Tanka Triptych Poetry Contest // Sponsored by: John Andersen
( 1st Place )
Written: August 26, 2025
the waiting
beside the old chair
my guitar waits in stillness
strings asleep in dust
the moment my fingers reach
the silence bends into sound
the voice
a low trembling voice
rises from its wooden chest
shaping all my hours
midnight sorrow braided through
with the thread of restless hope
the afterglow
when the song drifts off
its breath remains inside me
soft as ember-glow
guiding me to start again
with a heart that learns to heal
Categories:
triptych, emotions, hope, music,
Form: Tanka
though Mom's memory
is slow she smiles at photo
taken many years
ago when life was simple
with no confusion chaos
Mom's hospice nurses
are thorough even small things
are giant matters
as life's boundaries implode:
sleep, dress, eat, nap, sleep, repeat
long term memories~
through it all she still recalls
her little girl (that's me)
(her jewel) I'm by her side
as she finds eternity
Categories:
triptych, death, life,
Form: Tanka
In the garden's hush,
Flowers bloom in whispered sighs,
Nature's soft embrace.
Beneath the moon's glow,
Planets dance in cosmic spin,
Time's eternal flow.
Mysteries of life,
Echoes of the universe,
Answers softly solve.
Categories:
triptych, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form: Senryu
Hydraulic system, heart made of pistons
Every co-ordinated mechanical manoeuvre
My heart served to you on a platter, your hors d'oeuvre
I look into your eyes, a deplorable disguise
Retinas of glass, I see right through your lies
Figments of my imagination
Don't come and cause me more vexation
Circling my mind
Tormenting, suffering, sempiternal gyration
My nerve endings started with you
Now unaware to whom
Now that you're gone
I can finally take off this costume
Now isn't the time for salvation
I re-evaluate our amalgamation
Not even an antisocial personality disorder
Could sum up a source of order
Wander your favourite forest
Walk past me and get hit with my poignant odour
Uncover my carcass, I don't need a hearse
Just dump me in the Oder
Dismember me piece by piece
Put me back together however you'd like
The puzzle wont be beautiful
Something incomparable to Vandyke
Categories:
triptych, 12th grade, angst, anxiety,
Form: Free verse
A LINGERING indecision laid bare
and morning sighed with me beside
internal debates fleeing
asylum with turmoil between
fret and fear
so i decide...
a narrow splinter jiggles my mind
like how someone treated me --
a wreck;
love, like us, a barren and somber alter
without her triptych
and questions remain.
:: ~ ::
Categories:
triptych, poems, poetry, poets,
Form: Free verse
Moonrise,
wolf cries.
Owl glides.
mouse hides.
Black masks
raid trash.
08-18-2014
Categories:
triptych, animal, nature, night,
Form: Footle
Piet's
early
abstraction-
did it leave him
blue ?
Piet Mondrian's Evolution c 1910/11
http://www.abcgallery.com/M/mondrian/mondrian24.html
Categories:
triptych, art
Form: Ekphrasis