Hello, my friends,
Lots going on here, at home, and I usually detail every winning poem, but I chose to spend more time on the top winner this time around and have highlighted its rhyme. Now, some of you are only aware of perfect rhyme, but there are many forms of rhyme.
To keep this as simple as possible, I will first showcase the first place winner, Dane Ann Smith Johnson... then show you a highlighted poem.
Okay, just read this through....
Myself in Urban Chaos
By Dane Ann Smith Johnson
Here I go again, focused on myself.
Remembering, analyzing,
Memorializing tragedy.
Thinking, endless thinking.
Suicides, death of grandmas, past loves.
Pining about passions and losses.
The condo I had to let go.
The jobs I left behind.
And the cemetery lots.
My mind wonders around in circles.
From darkness to darkness, city to city,
Job to job, decision to decision
My children, I embrace with love.
Those years riddled with joys and pains.
Trying, always trying,
Yet, still disappointed.
Clinging to religion, remembering God.
Accepting –
Then, the child in me curls up
Safe in my warm cocoon,
And I think of you in the next room.
Life made new, fear subdued.
The touch of your hand, my confidence renews.
That forever love so long wanted, found at last.
The pressures I once knew moved to the past.
To the outside world I say adieu.
I was lost in the hollow of myself.
Outside of myself, I found peace.
Memories blot out urban chaos
And focus on woodland happy days.
Struggles not so painful anymore.
Peace found its hope in you.
…And then, we spoon.
What a powerhouse of a poem. First, loved where and how it started. I and Myself in the first line echoes the poet’s sentiment that she feels too self-centered. The next three lines upt the amp of a mind racing by a list of “stress” verbs. Then into nouns... the further we go into the poem, the more personal we get, as should be, layer upon layer peeled until we get at the PURE heart of the matter. The static becomes less as well, line by line, as we move from chaos to peace. Besides the WONDERFUL rhyme, structure, devices, and figurative language I had soooo craved, the last two lines are what won this poem its top spot. Congratuations, Dane Ann... FANTASTIC!
Now, sound out the highlighted areas.. check the following, assonance, consonance, euphony. Clever use of identical rhyme by repeating words.
Have you ever analyzed your own poem to see what you instinctively have created? You’d be surprised..
Myself in Urban Chaos
By Dane Ann Smith Johnson
Here I go again, focused on myself.
Remembering, analyzing,
Memorializing tragedy.
Thinking, endless thinking.
Suicides, death of grandmas, past loves.
Pining about passions and losses.
The condo I had to let go.
The jobs I left behind.
And the cemetery lots.
My mind wonders around in circles.
From darkness to darkness, city to city,
Job to job, decision to decision
My children, I embrace with love.
Those years riddled with joys and pains.
Trying, always trying,
Yet, still disappointed.
Clinging to religion, remembering God.
Accepting –
Then, the child in me curls up
Safe in my warm cocoon,
And I think of you in the next room.
Life made new, fear subdued.
The touch of your hand, my confidence renews.
That forever love so long wanted, found at last.
The pressures I once knew moved to the past.
To the outside world I say adieu.
I was lost in the hollow of myself.
Outside of myself, I found peace.
Memories blot out urban chaos
And focus on woodland happy days.
Struggles not so painful anymore.
Peace found its hope in you.
…And then, we spoon.
Thank you to all poets. Way to go! You are all awesome and exhaustive to judges! LOL! So good and yes, I saw the work you all put in! Take a well-earned bow and congratulations!
YOU ROCK MY WORLD!
Also, I large apology to Mystic Rose.. I closed the contest 15 minutes early! I will NEVER do that again.
Here is her beautiful poem ... sorry, love. Gorgeous!
PUPPET BY MYSTIC ROSE
She watches the shadows fall away from the wall
Like ghostly finger puppets they scatter beneath an old squeaky mattress
She can hear two matron hands as they collapse the shutters from behind, slam goes the door.
The sound of her breath is like a dry matchstick as she listens to a ticking clock on an old burlap stump.
Everything falls down behind the walls. She has colonized every fear in the closet and gave each one a running brook, an underpass.
Anny is her only friend. She has russet wool hair, and can make herself flat as a pizza carton. She moves
Like a mote as her lips brush the fringe of her hair, “Anny, are you awake? You better lay still, they are
Right underneath us, if we are not quiet, they’ll come for us “ Its the muttering of a child who’s perfected the art of ventriloquism.
Tied up in sweat knots they leave her no choice, but to press her ear to the floor and listen some more.
Her eyes are heavy dumbbells without raise, and her mind is caught in a fog horn far away. The
Only stir comes from the puppets below, she’s falling deeper and deeper into a solid black hole.
Perhaps sleep will save her tonight, she thinks while losing her wake. Slowly but surely she sinks
Low down below.
February 5, 2014
For Cyndi's Contest: Stephanie Deshphante Painting: The Falling