-soaked streets gleam in the glow
of the sodium lamps as the second shift
waits in the bus queue, chattering like
children after a Saturday matinee.
Moon-bright puddles flash, the leaves
tremble in the trees by the park,
sent shivering by the wind's insistent edge,
and the lights along the distant freeway
glimmer red, bound for the harsh, gaunt hills
to the north, and white, for the cities
below this ragged, redbrick town and southeast
to London. The bus rumbles the people away
to their homes and silence settles on
this hill of dreams, where one by one
the porch lights go out, the blue-grey TVs
flicker off, and the neighbourhood
falls into a soft and gentle sleep.
Categories:
redbrick, introspection,
Form: Blank verse
Rain-drenched streets gleam
in the glow of the sodium lamps
as the second shift waits in the bus
queue, chattering like children after a
Saturday matinee. Moon-bright puddles
flash, and leaves tremble in the trees by the
park, sent shivering by the wind's insistent edge,
and the lights along the distant motorway glimmer,
red, bound for the harsh, gaunt hills to the north,
and white, for the cities below this ragged,
redbrick town and southeast to London.
The bus rumbles the people away to
their homes and silence settles on
this hill of dreams, where one by
one the porch lights go out, the
blue-grey TVs flicker off, and
the neighbourhood falls into
a sweet and gentle sleep.
Categories:
redbrick, introspection
Form: Narrative
Rain-drenched streets gleam
in the glow of the sodium lamps
as the second shift waits in the bus
queue, chattering like children after a
Saturday matinee. Moon-bright puddles
flash, and leaves tremble in the trees by the
park, sent shivering by the wind's insistent edge,
and the lights along the distant motorway glimmer,
red, bound for the harsh, gaunt hills to the north,
and white, for the cities below this ragged,
redbrick town and southeast to London.
The bus rumbles the people away to
their homes and silence settles on
this hill of dreams, where one by
one the porch lights go out, the
blue-grey TVs flicker off, and
the neighbourhood falls into
a sweet and gentle sleep.
Categories:
redbrick, introspection,
Form: Narrative