Entries For AW Winter Poetry Contest - Time To Vote!

We had a great turn out for the poetry contest with 23 poems being entered! Everyone who submitted MUST vote and anyone else is welcome to vote as well!

To Vote, please PM me the poem # of your 3 favorite poems in order!

Points will be assigned on votes in the following way
First pick = 3
Second pick = 2
Third pick = 1

I will post the results on 1/24!

Without further delay, the entries for the AW Winter Poetry Contest

Poem 1
In Her Eighties

She asked I repeat
the mantra.
the names of the dead
recited on school-less days
of December.

I learned them at eight
from rote between stories of war
and Depression.

Grandma left the city.
abandoned, polite society,
Survived, on plucking chickens
and her Mother’s Ohio farm.

There’s only one temperature to dip a foul.

Recite the names Child.
Her voice in the bedroom
perfumed, with stacks
of yellowed paperbacks
and I spoke to the window.
where the black limbs listened.
to a child rattled with begets.

The yard shone
blue-edged that sunset.
surnames slipped
across tongue and snow.
I aimed at the Elm
the tulip popular
the hard,
white oak
and they stood
as they stand,
my only witness.

Poem 2
Sno'Versed

White, white, Snowflake
white, small, large, oval
raced all around
in rifts and drifts
of pearly, frosty,
swirly, mountain mists,
caught an angel of
White, White, Snowflake White!

Poem 3
Too White, Too Bad…

Madness seeded all year long surfaces
“Here’s Johnny” at it’s worst
At it’s best, there is no best…
The dull and drearies nest
And each day’s test is failed
Bone lonely…me only
Amidst the noise of the silent crowd
My coping skills for winter suck…
My negativity is amplified
My dreams dissolve with stagnant hopes
Like crisp dead leaves my insides crunch
I’m brittle and barren of answers
And the horizon hides the spring…

Poem 4
Winter Prayer

Ice skate
across my heart

Snow flake
away this pain

Fire light
me from the inside

Burning log
each tear

Poem 5
Winter is the Quiet time. (Haibun)

Winter is the quiet time.
Few venture back to see me.
Sometimes, on Sundays,
Cross-country skiers happen by:
Wow, you live here? What do you do for …
I shush them; Listen, the jays are fighting.

Snowshoe hares make a daily pilgrimage.
Searching for my garden
Now buried deep beneath the snow.
Nothing for you here, I whisper.
The berries have been picked and turned to jam,
Which I will not share.

A week’s wood to split.
Felling, splitting, and burning—
Three times it warms me.

.

Poem 7
End Of Winter

A chilling night-rain drums the roof,
much like stampeeding mustang hoofs.
Such thunderous clatter ought to keep
me from a needed night of sleep.
Yet let the total fall increase
and thus precipitate a peace
that deepens as the storm prolongs.
So drop by drop they form a throng
that calls me to a wistful land
where consciousness heeds dream's command.
Both flood dry channels deep with flow
and cause long dormant seeds to grow.

Poem 8
Lady Winter


Lady Winter
rules my heart

her frigid touch
numbs, deadens

provides rest
from emotion's

fire

when Spring courts,
these frozen tears
like her diamonds

will melt

leaving me
sodden


with your love

Poem 9
Longer Than They Should Be


Up north
December days begin
in darkness and loll sodden
beneath grey skies, coddled by
clouds too indolent to rouse
themselves beyond a lighter shade
of pale slate.

Occasionally, a scudding miscreant
skims the froth from a cumulonimbus,
granting a glimpse
of a porcelain disk, effecting
an eerie mid-afternoon polar eclipse.

Up north
December days begin
and end in clotted darkness,
prodigiously sullen unless,
beguiled by the anarchy
of a snow storm, they glisten
pearlescent against the gloaming
status quo of
December days
up north.

Poem 10
Winter


Icy stares and frigid glares
wrap around her tiny frame
the only aim is to impair
then isolate and claim.

Frosty gales encase each breath
where crystal daggers formulate
her lips apart to entice death:
A self-inflicted trait.

Brings chronic cold, beaten breast
chills to strip all battered flesh
from brittle bonds of life repressed.
She's happy to enmesh

the farenheit at bottom end.
Winter... I'd not recommend.

Poem 11
The sun is a greater gift in winter

The sun is a greater gift in winter,
when there are only the skeletal shapes of trees,
buildings stacked one upon the other,
and old scarves, yarn-plucked gloves
that incarcerate..

It is a wonder

to crane your head and see
the familiar sun,
though faded, though sickly,
still emanating familiar light.

to stand in the sun
and let it permeate,
to be in awe of the trees
and how they’ve wrought their iron shapes
against the sky.

to stand still
and let it saturate
till the gray buildings
weigh like mountains upon you,
and in your insignificance,

it is holy
to feel free.

Poem 12
Dead Calm

- cold now, and growing colder:
as silence falls over the land,
smothered under a white blanket.

As I look out on the landscape,
entropy itself seems to have ended
in the death-like still,
and there is peace.

When thaw comes
we won't have peace
or order,
but we'll have life.

We'll make it do.

