Category: 2021-22 Submissions

The sun shrinks down into the ground
To let the moon come out.

The sun is done, had its turn
Now it’s time for the moon to learn.

The day will leave and the night will rise
The loudness, clouds, and bright blue sky.

Say goodbye and fade away
Into the traces and remains of day
It’s time for quiet darkness to stay.

The people all go silent
The animals all turn and watch
To see the last of light
Finally fade away.

Like hourglass sand, only lasting a moment,
Then quickly turns to dark.

Now comes the dreaded time
For silence to play its part
Its lonely, cold reign only lasting the night.

But now we can only move on and wait
For the time to arise the following day
It will come, so do not fret,
The bright golden haze of a sunset.

The stars they shine,
Ever bright,
Tonight.
“How I wish I could make them all mine,”
He said with a distant look in his eyes.

In a bottle it rested on his floor.
By his bed aside his door.
“It will pulsate and gleam forever more!”
He was sure.

And then along came greed,
It was planted in him like a seed.
It filled him with desire and need.
I should have plucked it like a weed.

It was that greed that did him in.
He kept them in glasses and in tin.
Oh, how happy we could have been,
If I had rid him of his sin.

I remember the day I was shown,
How he made the stars his own.
That horrific power he could hone,
And how it chilled me to the bone.

Late that night,
Out of spite,
I told him it was wrong to steal the light.
And of course this resulted in a fight.

We went our separate ways,
How lost I was for days.
Oh, I miss those shining rays.
Now the night is just shades of grays.

The stars they don’t shine,
Ever bright,
Any night.
“How I wish I hadn’t made them all mine,”
He said with a distant look in his eyes.

Most people think he’s dead,
Despite all the things I’ve said.
After all these years I still dread,
Every night when I go to bed.

The air, the breeze, the smell of sea
The marvelous, majestic, magical beach.

Waves so blue, splishing and splashing, crashing and pushing against the sand
Splish! Splash! Up with the water, in the gap.

The water cold, it stretches long, past the skyline where you can see
That goes on indefinitely.

The deepest dark depths, the lightest blue
The sea green deep washing up anew.

The ocean is throwing away what’s no use
Sucking in the treasures it holds.

The sand crunching underneath the feet of many many
Animals and things.

The seagulls laughing, the crabs pinching, the ocean still swishing
Everlasting night and day, the waves of water here to stay.

The moon, the sun, the light of day
The waves crushing everything like an avalanche moving what’s in its way.

When it comes, the fish hide, the crabs collide under the sand
Night and day, no matter the way, the ocean is here to stay.

What is a story
When said without voice?
Whose words are not heard
Unless by choice
Stories are meant to
FLY
Meant to
SPREAD
But not meant as stuck
To paper and ink
Bound by words
Locked in writing
When a story is told, however
There’s no way of knowing
Who’s told it before
Because a story was spread
From people to people
To places and other, it has been
HEARD
Has been
REMEMBERED
Stories cannot do that on their own
Can they?
Unless a story tells itself
Which would be a true story to tell
A story of a story
Who tells itself
And someday
There will be a story
To tell
Of that.

It is beautiful when in time, in the evening
The white foam floating, the waves at peace
The ocean since pushing, pushing at the sand.

The way of its grainy gold, the silent sand
The way of forming, all evening
It is perfect of all ways, gives away the peace.

The feelings of strength, the empathy of peace
It is how one can see, befounded by a sand
The show of displaying, all in one, only, evening.

With time now running, evening no more, the sand has darkened, peace was before.

Oh, freezing snow
I can hear its call
It floods my mind
Not knowing what it wants

The lantern, shuddering
The light, flickering
It guides me
To the freezing snow

Climbing up the snowy, icy mountain
I find the crisp, crystalline snow
It beckons me
Transforming me into a harborer of nature

I glide through the cold skies
In happiness and joy
I am free
As I am one with the snow

The stars twinkled like diamonds
The darkness was a blanket around us
We sat on the grass and talked

The jar in my hand was cold
The buzzing of the fireflies made my hand tingle
You told me that it would go away

And it did
But so did you
You left me

You left me and the darkness
Alone
Without you

You left a sharp pain in my heart
That never seemed to leave
Never quite healing

You never came back
You were gone like the wind
Fast, quick, and cold…

I never let go of you
I held onto you for dear life
But you slipped away

You slipped further
and further
Until all that was left was a memory

A memory of Fireflies
Of darkness
Of you and me

The moon illuminates my pathway as I walk down slowly
A giant nightlight
A natural satellite
A muse
It can be anything…
But most of all
It can change tides
Without the moon
The tides would be unpredictable
Messy
Choppy
Without the moon,
It would all be pitch black
Nothing in sight
No muse
Nothing to look up at and think
All of the what if’s possible
The good and the bad
The terrible and the unthinkable
The moon influences life as we know it
No more first steps or flags
No more ferocious fears
No more falling in love with it.
Just darkness
Silence in the night

As I keep walking along my path,
I think that if it disappears one day
I’ll like to look at it now.
I stop and take it all in
Every single crater
Crack
Crevice
Every single face
Phase
Flag
And field
It’s there for me even during the day at times
Sometimes
It’s not there
But I know it’ll come back
The moon
Is what
We think of it

Big
Bold
Blissful
Beaming
Something to look up to.

My eyes dart back and forth
I take a sip of my tea
I turn the page
My eyes go faster
And faster
Until I can’t stop
My conscience slips through the pages
It just squeezes through
All sounds around me halt
It feels like I’m in the book
Like I’m right there in front of the characters
I pause for a second and my world sucks back to reality.
The noises start up again
I had gotten stuck on a word.
I move past it
As it happens again.
My eyes
Faster
And faster.
I’m back.
It’s the best part
Please, spare me,
I know who did it.
It was-
“Come down for dinner!”
I’m sucked back into reality again.
“Now!”
I knew the characters didn’t say that
It was supposed to be the best part.

People all around me swarm
Popular people
A crowd
A storm
I look down at myself
So different
So worn
I look back up at people
All the very same
Except for me who is full of shame
I feel like I’m in the wrong
Like I’m singing a different song
But then I noticed,
That no one really needs to belong
So from that day on, I held my head up high
No matter what people thought
No matter what energy they brought,
I am myself,
And I am proud
And if I want to,
When I want to
I will be loud.