Silver Slams: Finalist Poems from Preliminary 1, Semester 1
As we draw closer to the Thursday, December 4th final of our Silver Slams poetry contest, we will be posting the wonderful poetic works voted on by our audience to cross the finish line! Here are the winning poems, as voted by attendees, from the first preliminary of semester 1.
Shadow - Anonymous
I don’t remember the girl I used to be
That careless, propitious version of me
Gone are the days when my only worry was how soon the day might end
How much longer I had in the sun filled streets to spend
Knee high wellies, reflections bouncing off puddles
With each tormenting ripple the image muddles
Memories dry out like the limp laundry along the line
Those moments I once held close, supposed to be mine
Is it my story if I cannot write it out?
The river that is my soul seems in drought
I miss the echo of my laughter
I try but no sound reverbs after
When was the last time I dreamt?
Somehow that child I’ve grown to resent
She filled my head with hopeless ideals
Merely waves of nausea, my mind now reels
Each time broken, I’m expected to retrieve the pieces
Clutching photos of foreign smiles, leaving creases
So many times I’ve yearned to escape
That shadow of me, that distant shape
OAP - Emma Crawford
Most of the time, its a car crashed in the cold.
The chariot flipped on a country road.
Damp grass stuck to your forehead
It takes 45 minutes, and hey presto, you'd be dead.
Or you drown! Obviously, you can swim,
but you could drown…hypothetically.
Blue lips, lungs full of water, skin spongey and full of bloat.
I would have to slowly realise what the rest of my life would
look like: Insomnia.
Pondering did you sink, or did you float?
For better or for worse,
In sickness and in health.
They aren't always gruesome.
Sometimes you're just tired and slowly melting into linen sheets.
If it was the same nightmare every time,
I think it would be easier. I would know when to close my eyes with you,
and tune into the eternal radio.
And I know it doesn't bear thinking about.
Me? A widow?
A widow in everything but legal documentation and public records?
At twenty years old? Inserting myself into every
grief support poster and wrapping myself in a weighted blanket?
Wanting to throw furniture at elderly people out for dinner
because what if one day you are not an elderly lady out for dinner?
"You know it doesn’t bear thinking about,
I am a strong swimmer, a better driver than you.
Protected by bubble wrap and love and lungs still filling with air and neurons sparking with bright ideas.
I am here with you wherever that may be.
Under this Harvest Moon. Two OAPs."
The Ritual - Sally McRedmond
I wake this morning in a passenger seat,
The rituals must always begin.
Yet I have added no sugar to my coffee,
I do not care to taste.
I leave my cat without a kiss,
She eats her breakfast in peace.
Hope is a funny word,
It falls from my lips before its beginning.
This morning there is no sugar in my coffee,
My dictionary lost a word,
I have no need for a tomorrow.
Yesterday whispers what I might enjoy for lunch,
My apathy catches it like a bomb,
It would not change a thing