Poetry

Guelder Rose

by Anastasia Koulikovskaia

2017 SPX Writes Writing Contest winner for poetry

Beneath the mountain fire glows

The bloodied flame of guelder rose

A ruby throned on diamond snow

The passioned blaze will only grow.

A berry plucked by nimble hands,

A curse awakens deep within,

Sends warning out across the lands

Of guelder rose beneath her skin.

Beware the drop of juice and blood

Of guelder rose and tender flesh

Once dripped on snow will summon floods,

And bind the realm to spin afresh.

What is the tale of torrid eyes?

What is the mystery of olde?

Enigma spun with tempting lies,

Seducing minds with blazing cold.

Succumb to all that you've once feared,

The faerie tongue will whisper true.

Let your once human traits be smeared

As morning dew, awaken new.

Beneath the mountain fire glows

The bloodied flame of guelder rose

A ruby throned on diamond snow

The passioned blaze will only grow.

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Since I was Little

by Jacob Parent

2016 SPX Writes Poetry Contest winner

Since I was little I felt you, crawling your way into my heart and building your house there,

You listened to the beat of my chest clinging to how it rattled your empty heart hoping one day to drain me of my love,

So you could know what it is like to feel,

I could feel you on bad days trying to burst out of my being like you were fleeing to freedom only to realize that it’s not possible for you to leave me,

You just stay inside my heart and sometimes vacationed to my brain and would have a dead beat party with my depression,

Waltzing around with my inner depravity toe to toe with Mrs. Depression twirling around my sub consciousness you dance and laugh while I sit and cry,

In times of sadness you embrace me, hugging me only to stab me in the back with your dagger,

When I feel a lurching in my chest when I feel stress I know it's you that's plucking my heart strings and trying to strum the blues,

But yet I still tried to send you a dove with an olive branch of peace, only you shot it down and cooked it,

I cut my heart into sheets thinking it would be the perfect love letter to send you hoping that you would take it and frame it on your wall,

But instead you burned it in front of my face still willing to lace up my happiness and haul it off to your home as your prize,

Trying to remember a time where you weren’t with me is impossible, you were always following me like the minute hand following the hour hand only that the clock never struck “done” so that you would leave,

Whenever I would get nervous you'd make my hands shake, as if a mere quake would make me crumble down to rubble,

You would make my blood boil so that I would coil in my bed wondering why I was ever destined to be with you that would make my nervousness double,

You would make my heart race until it would fall down with exhaustion making my legs give way to your power,

You made me run after you down the rabbit hole only to find that there was no Wonderland at the end,

I would take sandpaper to scrub away my flaws that you made me see about my self only allowing me to sand me down to nothing,

It was if you took a drive-by down memory lane shooting my young self so I would forget what innocence felt like,

You toppled me down,

But you didn’t realize that I was capable of rebuilding myself,

I took the glass shards of myself and glued them back together to reflect who I really was and sealed my mirror with liquid love so you couldn’t reflect your hatred back at me,

You took every step up to stop me from my reconstruction only that you forget that I didn’t build stairs for you to climb, and while you fell down to that deep dark pit of limbo,

I climbed mountains to get away from you so I could para glide away to a land free of your animosity,

And eventually I did,

I found a land where I was free of you clinging to my charity so that I could finally say that I’m done with you Mr. Anxiety

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Harms of Doubt

by Jeta Qela

2016 SPX Writes Poetry Contest honourable mention

The teeth marks on my tongue serve as punishment for every unspoken word.

The tear streaked pages of poems that are written for you, are a result to the hollow feeling in my heart.

The mirror shards that litter my floor, are the frustration I feel when I look upon myself.

These simple details, that you seem to overlook.

Are my motive for self destruction, as I let go into the chaos of the world.

Screams that resonate through the night, are there to tease the paranoia in my head.

The monsters under the bed are there to pilfer my soul,

They yearn for my moments of weakness to shatter me.

Or is it that I want to be destroyed so I can feel the pity of others.

For I cannot seek love in any other way.

My distorted image jumps at me whenever I catch my reflection.

The imaginary tears that I've held back, have long dried.

The mask of chaos falls from my face.

Piece by piece it is pulled apart.

By the doubt that has been planted in my thoughts.

The poison in my veins, snakes through my system.

Caressing my heart with its deathly embrace.

Until I collapse onto my knees

Begging for the sweet release of darkness.

To take me away, into its blanket of sin.

