Poetry competition CLOSED 24th December 2018 3:06pm
WINNER
Anonymous
Anonymous
RUNNERS-UP:
takis1917
and gothicsurrealism
the elegance of decay
Anonymous
Poetry Contest Description
Poems about aging
Write a poem about how you feel about or experience the process of aging. This can be written as your own experience of aging or witnessing that of others. You can use metaphor or be literal. Write under any genre as long as it pertains to aging. Humor is welcomed but not required.
*1 entry only
*2 weeks
*New writes only
*No epic sagas please – keep it to 30 lines or less
*I'll be leaving comments on your entries within your own pages
An example:
as petals slowly fell
from the once beautiful bloom
the trail of her essence
drifted away on the wind
and she grew melancholy
knowing
she would not see them again
the blossom never cherished
left to fade on its stem
not selected
nor longingly kept
never to be pressed
held in memory
where her tantalizing aroma would linger
despite the passing of years
nostalgia feeding the hypnotic scent
just another forgotten flower
waning untended in the garden
hidden from all notice
any beauty that remained
a mere shadow
all but forgotten now
and aging with grace
*1 entry only
*2 weeks
*New writes only
*No epic sagas please – keep it to 30 lines or less
*I'll be leaving comments on your entries within your own pages
An example:
as petals slowly fell
from the once beautiful bloom
the trail of her essence
drifted away on the wind
and she grew melancholy
knowing
she would not see them again
the blossom never cherished
left to fade on its stem
not selected
nor longingly kept
never to be pressed
held in memory
where her tantalizing aroma would linger
despite the passing of years
nostalgia feeding the hypnotic scent
just another forgotten flower
waning untended in the garden
hidden from all notice
any beauty that remained
a mere shadow
all but forgotten now
and aging with grace
Anonymous
<< post removed >>
Summer Solstice of My Life
In the summer solstice
Of my young life
Everything was beautiful
And all was bright
My spirit was free
My mind filled with dreams
Of what I might become
And what I would be
If only I could flee
Life’s wretched winter
The causes my bones to ache
And my skin to shiver
And go back to those days
Of my summer solstice
When I was carefree,
Happy and precocious
Of my young life
Everything was beautiful
And all was bright
My spirit was free
My mind filled with dreams
Of what I might become
And what I would be
If only I could flee
Life’s wretched winter
The causes my bones to ache
And my skin to shiver
And go back to those days
Of my summer solstice
When I was carefree,
Happy and precocious
Written by snugglebuck
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Gray Is the New Beige
I’m in demand.
Everyone covets ghostly hues, cold
and faded, like
driftwood—
salt-soaked, wave
washed in tides that
thin collagen, creating
skins of wrinkled recesses, where
more secrets can hide.
A decorator’s dream, gray—
we want what has withstood time
just not the cracks that come with it.
Ah, but life
comes with a price, each
new strand of peppered hair
and dappled epidermis, an ode
to worlds we once knew.
Paint your walls to match
what you can take away from me—
strip my colors, preserve
them in woods that build your home;
watch
as I become my Grandmother
in more ways than one.
I’m in demand.
Everyone covets ghostly hues, cold
and faded, like
driftwood—
salt-soaked, wave
washed in tides that
thin collagen, creating
skins of wrinkled recesses, where
more secrets can hide.
A decorator’s dream, gray—
we want what has withstood time
just not the cracks that come with it.
Ah, but life
comes with a price, each
new strand of peppered hair
and dappled epidermis, an ode
to worlds we once knew.
Paint your walls to match
what you can take away from me—
strip my colors, preserve
them in woods that build your home;
watch
as I become my Grandmother
in more ways than one.
youth's rose
I turned around I saw my reflection
star gazing in your eyes I didn't notice the time
the sun had gone down on my beauty
grey streaked my hair
lines creased my face
still, you found me beautiful
you held my youth
a pressed rose in your memories
a flower you picked in the summer
my gift to you my one and only
time tempered my wild nature
I was found even lovelier in your adoring gaze
looking at me in my maturity
you were star gazing too
I saw my reflection mirrored in artic blues
my heart melted and I was warmed
as one with your soul, I was home
Written by crimsin
(Unveiling)
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the essence of absence (everything & nothings of newness~nothingness)
sanctum's reminiscing memory papillae
still stuck hard in revolting astringencies
of million brewing theobromine crisis
had but just caved in again and again
to indelibly imprinted submissions
of passion smeared wine red lipsticks
over and beyond the woven ranges
of once fluttering fabric herbarium
in pleated cottons to crinkly punks
now idly under hermetic enclosures
that do dare out a little here & there
in hung remnants of trivial traceability
whilst the basic principle of the active you..
yes you.. “where are you, where are you..’
infinitely kills me with its mystical daggers
this deadly silence..this incalculable distance
this lengthening elusiveness..amidst twilight’s
slants of an ecstatic peacockish resplendence
stilts as ignorance to narrowed worldly visions
feels destined these deaths of separation held
high with obligate fidelity, these virtuous rebirths
now nevermore in any desirous expectations
even the lightly wind chimes to its slightest
of lowly utterances if not its sonorousness
silently implodes the sterile doormat & brittle skins
shall never be preoccupied with your organic grips
when all is (un)said & (un)done to deathly eternity
waiting is just a proverbially dangling existence
extraneously lilting to a dissolving spacetime
Written by summultima
(uma)
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The Elegance of Our Sunset
Death shall have a dominion.
