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Neopoet Weekly 09/01/24 to 09/07/24

This Week’s Winner is Trail

 

Echoes

 

Once there was a man
Who wrote beautiful music
He wrote the music because he was sad
He was sad because he was all alone

But he was noticed for his music
He ended up being loved for it
And in being loved
He lost his sadness
And his music soon after

 

To leave an additional comment on the contest page click here

 

Autumn Arrival Image Prompt Contest

 

 

 

Read the finalists for the Autumn Arrival Image Prompt Contest and vote for your favorite poem. Voting will end September 19th, 2024. Best of luck to our finalists

 

Image Link

 

 

Autumn Rain

By Punkyfrewster

Drops pelt the
fallen leaves
bringing to mind
tears falling
over beauty
and lost love.

Rain bounces
off the
confetti on the
ground like
the damaged end
of a party.

 

 

Autumn's Cusp

By scribbler

Mid October a cool day
with a northern cooling breeze.
All hints of summer gone away.
The few green leaves are just a tease.

Tomorrow will bring the first frost
so this day finds me 'neath the trees
absorbing warmth before its lost
and limbering up titanium knees.

For I'm not what I once was.
Time has seen that I am not,
So I sit on a stump to take a pause
and breathe autumn's scent which I'd forgot.

Then turn my face up to the sky
as cool front winds begin to blow.
I watch the clouds as they race by.
They leave like friends I used to know.

My eyes water from sun's glare
so I drop my head down to my chest
letting my chin settle there
while I count the ways that I am blessed.

I'm blessed with our cabin in the trees
I'm blessed with seeing one more fall.
I'm blessed with grandchildren to tease.
I'm blessed with being here at all.

I watch a squirrel climb to its nest
for now the sun is getting low
so ere' it reaches ridge's crest
I arise then turn and go.

 

                                                                                               Vote Here

August 2024 Contest Winners

The Winner of the Peace Versus War is Lavender  with the following poem

To Those Who Walked, Peace Versus War

 

I hope you have a quiet day,
a kissing breeze,
sweet hours at ease
planting flowers, if you please,
and nothing there to rip it all away.
I hope you have that day.

I pray you have a gentle night,
under stars so deep
they soothe and keep
your soft breath flowing as you sleep
beneath the crescent moon and her earthlight.
I pray you have that night.

And may your memories be amended
to blissful skies and green earth, so splendid
that they embrace you when you close your eyes.
May this be the rich life you come to realize.

To those who walked through the blood of yesternight,
I hope for you this day. I pray for you this night.

 

To leave an additional comment on the contest page click here

 

The Winner of the 08/24 Too Good to be True  is Punkyfrewster with the following poem

Too Good to be True

 

In my mind, it was bliss
day in and day out
until the day it ended.

In the rearview mirror,
I saw signs:
far-off gazes to nowhere
as we ate dinner
and stalled conversations
about your day.

All the bliss aside,
our love was just
too good to be true.

 

To leave an additional comment on the contest page click here

 

The Winner of the 08/24 I Lost The Instructions is Candlewitch   with the following poem

 

I Lost The Instructions (to being a woman)

 

I Lost The Instructions
(to being a woman)

You beat "Her" out of me
leaving my soul tattered.
In the beginning you were kind
warm and jovial, it mattered.

Gradually you began to change
taking me away from all I knew,
from Minnesota to the east coast
an easy ride we drove straight through.

I discovered your evil temper
on our trip, it left me in fear,
knocking me down, kicking me
you bellowed, shouting, making it clear.

You were the boss, and me your slave
seeing the cruel glint in your eye
was an omen of what was soon to come
you would test me in ways to make me cry...

Each new day was a promise of terror
you invented head-games to play.
In fear, I trembled trying to hide
tried not to anticipate the rue of the day.

nights were bad too, I cowered under covers
You brutalized me sexually to hear me scream
threatening to blow my head off my shoulders
losing connection with my idea of a woman's dream!

 

To leave an additional comment on the contest page click here

 

The Winner of the 08/24 Broken Air Condition is Kristen H. with the following poem

Broken Air Condition

 

We never had much more than each other
in the summer of 2016

Adventures on Saturday nights
Two wheels
Two helmets
Two hearts

Lazy Sunday mornings
Two cups of coffee
Two cigarettes burned
Two hands together

There wasn’t much to it
Just you and I,
and our broken air conditioner

To leave an additional comment on the contest page click here

 

The Winner of the 08/24 Beach Day is  paleoray with the following poem

 

Shore Watch

 

Splashing, crashing sound the waves
On the surf and then retrieve;
As the foam spreads on the sand,
While the pipers dash and weave.

High above the seagulls glide,
Circling 'round a sea of teal;
Others swooping close to pier,
Looking for an easy meal.

In the distance dolphins dive,
With their synchronizing breaks;
Dorsal fins shine at each peak,
Then they submerge in their wakes.

Sand crabs scurry back and forth,
Seeking food along the shore;
After catching fish with claws,
Quick they vanish as they bore.

