On average it takes 8 minutes 20 seconds for light to travel between the sun and the earth.
At that very moment they look up into the sky
8 minutes and 20 seconds ago the journey had begun
The ray plays out its tale for all of them
Eyes stung by beads of sweat
The farmer squints into a cloudless sky
He smiles as once more he gazes on rows of sprouting new life
Oakley may dim her vision but she stirs
Beneath her towel sand has moulded to her sun-drenched form
Her fashionable hue is almost complete
He stumbles but struggles once more to his feet
How long has this desert ordeal endured?
The end beckons as searing heat prepares the feast
Shivering through winter in thin clothes and with an empty belly
Shafts of sunlight are rays of hope
A false dawn or a new beginning?
The newborn baby cries for attention
Her rosy skin has yellowed
But soon the status quo will be restored
Five lives touched at the same time
But not in the same way
8 minutes and 20 seconds ago it started again
Weighed the risks of indecision
Not choosing one way or the another
~ yet somehow getting nowhere fast
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
time is a river flowing
it lets nothing stand in its way
~ obstinately speeds in one direction
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
September just around the corner
summer indulgences so quickly come and gone
~ time slips through our fingers
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: 3rd place 2025
I trusted order in the silent stars,
Each planet moving in its measured arc,
Laws written deep in heaven’s endless vault,
The clockwork firm, unbroken, without fault.
Yet here they whisper of a phantom thread,
Binding two particles though oceans spread,
A flicker here, and there the twin must turn,
No time to travel, nothing left to learn.
I call it “spooky,” though my mind resists,
A ghostly bond that reason still exists.
Cannot be real—yet still, the proofs remain,
Defying distance, mocking Newton’s chain.
If truth be stranger than my heart allows,
The universe may break its sacred vows.
Perhaps the light itself is not enough,
To bind the fabric where the laws grow rough.
And so I wonder—do the stars still know?
That I am not alive.
Its elasticity is in fact a mystery ~
while time is free to flee as quick as lightning
sometimes it drags on for lengths of eternity.
And for all our hankering and longing
that time would move according to our wishes,
it's never anything but a fool's machination.
While youth is just a memory away ~
the magician waves his wand, and
without a trace into thin air, poof!
the decades swiftly vanish.
AP: 1st place 2025
back off !
snail tells her suitor
to slow down
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
They pose with the austere stares of
Loving, friendly ghosts —tall, gaunt and lissome,
With big, rounded head.
Draped in weathered robes of care,
They are the only guardian spirits we see.
They have the calming power,
Where drunken machines run amok
Through broiling engine oils
And reckless crankshafts,
Spitting gas, and brittle axles.
Roads are unpredictable.
In winter they storm with the quiet rage of
Sods, dragging queens and whims . . .
Guide me, O limits of spirits!
Check my fattened excesses for fibrosis.
Darkness thickens —even by feast-time of the sun.
we think we'll be young forever and then we're not ~
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
We entered the Gumball Rally
My driver was “Backstreets” Tally
With his crazy fast car
We still couldn’t get far
Bad math, no gas, in Death Valley
Hang ups,
I’ve got plenty of those
Like a phone with
too many busy signals,
I couldn’t get through to you.
I think the number you gave me was out of service.
You said, “Dial me up”
but the damn phone was a push button.
I called long distance,
the operator said
“Put another quarter in.”
Sadly I only had one thin dime. I wonder if I should have called collect?
All along you had my number. You could have,
given me a ring. After-all I was the marrying kind.
It seems my dial tone was slightly out of tune??
I scratched your number out of my little black book. It was time to find another connection.
I could say I don’t remember you, but that would be a lie.
You are the crush that never made it to speed dial.
Arrived alive
departed dead
and the same
may be said
of all who tread
this weary world
of ours
less a milestone
more a speed bump
each Birthday
I perceive
and poetry
is but one way to fill
the waning hours for me
In a race on the savannah
fleet of foot is the cheetah
at up to 75 mph
no animal can beat her
and with a top speed of 50 mph
lion is the second fastest cat
tho' at
38 mph a leopard can't change its spots
the lion can do that
cubs are born with them and later lose
to become lion spots have-nots
an ostrich third place will land
at up to 43 mph
if it takes its head out of the sand
tho' cheetahs don't have racing stripes zebra do
(Burchell's, mountain and Grévy's)
but they're no boon for at 40 mph
they're only 10 mph ahead of a yellow baboon
however no matter how fast they all run
none can beat the speeding bullet
fired from a hunter's gun
As Voltaire might have said,
“ And yet it all works”
Did you know, dear friends, that our galaxy
Dash through space,
at a speed of 2.3 million kilometres per hour,
How does it not disintegrate?
Why does the sun keep shining?
How the earth turns around sun
While it is also running at 2.3 million km/h?
I know, there is in this perfect mechanics
Something divine,
As Voltaire wrote,
“ I cannot think that this clock exists
And that it has no watchmaker.”
On our way, no obstacles,
Only a cluster of galaxies 150,000 light-years away
Ahead, nothing can stop our galaxy,
“ And yet it all works”
Could have written voltaire,
at 2.3 million km/h We can safely
Drinking our coffee, isn’t that fantastic?
The Look Is Fast As The Speed of Light
I got the look!
Instantaneous…eyes snap sidewise faster than the speed of light…
Freeze tag pinned in place…
Duh da da duh… I'm in trouble, blown something…
No question… no room for doubt… Yet not really…
Dad's unique cue… falling in between traditional parenting cracks… Straddling between discipline and time to nip this one in the bud…
That I can't believe _____ (fill in the blank) … I'm annoyed… to… well.. fits almost any category
A genetic predisposition… or inheritance?
Who cares? I got it! It's mine!
The girls got the look…
Doug. He's more than a worthy mention. Countless outcries… Don't give me the look!
Too late, once you said “don't” ….it's fait accompli!
Sherry Barton
May 10, 2024
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