Dawn’s birth to day’s life,
Dusk’s decay to the death of night:
Tis’ not our mortal decision.
Youth’s innocent juvenility,
Vitality’s vibrancy,
The elegantly decaying morbidity,
A corpse in the clay of its grave perishing –
The funeral of darkness at moonset.
Morning’s nativity bears us,
Afternoon’s perennial years,
Evening’s eve of death,
Night’s mortality.
Our flowering... we beautiful cherry blossoms!
The senescent years of our ripening,
The weathering of our childhood babyface,
The decay of our innocence,
The maturation of our witticism.
Oh, the serenity of the eventide.
Now our setting, crimson sun
Trickles hue of gold onto our long-trodden path.
Oh, how immortal is the hand of the clock
That shining ball in the sky run.
Tis’ the hour of nightfall, twilight in our shutting eyes.
…And soul’s fresh, immortal rebirth.
Dawn’s birth to day’s life,
Dusk’s decay to the death of night:
Tis’ not our mortal decision.
Youth’s innocent juvenility,
Vitality’s vibrancy,
The elegantly decaying morbidity,
A corpse in the clay of its grave perishing –
The funeral of darkness at moonset.
Morning’s nativity bears us,
Afternoon’s perennial years,
Evening’s eve of death,
Night’s mortality.
Our flowering... we beautiful cherry blossoms!
The senescent years of our ripening,
The weathering of our childhood babyface,
The decay of our innocence,
The maturation of our witticism.
Oh, the serenity of the eventide.
Now our setting, crimson sun
Trickles hue of gold onto our long-trodden path.
Oh, how immortal is the hand of the clock
That shining ball in the sky run.
Tis’ the hour of nightfall, twilight in our shutting eyes.
…And soul’s fresh, immortal rebirth.
Written by gothicsurrealism
(Daniel Long)
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Ageing 2*
(Listening to CONNECT.OHM - Snow Park)
Time
has made
us
more Apt
to go out
in Public
Looking
ugly-
less vain
in areas
where
Life will
Settle you down;
laugh lines*
Appeasing the
Parts of Me
who
just didn’t
make it
Into the Gene pool for
some idealized fulfillment,
dark eye circles*
detailing
my own
Mortality,
a jacket that’s*
Regressing
towards
early
adulthood with the
Places
We’ve been
Tucked neatly
In their
pockets
And a purse*
Unable
to Clear
the turnstile
Of Scurried emotion;
telling off on everybody.
Time
has made
us
more Apt
to go out
in Public
Looking
ugly-
less vain
in areas
where
Life will
Settle you down;
laugh lines*
Appeasing the
Parts of Me
who
just didn’t
make it
Into the Gene pool for
some idealized fulfillment,
dark eye circles*
detailing
my own
Mortality,
a jacket that’s*
Regressing
towards
early
adulthood with the
Places
We’ve been
Tucked neatly
In their
pockets
And a purse*
Unable
to Clear
the turnstile
Of Scurried emotion;
telling off on everybody.
Written by Nari
(Laura Jean)
Go To Page
Time
Of sway from limbs to side,
in hula leaf palm,
fries the moisture of a grin
by fluorescent butter stripes.
The patrona cradled her golden eye.
Clients' broken frisk hands healed by the lustless lumps on the spine.
As my hip fell to the base of the trunk,
appetite of a sex diverged in toll of the Christmas silver bell.
Though, the mirror in fluorescent lather
paved the scabby face
and I danced in hula leaf palm,
swayed varicose appendage to lopside.
The nickels in peppered lime deflected me from the starlets of the roof
and the cabaret vomited their harlots which roam the heated spoons.
Nubile is bread of drizzling oil —
sweeter, but bloomed of fungus by grace of lesser paralytic serums than New York sixties of minute hand twines.
in hula leaf palm,
fries the moisture of a grin
by fluorescent butter stripes.
The patrona cradled her golden eye.
Clients' broken frisk hands healed by the lustless lumps on the spine.
As my hip fell to the base of the trunk,
appetite of a sex diverged in toll of the Christmas silver bell.
Though, the mirror in fluorescent lather
paved the scabby face
and I danced in hula leaf palm,
swayed varicose appendage to lopside.
