Top 25 Results (Member Poems)

A Poet of Purpose

Feeling the touch of emotion, the beginning, 
finding the meaning of emotion, the end. 
As they were superposed at the edge of my twilight time, 
my mind started to sink at sunset, unexpressed. 

After futile walk in clouded day with maddening crowd,
the meandering  garden path I had lost, 
searched for a hand to guide and show me the way 
to the unknown roads destiny had paved, unwalked. 

When the day’s last wind began to blow, 
in the wasteland of the past, my shadow lengthened, 
falling on the frail footprints buried under time’s dust, 
while the roads to the future waited, unperceived. 

I traveled through the torrent of the prevailing turmoil, 
forgot the bridges left behind for someone burnt them.  
I chose a different road and crossed the river ahead 
on the bridge you cared to build for me, unpossessed. 

The cycles of good times and of bad times, 
cross-currents of contrast in skeptic mind’s confusion, 
that cleared as the mist of the ancient doubts lifted, 
I found the road ahead wasn’t at its dead end, untraveled. 

Life’s stories written in time's tome of flowing continuum, 
at the end of a sad chapter challenged me with perplexity,
to choose if I’d turn the page or close the book forever, 
but I had decided to read on till I reach the end, unperturbed. 

At the crossroads of the crowded compromises degrading,
and after silently traversing the loneliness of passion, 
following the moonlit path of dreams I sauntered on, 
rising from the dust, became a poet of purpose, obsessed.

October 11, 2020
Contest : A Poet's Duty
Sponsor : Beth Evans