Violins tuned in distant dark
heartstrings strummed calmly wait for warmer moonlight
~ melodies conjuring the sweetest memories
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: 2nd place 2025
A sketchbook from back then
was stained with abstract colors
like our ten fingers
why didn't we arrange bright colors back then?
black, blue, and white
mixed together without a basis
I remember very well
how the pattern was ultimately
ruined by the darkness
while you labored
on your own sketch
and I only knew a little about that fetish
We grew like shoots
far away from the colors back then
like a line that had been etched
sometimes we disappeared
I still live with bangs on my forehead
exactly the same as back then
and you still like classic cars?
maybe we've only gone a few steps
Count 20, open eyes
ahh, that's just a coincidence
I still scold Wednesday
but you look good
with those stripes
Sometimes you give in
waiting for me to run awkwardly across
you strummed that music
making me confused
guessing your dream last night
but you were far more confused
because you didn't say anything
Do you still remember
the flaw in my eye?
While I was still writing poetry
I seemed to be starting to forget the calm
shape of your Adam's apple
when you drew black lines on our sketch.
Night's crush spills black ink
the moon unzips hidden seams
turns souls inside out
foreboding haunts chokes the air
mystery bleeds from her face
Night leans on the shore
moon's breath a blade of silver
cooling tepid skin
the tide tongues open raw seams
salting wounds to sting and heal
Moon bends in bow arc
stringing light across the sea
searching for fractures
beneath the unblinking glare
shadows cower, faint, exposed
She writhes feral, drenched—
her breasts plunge in black water
eyes white with hunger—
she rips at our fraying threads,
raising fear to blaze with flame.
Hopes rise in moon's mist
drawn up by her silver hand
spilling into dreams—
she gathers us in like tides
weaving paths to becoming
Light stings into lust
with hymns strummed on naked thighs
a harp of end chords—
every string the ocean plucks
screams in time with tug of tide
Dawn scars the moon's face
her ghost hides behind torn clouds
soft unrepentant—
the lilt of her vanished hymn
echoes a throb in our bones
Oh sister of night
oracle of ebb and surge
you hiss with forked tongue—
what prophecy do you bear
light's mercy or void's abyss?
S traight from the start.'
T rue blue allways for you
A ustralia allways in his heart.'
N ever one to turn his back.'
C oster known, the country round'
On that guitar, he strummed town to town
S ure supportive of ANZACS all..'
T reasure of so many, in outback halls
E very venue he played out his heart
R ecognised as an asset; Aussies value his art.!
A lifetime or two in a past far away
There lives for me still, through a thicket of gray
The brilliance of love for the world I once knew
In more than just memories on pictures books blue
The city that cradled my youth and my pluck
The signs and the shops and the fortunes of luck
I tear up at feeling that nothing has changed
That life has not happened and thus rearranged
The streets find me walking again through my mind
As heartstrings are strummed by the sweetness I find
The images ghosted now fall into view
Oh how I love paging through picture books blue
River makes its final clunk
Between
Hills
Rolling boulders like turtle shells
Empty of their mouths and hearts
River bent
Flailing legs and neck
No longer reflects
The sun and moon
From water’s absence down its back.
Turns her terrible brittle head
From me
Teeth gnashing on the spools of willow
To her memory
When mud was forest
Footsteps
Croaking with frogs and dazzled with dragonflies
Ringed in a halo of cold fog.
We are dying
Together
Not angels nor even demons
But conquering visitors from a desert
Who brought nothing but the leech of desert
With us
Covering the entire Earth with insatiable thirst
And hunger
Kings and Queens for a day
Destroyers
Of those ceremony drums
Of gods and plants animals and language
When we lived as One
Gift
Strummed through the harp of gratitude.
Now, I seek a forgiving signal
From perhaps a divine wave
Coming from the dying Mother
This way
You poor skinless fool
The fire shall burn behind you
The entire Earth and its people
Which is all the things that flutter
Crawl walk and sing
"An empty bowl
With a spoon beside you."
The body
Johan on the strand
The sun shone on his belly
Gulls had gouged his eyes
Crabs crawled into his nose
came out of his mouth
A shroud of sea tar
A man strummed a guitar
A girl laughed
A summer in 1954.
What I sing from my chest
Only for ivory keys to hear.
Are the same old words
That cracked lips bear.
That familiar tune that calloused fingers play
Is the one that my own heart aches to say.
I have plucked and I have strummed
But when its my own heartstrings
That are plucked for the masses
Will my soul succumb or burn to ashes?
If a song is played for others to judge
Its worth is no longer for me alone.
My fears replayed as feedback
And my own tune I have outgrown.
When the keys have cracked
And guitar strings snapped;
Is the silence left a rest
Or is it forever prolonged?
I have played my part
And sang my chant
My ear worm finally laid to rest.
Yet a few notes linger in the air
Awaiting the song to begin again.
she strummed her guitar and we sang
by the glow of the campfire
we were free and had no worries
we thought the summer would never end
AP: Honorable Mention 2025, Honorable Mention 2025
The purple bass
was held by the Voice of Rock
Notes were strummed
like the feathers of angels
That is they sounded beautiful
in the sunset sky above
Jacob and his guitar sat down on magestic mars
strummed their tune to the delight of the stars
the earth got silent, her orange showing through
he was adorable, sincere, melodic, and innocent true.
John Denver was a fine country singer,
Rocky Mountain High immortalized him,
guitar strummed, sleight of hands, picked by finger,
skilled writer, voice, guitarist, songs, or hymn.
Annie's Song, soft and warmly glorious,
Dreamland Express, Perhaps Love, I'm Sorry,
lips touch and, ears hark tryst, harmonious,
his lyrics live on and tell his story.
John Denver's Christmas songs, his right to fame,
Silver Bells, and the Twelve Days Of Christmas,
The Christmas Song, Oh Holy Night, The Flame,
Blue Christmas, Poems, Prayers, Promises.
Leaving On A Jet Plane, and Love Again,
Take Me Home, Country Roads--flight to Heaven.
Inflamed beneath a midday fear, that novelist's story unfolds,
Shone angles trending 'neath the Earth to switch sparks till cold,
Zeal queues the chosen to fire calm suite blissful psalms dreams swirl,
Gemmed Ivory and Ebony, host o'er our bejeweled Pearl.
Cerise bond Earth and Sun transcend comes precious Grace our King,
Brahms strummed an awesome, clueless stray queue cheer chorus sing.
Queue cheer chorus sing. (Refrain)
Cerise bond Earth and Sun transcend comes precious Grace our King,
Brahms strummed an awesome, clueless stray queue cheer chorus sing.
Queue cheer chorus sing. (Refrain)
Queue cheer chorus sing. (Refrain)
Queue cheer chorus sing. (Refrain)
he wore a tiny boater hat,
my mouse who played guitar,
and patrons at the local pub
cheered, "wow, you've got a star!"
but then some talent-scout came in
while mouse strummed on the bar …
"because he cannot sing," he groused,
"he'll never make it far."
The windbag fiddler
felt windless and
bent idling nigh
some trees.
It was after a time
had spent that
he heard an
amazing
sound.
A frog was propped
half-way upon his
fiddle strummed
all the way up
and down to
the ground.
Musical chords are
timely struck and
all the while the
windless aka
windbag just
fiddle idle.
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