Waaaaaayyyy back in my high school days, I was encouraged to enter poetry contests through the state poetry organization. Unfortunately, I can no longer recall which was which, but one of my poems won an Honorable Mention one year, and another poem won, I believe, third place, the following year. So proud!! And lucky, too, I believed. I had a third poem that I had submitted twice (once each year as a second poem) that never won anything in and of itself, but to which I attributed the success of the two that did. (Bear in mind this was the reasoning of a high schooler’s brain.)
Here are the poems:
from the first year —
SERAPH MOTHER
Hush, Baby don’t be afraid.
You shall see her face and silhouette
A hundred times more in your dreams,
Though you shan’t remember them as hers.
Your tiny hand will reach for her familiar warmth,
Only to grasp my calloused fingers.
Hush, Cherub, I’ll tuck you in at night
And tell you stories.
You’ll learn.
I know the emptiness you feel.
Hush, Son, take my hand;
Your father loves you.
[Oddly enough, this poem, written at age 16, took on real-life significance many many years later.]
the second poem — responsible for the good luck! —
CAMOUFLAGE
O, Blackness,
Drink me in;
Make me a part of you.
If I hide inside you
I cannot reflect false feelings
Or glaring truth.
O, strong, cold Darkness,
Protect me;
Let me cower behind your ebony wall.
If I hide behind you
I cannot see the unknown horrors
Or lurking malice.
O, Night,
Cover me with your soot;
Soothe me with your ashes;
If I am murky with your smoke
I cannot feel tortured by accusing eyes
Or caustic conscience.
[not sure what I was thinking at age 16, but obviously something….]
and the poem from the following year —
seventeenth summer
a year and many pains away
will be the day i come of age,
but three hundred sixty-five truths
will come alive within my heart
until the day a year and many joys away
i come of age