The cafeteria hums with a hundred different sounds, While I sit in the noise, keeping eyes on the ground. Fourteen feels small when you’re standing right here, And seventeen’s close, but it feels like a year. He said the age difference makes it a no, A boundary set down where I can't go.
Then his ex and her friend walk over and stare, With a flicker of something unkind in their stare. "So do you know about Riley liking you?" The words drop down like they think it’s brand new. Riley already knows how I feel inside, So why pull a thread where I’m trying to hide?
My throat tightens up, the room blurts into gray, Holding back tears that are fighting to stray. I swallow the sting, keep my head held high, So tired of the games and the half-truth lie. Just wanting someone to say what is real, Instead of making a show of the things that I feel.
Line of inquiry: “Of the fact we are alive, we are sure. All else scriptures say, may or may not be. So presence vibrant, heart pure and demure. As formless awareness we become free."
I wake to the fact of breath~
a small certainty,
steady as dawn warming the edge of a curtain.
Everything else feels like wind-light pages
turning in a book I cannot fully read.
I keep God by keeping still
letting the mind unclench,
letting the heart grow quiet enough
to hear its own unbroken pulse.
“Be still, and know…” (Psalm 46:10)
Presence becomes a soft radiance~
not seen, but felt the way warmth gathers
around a candle’s invisible center~
formless, yet more real
than anything I can hold.
Simplicity is the doorway
where I set down
the heavy furniture of belief~
the arguments, the certainties,
the need to name what is already here.
In this uncluttered awareness
I sense a quiet truth:
being alive is miracle enough,
and the rest is a gentle invitation
to trust what moves through me
without shape,
without demand,
yet wholly holy.
Living long with gratitude mirth
my heart prays to abide in God against hope's dearth
sharing warm bond with family of loving worth
enjoying home-paradise in our heaven on earth
while serving upon ministerial fortress-berth...
Indeed, longevity as gift of the Lord by His grace
is a blessing against rigorous survival race*
since it shows divine mercy with compassion ways
propelling faith in persevering along worshipful praise
while delighting in life of triumphant, vibrant and radiant days.
*Hebrews 12:1-2 12 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
May 21, 2026
Honorable Mention, "1483" Poetry Writing Contest
Sponsored by Brian Strand; judged on 6/26/2026
To hold is to lay open the chest to cold air
two heartbeats learning their names without language.
Before the first word, a body read another.
The dance was always the hold.
Two spines disagree gently, without letting go.
Arms know what hands don't.
The angle of your shoulder: a measurement I carry.
Distance is not safety,
only loneliness given a cold name.
Winter morning, frost on glass:
I trace where your hand once was.
Grief, an embrace with nowhere left to open.
Gravity is want.
Mass draws all other mass near
not compulsion, but the oldest fact of things:
that to have weight is to matter to the world.
The moon tends toward the tide.
This is different from having no choice.
Some bodies have learned to be afraid of opening.
This does not make the opening wrong.
It makes the learning necessary first.
Your shoulder, at last
not a sound that can be named,
all the weight, set down
in the one place that knows how to hold it.
The arms don't say it.
They do it again.
This is the oldest language
the one that was already speaking
before we knew we had begun.
What do I really mean?
when I say 'hope that helps?'
Words set down lightly,
in a quiet, thoughtful way.
What do these three words convey?
Who does the helping—
'Me','Hope' or the Words I say?
The line is unclear—
A helping hand in the fray?
or hope, that 'Hope', finds 'its' way.
Line left in the tray
loosens from what's intended.
As hope fills the gap—
weaving in what I couldn't say,
to complete my lame answer.
(“Red Tree in Blue Sky”, 2020, original encaustic)
Seems that every time I think I’ve got it made
Got it worked out, finally got it smooth
Something always comes along
And it gets snatched away
And I’m back to zero, again.
Again and again, and so it goes,
I’ve worked so hard
To get it back to zero again.
Seems that every time I finally make some ground
Make my mark, set down some stakes
Something always comes around
And takes it all away
And I’m back to zero, again.
Again and again, and so it goes
I’ve worked so hard
To get it back to zero again.
Yeah, and I’m back to zero again.
(2/18/26)
To whomsoever will read this, and if you write,
with your heart don’t ever fight.
Listen to the voice that’s deep within,
he will put the words, right in your pen.
He knows the answers to all the questions you see,
he helps us understand what we truly be.
If you believe that God does answer pray, your a step ahead,
as he brings life to the words, inside which were dead.
I pray that you get in touch with your senses you see,
come sit down and write along with me.
Keep going, never giving up, or giving in,
press your best foot forward, thats where to begin.
Write from the heart, when you set down to pen,
over and over and over again.
I’ve been writing for 53 years, I will continue to do,
in my poems, I share my truths with you.
I hope your writing expands and begins to grow,
the words spilling from your heart, as they begin to flow.
Paper is like a garden, our words are the seeds,
written down on paper, fills the hearts need.
A writer lives his words as he writes them out,
when they hit the page, there is no doubt.
Trust and believe in yourself, this you must do,
or with your words, you will fill locked up in a zoo.
Here I sit with my paper and a pen,
wondering just where I should begin.
As I stumble over words, to write those thing’s be true,
how they trip over each other, I wonder what to do.
Words come out with out rhythm or flow,
I begin to get discouraged, my nerves begin to grow.
All the noise now when I sit down to write,
with my own words, I do have to fight.
Page after page, in the trash you see,
where would myself and I go if it weren’t for me.
