Be determined, put your game on,
take it up a notch, jazz it up.
Get into character, be your own best self.
Rewrite your destiny,
draw your path and follow it.
Be fearless and audacious.
Let your imagination run wild,
you are the hero of your life story.
Feel free to fake it till you make it.
Be bold, be grand, be awesome.
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Nothing but roadblocks railroading my train of thought
A way to move forward has to be on the precipus
My vehicle halted on the road not traveled
Hazard lights illuminate the darkness that surrounds my engine
Unfortunate repairs as I leak black tears
Busted, Mangled, & Torn Apart
I sit parked in the space of my own doing
Longing for the drive that used to spark my...
Plugged into the reflection of what could have been
The change in temperature, heated up my seat of complacency
Once again I am ignited and fueled by doubt
Vroom Vroom....the sound of the beast revived
Vroom Vroom....the growl as it awakes from its slumber
Vroom....the anger is engulfed in bellows
Again! the drive is restored
No longer a swerve but a straight shot
Zooming to the highway of rejuvenation
Used to do it all
For attention I could get.
But now know I can,
With intention just for me,
Do it all over, again.
I am learning about a new me!
I am working to REINVENT David D.
It's a work-in-progress so you know
It's almost as if I'm putting on a new show!
But I'm a rookie learning about life again
I haven't felt this way since I can't remember when
Are my years a factor since I've reached a "ripe old age"?
Where it's very difficult to turn a new page!
I wanted to be a happy clown, Happy lamented to me.
His partners Two-fer and DotBear were dour and down.,
Nothing was uplifting about their situation that I could see.
Can’t you reinvent yourself, become a new kind of clown?
Happy stared at me with the wisdom of a living man.
Two-fer is my roommate, and DotBear is my friend.
I quickly gave the others a glance and instant scan.
They are determined to be sad, they simply will not bend.
Could there be two sad clowns and a really joyful one too?
Happy considered this idea but then tossed it swiftly away.
How can I be happy when my friends are dour, down and blue?
Feeling sad for them all, I told them to have a happy downward day.
He was a sapless namby-pamby
but my cousin loved the idea that he was a blank canvas
She had taken other canvases and turned them into Pollocks and Rembrandts
Or so she thought…..
She would paint him in vibrant colors.
She would use a variety of her carefully honed and tested techniques
She bought a bunch of new brushes and paints.
Ready to begin her creation!
She spent years and years
Perfecting her craft, only it did not comply as she had surmised it should.
She spent all that time trying to change a rabbit into the Easter Bunny.
He finally hopped away.
Showing spunkiness and spirit
for the first time since they met.
Not to be outdone, she took the credit for it.
Prancing through midnight mystery,
I called my soul to surrender
She laughed diabolically
Popped and hissed, turning gray
Then flashing orange and yellow again
Shocked at my daring side,
I began to dance, but stopped and crackled
In my failure to train myself to relinquish to anyone,
I pulled out the big sticks and began to spit and smack
Dancing and flashing, hissing and falling into myself.
Like a phoenix, my soul refused to be contained.
She whirled and twirled, turning herself into flames.
I watched in awe, as she began floating upward
I reinvent myself one hiss, pop and crackle at a time.
I walk the path I’ve always walked
but now I set the pace,
I don’t speed up for those ahead
or slow to keep with mates,
I hope to prosper in twenty twenty
take my numb self so empty
make sure I fill up with plenty
I’ve learned wealth is not pound or penny
but what the people have meant to me
the eventual outcome of this year
I just, must adjust and reinvent me
TIME TO REINVENT TIME
Yesterday is the day from which you came
Tomorrow is the destination you will never gain
Seeking tomorrow thinking it is near
But at 12:01 AM is tomorrow really here
Time shows you just came from yesterday
And stepped into times grasp of what is now today
Once again you find tomorrow is not here
Just wait 24 hours - time whispers in your ear
And then tomorrow will appear
Time of course is playing its eternal joke
For again at time appointed - tomorrow is up in smoke
Time it should be known is an unawakened dream
With no more substance than ripples in a stream
Never ask time about future intentions
Future is another of time's jokester inventions
No longer beckoning to my enemies.
Pain and deceit are just memories.
No longer sitting on my stark throne of lies
Luring days of treachery have gone awry.
Rediscovered my soul, oh the precious gift!
Death of regrets, I beseech to be swift.
My heart and my truth are selflessly mending,
I am hale and hearty, my own happy ending.
**inspired by the poem, A Happy Ending
The cyborg rust more than half a score
Cobwebs entangled round
The monster lurked near at hand
While memory chips stay bound
The monster heaved her heavy roar
Then stroked his plastic heart
A virus unleashed on him
And tore his core apart
Years captive now in dismal time
Too frail to process pain
Hope lingered in hidden RAM
As the monster roared in vein
A lightening storm rolled in one day
Static filled the air
A bolt came forth through firewall
And rendered captive bare
A rift in time, memory surged
The cyborg broke his chains
The monstrous howls are distant now
Cyborg now explores new plains