Silver Slams: Finalist Poems from Preliminary 2, 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 second preliminary of semester 1.
Baggage - Rachel Bello
I look in my room and all I see is bags,
Rubish bags, gift bags, my laundry,
Bags with more bags, and even empty bags
And I can’t help but think is this a representation of my life,
With full bags and half full bags,
And as I slowly empty each bag I think about the process it takes me.
I pick an item, find where it goes, and I place it somewhere,
I keep doing it till I get bored,
Leaving the once full bag, half a bag now.
What if this is what we do with our lives,
Issue by issue, or problem by problem,
We take it through a process,
Unravel it, deal with it and place it somewhere,
Then once we get bored we stop.
But some bags are bigger than we think,
Leaving us trying to figure out why this process that worked for all the other bags
Isn’t working for this bag,
Or why it takes a longer process for us to get through it,
The bags on the bags, they haunt and they taunt,
And stare at me as I stare back.
Why do they constantly feel full even when I empty them.
THIS IS NOT ABOUT BAGS.
Blocking, Locking and knocking me down.
Why no why cant I get rid of these bags.
Oh heavy luggage that I lunge around.
I didn’t choose this ,no I didn’t want this, but why wont these bags leave me alone.
I scream, I shout yet nobody. Nobody hears me.
THIS IS NOT ABOUT BAGS,
But the weight the pain the trauma that these bags have brought to me.
I walk and run with these bags, all day, everyday
Yet nobody seems to care, nobody seems to notice.
I cant help but hear a still but subtle voice whisper I notice, I care.
How long will it take for you to give me these bags,
You don’t have to carry it any longer my child.
So now the once full bags are now empty,
-All empty.
THIS IS NOT ABOUT BAGS.
Unborn Burdens - Emily Kinsella
I walk in echoes, light yet weighed,
A shadow cast before my name.
A brother lost— a path unmade,
Yet still I thread within his flame.
They speak of him in whispered breath,
A ghost of dreams that never grew.
I chase his steps, though none are left,
A life unlived— yet I must prove.
Was I the child fate chose to spare,
Or just the shape of grief carved anew?
A patchwork daughter, stitched from despair,
A fragile thread, a mirrored view.
His face is blurred in faded frames,
But still, his name feels more like mine.
I live beneath unspoken claims—
A second chance, a grand design.
Yet I am here, and he is not,
A truth both heavy, cruel, and bare.
To chase a ghost, to fill a plot,
Yet never breathe the same thin air.
So tell me now— what must I be?
A whispered wish? A hollow hue?
Or just myself, just only me,
A life unlived— but lived as true?
Autumn's Crabapple - Katie Sixsmith-James
I miss you.
I miss myself.
I miss the taste of crisp apples
Surrendering in softness
Splashing their juices
Relenting to me
And my inquiring mouth.
I eat apples in my mind.
It is no surprise that they
Do not satisfy in the way
One would wish it.
Differently, the world looks.
Just as vibrant,
Full of opportunities.
It is I who is paler.
Losing my edge
And ability.
I would be your apple if
You would bite into me.
Let me
Release my juices
For all they are worth,
Surrendering myself
And my lost vision;
Red and ripened,
Spoiling soon.
Hurry,
On comes the rot,
Hastening fast
To devour and decorate
The world in the way
I never quite succeeded.
Growing and falling.
Nibbled deep.
The seeds were the first to rot.
Seeping to the outside,
Twisting on the inside,
Months of moons spanned by.
I am the apple,
And I am the tree.
Rotted and ruined,
Cyclical in habit,
A spiral that returns
To take from the world,
Rot to the world,
Squeeze out the light,
In the way I reach
And struggle to seek.
A stunting has occurred.
Cut away the old growth,
That’s the logic.
Prune and slenderise.
Eat the fruit.
It was not a labour that made it,
But a natural occurrence.
Forgive the flaws.
I find I must rely on you
To stay this tide
Of waste that seeps
Out of me
In natural repeated wave.