The nickels in peppered lime deflected me from the starlets of the roof
and the cabaret vomited their harlots which roam the heated spoons.
Nubile is bread of drizzling oil —
sweeter, but bloomed of fungus by grace of lesser paralytic serums than New York sixties of minute hand twines.
Written by DecipherMe
Go To Page
Related submission no longer exists.
I am tinnitus
complex old
childhood a long time ago
all is heard are closing doors
life just ground floor chores
of yesterdays in faded print
anecdotes to make friends yawn not grin
the walking sticks relentless tap
when age blind panic tips its hat
the maze that is dementia's way
with good reason drives a wedge
disabled and infirmed with gout
to toast before the gas runs out
retirement flyers and knowing looks
an epitaph of empathy carried like a corpse
loneliness its cancer without cure
its visits are so regular
tempis fugit a slippery slope
last memorial on a suicide note
self administered euthanasia's last step
a dose that hangs on a cliff edge
to step upon deaths welcome mat
I am the me of future years mishaps
side step and dance to fates sharp claws
and jam the spring on deaths trapdoor
childhood a long time ago
all is heard are closing doors
life just ground floor chores
of yesterdays in faded print
anecdotes to make friends yawn not grin
the walking sticks relentless tap
when age blind panic tips its hat
the maze that is dementia's way
with good reason drives a wedge
disabled and infirmed with gout
to toast before the gas runs out
retirement flyers and knowing looks
an epitaph of empathy carried like a corpse
loneliness its cancer without cure
its visits are so regular
tempis fugit a slippery slope
last memorial on a suicide note
self administered euthanasia's last step
a dose that hangs on a cliff edge
to step upon deaths welcome mat
I am the me of future years mishaps
side step and dance to fates sharp claws
and jam the spring on deaths trapdoor
Written by slipalong
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A Late Walk (A Love Of Late)
Walking up to Autumn’s gate
Blocked in part by blooms of late
Bowing heads to shortening days,
Scattering seeds on stony stays,
I step to reach the yellowed maze
Of crumpled stalks and fallen blooms
Eaten by hungry birds and hares,
No longer alive, it seems too soon.
Even a tree looks downward on
Its summer splendor faded, gone;
It sends a branch that cracks to fall,
Its windswept story told to all.
Written upon the winds of time,
Never fully telling its earthly rhyme,
A story of late foretold in aster blue:
That in my final hour, I would give my heart to you.
.....
#RobertFrost
Blocked in part by blooms of late
Bowing heads to shortening days,
Scattering seeds on stony stays,
I step to reach the yellowed maze
Of crumpled stalks and fallen blooms
Eaten by hungry birds and hares,
No longer alive, it seems too soon.
Even a tree looks downward on
Its summer splendor faded, gone;
It sends a branch that cracks to fall,
Its windswept story told to all.
Written upon the winds of time,
Never fully telling its earthly rhyme,
A story of late foretold in aster blue:
That in my final hour, I would give my heart to you.
.....
#RobertFrost
Written by PoetsRevenge
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Time Adverbs
Every now and then
he lifts his eyes towards the window
trying to bring in sight
the commotion outside...
On other occasions
he coughs and spits and the saliva rolls out,
hangs from his lips
oscillating at length before it reaches the floor...
When he hears footsteps
fainting away from his door
gathers every ounce of strength
and hisses impatiently...
Sometimes
he argues with the electric appliances
chiding them for failing to reproduce
memories of questionable value...
Presence
- lost, but unaltered,
within time's absence -
determined, always, by time adverbs...
he lifts his eyes towards the window
trying to bring in sight
the commotion outside...
On other occasions
he coughs and spits and the saliva rolls out,
hangs from his lips
oscillating at length before it reaches the floor...
When he hears footsteps
fainting away from his door
gathers every ounce of strength
and hisses impatiently...
Sometimes
he argues with the electric appliances
chiding them for failing to reproduce
memories of questionable value...
Presence
- lost, but unaltered,
within time's absence -
determined, always, by time adverbs...
Written by takis1917
Go To Page
With what words
Lingering unspoken, unremembered
Which would ring tinny in my ears
Could I describe the joys and sorrows
And how much of each
Blending and diminished with years
I loved once, or more than once,
Or many times through my days
When heartbeats firmly called out to lovers.
Answers sighing on the wind.
Through sunrises and sunsets
Hands held and whispered breaths
I once was strong, unyielding
Confident in myself
Now, back bent I shuffle
Softly spoken, but not asking for help
Lingering unspoken, unremembered
Which would ring tinny in my ears
Could I describe the joys and sorrows
And how much of each
Blending and diminished with years
I loved once, or more than once,
Or many times through my days
When heartbeats firmly called out to lovers.
Answers sighing on the wind.
Through sunrises and sunsets
Hands held and whispered breaths
I once was strong, unyielding
Confident in myself
Now, back bent I shuffle
Softly spoken, but not asking for help