The weeds of self consciousness have nestled in my spirit.

Butchering my happiness, scarring the gentleness in my heart.

Creating callouses, forged by fear of rejection.

What a life to live, a life of looking behind my shoulder.

Never trusting a soul, for even my own could betray me.

The cover has melted off, I give you my soul; stripped bare.

The painted smile droops a little more every day.

I am a fading shadow passing through the lives of joyous humans.

What is done cannot be undone.

Judge me how you will, for your words cannot do more damage than what I have done to myself.

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The Better Part of a Decade

2016 SPX Writes Poetry Contest honourable mention

Not being able to look someone in the eye

Even though for the better part of a decade

They were your world

Is something I’d never wish upon my worst enemy

The midnight talks about our deepest fears and truest thoughts

Become afternoon chats about homework

And the weather

Behind the mask of a smile is a broken mind

Remembering the person you once knew everything about

Spent every waking second with

Who dropped everything for you when you needed it

And who you did the same for

Now just a face across the classroom

Who you look to to explain ionic bonding

Ionic bonds are the only bonds that tie you anymore

When once upon a time your bond couldn’t be separated by the sharpest of knives

Going through your greatest moments together

Only to not even know what their greatest moments are anymore

The sight down the hall of them laughing and creating memories with other people

Breaks your heart a little bit each time

Because you know that nobody will look at them

The same way you did

Like they were the one who created the whole universe

And everything in it

Even though their only creation may only be

A diorama they made in the fifth grade

About the arctic tundra

That they made with you

Only to have thrown it out with great disposition

The same way they threw you away

And even though they did that

You know that in a heartbeat you’d run back to their side

If they ever asked

Because for the better part of a decade

They were your person

And that will never change

No matter what happens between

The two of you

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My Blue Jay

by Jacob Parent

Second place in the 2016 SPX Writes contest

When I was nine my dad would always make me smile.

Even though he was dying.

He didn’t let his glowing light dim through the clamps of cancer and depths of depression, that glow still of life burned in his heart as if it were made of embers in a forest campfire.

The forest was where he felt free to roam like it was his own personal reserve where he could watch birds in awe It was like their caw was a song that he would not get bored of, as if their notes were played by cello and violin chords.

Yet eventually he couldn’t hear them anymore.

But Alongside their beautiful songs he loved their freedom to catch the breeze and lift into the sky like their wings were made of hope that would catch the updrafts of dreams where he could soar high,

Where he would watch them dance and chirp in rivers and streams where we would swim and splash in waterfalls beside trout and bass, now I look at a stream not as water but as liquid memories that shimmer and shine like rainbow scales that reflect my memories with my dad.

But Cancer took its course,

Like wood rot starting from the inside out.

Yet he still kept his last branches that bore fruits of life and positivity until the end and on those branches chirped Blue-Jays, his favourite bird, blue like the sky where he let his thoughts fly like free spirits where they could be seen flowing in rivers and climbing up trees and scaling high mountains where they could view the beauty of the sea, sky and land.

But yet my dad could no longer be there to see these amazing sites.

ut when he would look he viewed life through a Kaleidoscope with many colours, shapes, and patterns no-judgement was his crucifix that he would wear on his heart with pride, people would say he was like Johnny Depp, not only in looks but in the depth of his character.

yet he still succumbed to that troll of cancer,

But through that his thoughts were set free.

His thoughts climbed into the sky where they could free fall like rain and grow a forest of inspiration where the trees bore his face in bark and his beard would grow like moss, his eyes turned to quartz crystals and his lips would become the wind and would whisper when it moved.

Nature is the spirit he shares hands with now where they walk down a path of reeds,

And following his path behind him are blue jays that glide through the weeds.

Yet even though he seems gone his spirit follows me still,

I can’t see him but I can feel it as if someone has wrapped me in a warm blanket, like his spirit embraces me in a hug wherever I go.

And that I know, that he is always wrapped around my heart.

For now I just watch my blue jays that follow me where I go and watch me like guardian angels, their wings not white, but blue like the colour of tears, but not tears of sadness, but of joy to be set free.

It doesn't matter when people leave because they really never do, they are always here they don't just drift away like ashes or melt into the sea when they close their eyes and take their last breath, but when their breathe leaves them, their spirit is released and still stands besides you, as if their spirits remain here as if set in stone but are relieved of bones,

But I know that my dad is among me,

when I hear a Blue Jay chirp, with glee.