Soon the sun sets in the west,
As the moon brings mirrored light;
Ocean tides smooth out the sand,
While the waves gleam through the night.

 

To leave an additional comment on the contest page click here

 

The Winner of the Neopoet Weekly 08/25/24 to 08/31/24 is Twizzle48 with the following poem

 

WINTER COMETH

 

Do you hear winter, I hear it coming
That distant growl, there in the wind
Stronger now, than an autumn breeze
With the merest hint of an early freeze
And with no sweet taste like tamarind
But a biting cold that can be numbing

For some, it is a season for celebration
But its hidden scowl suggests otherwise
Hearing threats under its frozen breath
Of ice and snow, laying so still in death
Pretty snowflakes offering cute disguise
As so much of Nature is in hibernation

At least this is true in Northern climes
Just bleak with not much give and take
And still, some try to understand why
As the end of the calendar year is nigh
But there is hope following in its wake
Anticipating the Spring’s warmer times

To leave an additional comment on the contest page click here

 

 

 

 

 

Neopoet Weekly 08/18/24 to 08/24/24 Winner!

This Week’s Winner is  Sen99

 

Venus Tree

Standing here for decades
On one wooden leg
A native English species,
An old grey oak.
Its naked bark bleached,
Ashen white like alabaster.

A nameless uncarved block
Unyielding and proud,
Exposed to the elements.
Wind and weather beaten
An organic body of life
Its beauty gaunt and raw.

Striking to an admirer’s eye,
Picture perfect from a distance
A resilient stone sculpture,
Its arms cut down to stumps.

Like some replica of a classical statue
From some ancient age,
Nature’s beauty,
A timeless art.

 

 

 

 

To leave an additional comment on the contest page click here

 

The stream (all workshops)

This is the stream - you can see all poems on Neopoet, live, as they are created.

 

Just open the blind!

Down through the sky,
fell the "screaming blue meanies".
Down through my chimney,
not devoured by my fire.

Thoughts that once resonated
so clean and so clearly,
Now filled with anger,
hatred, and vice!

I wish to the four winds
my life felt worth living.
The gray days were over,
conquered and gone.

When will the sunshine
flow through my window?
Maybe if I would just
open the blind!

Matthew delivers his latest bullet – tin...

from the Harris-Walz front
where liberal minded socially progressive
electorate doth agonizingly grunt
targeted in crosshairs scoped out
eager and ready to be mortally wounded
courtesy notorious big headed
(and bigoted) infamous
for bearing arms
as if going on a hunt

Autumn Rain

Drops pelt the
fallen leaves
bringing to mind
tears falling
over beauty
and lost love.

Rain bounces
off the
confetti on the
ground like
the damaged end
of a party.

Beach Day

"That look, right there!",
I point at her and accuse,
as I catch her smile before it fades.

With no further words between us
we walked down to the azure coast,
as I imagined shells on the beach,
and second cups of coffee before lunch.

Have I been here before?

Betrayal
Feels
New
Yet,old
At the same time
Acrid
Sweet
Pain

The Thingamajig and the Horny Toad

A thingamajig came in a box,
a cardboard crate that barely locks,
so as it waited on my lanai
it wiggled out with hopes to try
to skip, skedaddle, flee, or fly,
to slip away like a cunning fox
and laze itself in the near boondocks.

It got as far as the end of the road,
where there it met a horny toad
who didn't make a single sound
but dallied there on desert ground
hoping the thing would walk around
and not become a darn freeload
who needed help from a horny toad.

Carousel!

My mind is like a carnival
I'll try to help you understand

The turning, churning carousel
has functional demands

It lifts me up and drops me down
I am at its command

I have no power to make it change
I'm constantly in reprimand

My eyes are never dampened
for tears, I cannot cry

And if I could escape
There's nowhere left to fly

I've ostracized my friends and folks
I'm ever in denial

Reaching for redemption
of which I cannot buy!

Still Hoping... Autumn Image Prompt

Introduction:
Viewing the lonely lane
where the trees have dropped
their leaves, mostly brown
all color faded, lives stopped.

One last ramble ending Autumn,
lonely snowflake lands in my hand
smiling as season changes to next
not ready for this; wasn't planned.

Awakening to Spring's perfume...
played all through Summers' scented days
with nothing sober on my mind
colors change, setting them ablaze.

Aftermath from this er...

attempt to break thru Hadrian's Wall
while roam'n across cyberspace of urban sprawl
dark shadows spill across
the outer limits of the twilight zone
whereby edge of night
creeps brow of me, a Neanderthal!

Climbing with Silence

Since I could crawl,
People painted
Tomorrow with
Dark colors.

As I started
My modest path,
I kept running into
Many dead ends,
So I left the car
And kept going.

No easy stroll,
A rough climb
On windy hills
That make
Hurricanes
Nauseous.

A compass,
Some water,
And a will
to walk on
Unpaved roads,
With stars
As my only
Companions.

I won’t
Abandon
My route,
Even if the locals
Welcome me.

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