All and all, and after all, I’ll still set down to write,
finally my words come together, some truth to shed a light.
I used to wear hats all the time.
Maybe a baseball cap that looks like a slice of lime.
Or a teal beanie that feels slightly warm-ish.
Maybe one that has embroidery of a fish!
Where did these hats go?
I don’t think they get lost in the snow.
Just in my bedroom all over the place.
Orbiting my mind like outer space.
My favorite hat of all.
Got lost in a bathroom stall.
Was covered in stripes and mostly pink.
Could it have been set down by the sink?
I liked to wear hats when I was younger.
I had so many, it was a hunger.
But when I lost her.
I lost all interest right after.
When she was gone like a flung rubber band.
It felt like howling sand.
So I stopped wearing hats and felt bare.
She wasn’t there to notice or care…
It wasn’t just my style that was thrown away.
It was us who hung out all day.
And she was gone as fast as that pink hat in the bathroom.
As if down the drain but we can’t assume.
The accident happened and tore me apart.
She was like a straw hat, flying away from my heart.
A once in a lifetime event.
Like planets becoming aligned.
You led me out into the light.
We left all the shadows behind.
It’s something I cannot explain.
A changing of mind and of heart.
I followed you out of my past.
At last, now, my future can start.
Because of you.
Because of your love.
The pieces all fall into place.
So many things start making sense.
Suddenly everything’s greener
But now on my side of the fence.
It’s something I cannot define.
Leaves Webster, himself, at a loss.
You drag me up out of my pain.
At last I can set down my cross.
Because of you.
Because of your love.
Like once in a thousand blue moons
A miracle might just occur.
The lost sheep might find its way home.
Bad fortune might somehow reverse.
It’s something one cannot predict.
A gift given out of the blue.
A step ‘round the corner of fate,
At last I am seeing the truth.
Because of you.
Because of your love.
The Prisoner in the Land of Holocaust
An east wind began to blow upon the holocaust of the west. As the one from the north stepped southward to pull a broken soul out from its prison. This prison was a deep pit with smooth sheer walls fashioned by the prisoners very own hands. The light from the one from the north pierced through the darkness of that prison. Like the moon taking on the light of the sun, the prisoner began to take on the light of his liberator.
The prisoner's lack of strength now endowed with a measure of hope and of power. With his strength renewed the prisoner reached up from below, just as the one from the north reached down from above. The hands of both meeting in a place called the middle. With hands clasped together with the strength of a 3 fold cord, the one from the north elevated the prisoner up and then out from the inside of that pit. That prisoner was set down upon the ground once called holocaust, now known as the land of the one whom was set free.
2025 Poetry Marathon Mile 11 Contest //Sponsored by: Mark Toney
Contest Judged: 8/29/2025 12:41:00 PM
( 2nd Place )
Written: August 27, 2025
No trumpet greets the weary stride,
only gravel grinding underfoot,
the breath that rasps against the bone.
I have shouldered storm inside my chest,
their weight pressing like half-done prayers.
The world does not wait for heartbreaks
yet still I walk through its indifference.
The road is merciless with distance,
a ribbon extended beyond all sight
but its distance carves the truth of what I carry.
Every scar is a mile-marker wherein
every fall a lesson written in dust.
Hope is not the flag at the end-
it is the breath that urges: once more, once more.
I walk with shadows
and with the ghosts of those who stumble.
Yet I walk alight with the strength of survivors.
At last, I see it;
not a gate and not a crown
but a quiet clearing where the tired wind rests.
There, I set down my burden
not defeated
but strengthened!
The finish line was never drawn on the ground.
It has always remained inside the soul
waiting to be crossed.
While I was at work my yards were busy
a nameless, white flower plucked
from my front garden
lay on the brick shelf by the gate
wrapped in cream silk
its stem inserted
into a (dry) plastic flower tube
A gift set down in forgetfulness
or just discarded
While out the back a soft touch indoor football
orange against the fake grass
lost and over wall booted
“I went down to the river, I set down on the bank. I tried to think but couldn't, So I jumped in and sank.” ? Langston Hughes
She ambled down the perfumed garden
as the moon rose high in the darkening sky,
Stygian night was falling rapidly,
Dark clouds rushed up high, hiding the moon.
A fine drizzle of rain began. She cared not.
Fragrant was the night so full of blooms,
but she went to the cool stream that ran nigh.
She undressed and jumped though she could not swim,
hoping that her soul would die in the rippling flow,
Perhaps she could rid herself of the heat in her head?
Was it not the fault of that the miscreant, betraying cheat?
Placed 1
In this city where LEDs set down the glows,
Every heartbeat adds up to what nobody knows
You said it, and I felt our friendship; gather a spark,
"One four three," you whispered and lit up the dark
Digits we carry through laughter and tears,
Cipher to our moments that decode all the years
It's all in the numbers, can you not see?
One heart beatin' for you and yours for me
Four chambers compress where it flows strong,
Three cheers for all moments where we both belong!
And when we're lost in a tangled mess,
I’ll hold your hand through every day stress
We’ll turn these figures into magical dreams—
Life’s more than numbers; ours bursts at the seams!
It's all in the numbers, can’t you see?
One heart beatin' for you and me
Four walls crumbling, but our love stays strong,
Three cheers for a life where we both belong!
Here’s to forever—a promise so true:
Count on my love; it adds up to “you.”
Through every equation of joy and strife—
It’s "143"—the sum of our life!
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