and finally then came you ~
AP: Honorable Mention 2026, Honorable Mention 2026
With a nod to D. H. Lawrence:
May we be blessed to remember
we only have one life
one path to be engraved
and how that life is meant for us to spend…
it’s not intended to be saved.
Went to school, got good grades
a decent lawyer, I made
Met a girl, saved some dough
She was my bride, I her beaux
Three little girls nearly broke the bank
retirement loomed
Was anything left in the tank
A king’s ransom we’d spent
What had it all meant
The forced smiles, the countless deceptions
~ Was any of it worth a single damn cent
I spent today doing nothing
fell asleep on the couch
both dogs were lying on the floor
laid out flat on their backs, legs in the air
we would still be there happily snoring if a delivery had not happened
and if I had not needed to go to the bathroom
When summer's over, ask what I did.
Did I visit Paris or Madrid?
Nope, I flew a red kite,
admiring its swift flight,
while I skipped and jumped just like a kid.
You looked at me with mirrors in your eyes,
Fractured by fear of what you could not be—
A quiet heart, a soul that never lies,
A hand that gathers stars from sorrow’s sea.
You saw in me the things you cast aside,
The gentleness you buried deep in stone,
A voice that sang while yours grew small with pride,
A love too bright to call entirely your own.
I wore no crown, I bore no holy light,
But still you bowed to something I became,
As though my silence robbed you of your right,
And my small joys put all your doubts to shame.
Yet I was born beneath the same pale sky—
What you denied in me, you might have sought.
You have spent my whole life wondering why
I am something, that you are not.
I spent much of my childhood being enraged
Fairness mattered to me
I was a kindness advocate
Deploring bullies, liars and thieves
Good thing I did not know about sex trafficking or rapists
I cannot imagine how incensed I would have been
My head was already purple red with anger most of the time
Injustices caused me angst, depleting my joy
There was a perpetual pout on my face
My lips protruded like the front bumper of a 1959 Chevy
I wanted her tailfins; hoping to back into people to hurt them
I spent much of my childhood being enraged
From the outside it might look like my life has improved,
But in spite of how I like to be viewed,
I’ve never had to bite my tongue as often as I have in these last few months.
Just gotta chew on my words like food.
On the Southside of the city view,
The lights on the water shifted reflecting off the choppy grooves,
The night stopped by and gave me an eye.
Like my mother,
Tonight disapproved.
Tomorrow too,
Or at least I’ll assume.
For all the loud fights with myself,
I still feel awfully removed,
Almost asleep behind the lights because living lively is living like a ruse.
Take me as a bite,
Chew on my words for a while,
Spit out the waste as your cheeks grow full.
Taste the bile,
Brew on the thoughts for a while,
Hints of a sorry guile pace meekly on your tongue.
The push,
And the pull.
For all of my thoughts
I will not miss them at all
For they're greatly spent
Softer than a whisper of a dream
my paper moon
has found no homestead
The morning dew
sees the dazzling of rain
When the party finishes before time
There's none who you can absolve you
Blurry revellers empty the streets
and the turn around
kicks like a harlequin
to scratch your gilded fears away
Any you do
Spent for aid
That needs your help.
Small deeds help
A leap of joy
To those in need.
Don't let left hand
See what right hand
It comes for help.
Help those in need
Love as you can
God do the rest.
How to spend life without getting tired:
Say no to people that are annoying
Like the pretty things and admire them
Don't pay attention to the words of those who don't feed us
Choose to be close to people who make you feel comfortable
Know what you need to know. That's enough
Don't regret repeating the same story
Look at someone as a tear and cut them
Poverty is scary. Know to save money
It's good to be patient sometimes.
I found echoes of a testimony written in the dark,
Buried in a wooden box,
Made from Noah’s ark.
It started with an apology for the damage that they’d done,
It said they took too much,
And had tried to steal the sun.
There was nothing else within the box,
But for a little knot of hair,
And a yearning of lost sorrow,
that gently filled the air.
I closed the lid,
And laid the box,
For another to come and find,
Because something deep within me,
Said this wasn’t for mankind.
Ageling thoughts that once did bloom like swift-lings
on a cleaned faced mind by the morning sun of day
We sang songs of glory in our living room
sailing on through the years that went by like lightening
We savored every mental picture every image,
of a life well spent...
Spent Treasure
Julius Caesar desired Brittania
not its tin for soldiers weaponry
but for an island strung with pearls
the rarest and most prized of gems
he would face the channel storms
Caesar’s lust for jewels and gold
with captives sent to plunder banks
shuck icy rivers’ mussel stores
and freeze for gods of vanity
to secure the emperor's fame
a cuirass made of British pearls
he laid on Venus Genetrix
ancestor of the Julian line
holy mother of the Roman state
could tempt a queen into his bed
reserved for the nobility alone
set within crown jewels to come
adornment for Elizabethan gowns
protected now so few remain
it’s rare to find a pearl or humble shell.
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