Poem 13
There is no art to winter


There is no art to winter
to the freezing of soft blossoms
the hardening of leaves

summertime's flame sumacs
stroke their dried-up, blackened bristles
leave scratches on cirrus underbellies
(bandaged by fog, already fading)

There is no music in frigid months
the cold holds its breath, refuses to sing
turns blue in the face,
coughs snow, the percussive crack of ice
no meter to its breaking

No poetry survives, no rhyme,
no campfire chant, no aimless whistled tune.
A dried palette bobs artlessly
on the surface of the creek
rushing away from the spring,
carrying summer's shrapnel, fall's leavings.

Poem 14
Snowfall


Gently gliding down,
The little crystals fall,
Through the silence of the cold,
And the stillness of the world.

Misted breath advances forward,
And vanishes just as fast,
From the lips of those,
Who venture out into its midst.

Light sparkles ever gently,
Upon the crystallized earth,
Strands of water glimmer,
Like prisms of glass.

Hear the lonely winds howl,
Through the forlorn trees!
Hearken to the branches rustle,
Amongst the lifeless trees!

The crunch of single footsteps,
Echo through the space,
Of the ever-reaching landscape,
Of this snow-covered place.

Hear the lonely sound,
Of a single beating heart,
Roaming through this frozen place,
With no hand to hold hers close.

No hands to rest upon,
Her now pink and frosted ears,
No lips to gently graze,
Her cold and wind-stung face.

All alone the heart travels,
In this barren, crystal world,
Of snowfall and of lampposts,
Glowing silently in the night.

Poem 15
Cold in Your Heaven

I linger in a doorway,
half in snowmelt,
half in shadow,
breathing in ice
and cruelty.

You pass by,
shopping bags
slapping against legs,
boots crushing snowflakes
into oblivion.

Give me your coffee,
your coin,
or a look in the eye;
give me your trash,
your condescendence,
or a hint of your warmth.

I am you -
stripped of your plaster walls,
oil heat,
safety,
gas receipts and credit cards,
and I am me -
stripped of everything
that makes me real.

Poem 16
Spring’s First Breath

A soft trickle
of watery music
falls
from beneath
the rusted eaves;
a melody to chase us
back to thoughts of green.

A glimmer of hope
inside this mountain
of arctic freeze,
a softly warming day
of thaw
to raise our hopes
and break the icy back
of a winter bent
on breaking summer dreams.

Poem 17
Polaroid

The picture grows more vivid each year
traced and re-traced by memory,
that night where the glittering Christmas light-up
wove a nest around us,
an entanglement in the bright threads of its dazzle.

I'd said I wished this didn't have to end
while determinedly not looking at you.
The crowd buzzed in heightened clarity.
Overhead, strings of stars pulsated,
electric like your nearness.

Neither do I, you promised
with all the passion of the present tense.
But your Polaroid camera was in your hands,
so that it would be done, no need for after.
Your ardour expended once our outlines became clear.

A flash embrace; we froze into print,
a fairytale couple robed in sparkling light,
our lips posed with practiced cheer,
my eyes matched the rainwashed streets,

as they clung to the last of that shimmering night.

Poem 18
The Fog and the Swan


Dreary, that's what it is.
The smoke from my pipe
and my condensed breath
mesh seamlessly with the dense fog.

Not a good idea to be walking
on a busy road in this murkiness.
I turn off onto a side road
that takes me toward the ponds.
Two small lakes straddling the tarmac.

Walking alone
a week before Chrismas.

A gaggle of Canadian geese totter
across in front of me
their black and grey and brown
pretty, but
moving away from me
as if signaling an ending.

Fitting, I think.

Movement in the other pond
causes me pause
and I stoop to see what could be
emerging between water and fog.

A flossy feathery fluffiness emerges.
Silently
as the swan approaches
and stops,
its bottomless black eyes merely inches
from my own.

We stare at each other for a brief eternity,
and then I start to walk again.
She glides along silently next to me,
her regal neck like a snowy question mark,
her crowned head swiveled so her gaze won't part from me.

Where the path leaves the water's edge
I look back
And she nods

And the fog lifts.

Poem 19
Winter Poem

Maybe it's the season my heart is in
that keeps winter standing still.
Spring can't break
while a frost is on the ground...
and I still carry ice
between my shoulder blades,
where I don't think angel wings will ever grow.
I don't know if I will warm
even with the afternoon glow,
but still, as I look at the tree, I know
it must be the season my heart is in
that keeps tinsel from looking like snow.

Poem 20
Winter's Joy


Winter's the time of boot-covered feet
with snow piled high upon our street.
Kids squeal in laughter and delight
while they make a snowman, big and white.

It's a time for parties galore,
with eggnog drinks and so much more.
It's a time to share Christmas bliss -
Winter brings true happiness.

That's why winter is the best season,
in fact, there are so many reasons.
It's a time for love, and laughter too
for being with friends as special as you.

Poem 21
Haiku

Icicle daggers
Dripping life-giving liquid.
Rejuvenating.

Poem 22
jack's affection

bitter
so very bitter
his gnashing kiss
with jagged teeth

a perfect smile
so sunny bright
it hurts to see
him happy

Poem 23
Winter Schminter

Bare, naked trees
Brown, crunchy grass
Grey skies and dirty snow

Long johns, wool sweaters and gloves

Christmas shopping and holiday weight gain
Dysfunctional family gatherings
Airport layovers

The flu, bronchitis and chapped lips

Groundhog Day and income tax preparation

The mandatory Valentine card and/or dinner

Wind chills and frozen pipes

Winter schminter
Wake me when it's over

And that is it! Remember to send in your votes IN ORDER with the poem # and name by 1/23!!!