People's Poetry Competition closes.

As of midnight the People's Poetry Competition is now closed to new entries.

The Competition page will remain open to comments and 'likes' for a period of 1 week to allow people to read the latest entries. At that time the page will be temporarily taken down while the short-list is compiled. The final short-list will then be posted across the People's Poetry pages and Blog to allow the People to pick their favourite.

Here is a link to the final list of all Competition Entries. Please take a moment to take a look and like those you like :)

https://www.facebook.com/notes/peoples-poetry-competition/poem-index/202395376579418

Thank you to all who have entered the Competition or otherwise shown your support and good luck to all Entrants!

84. The Knock

84.
The Knock

Death met his match
at my father's door today.
He was welcomed as if an old friend.

You're not afraid of me? Death asked
What a silly question, Dad's response
as he put on a Beethoven symphony.

Most folks shudder when I come knocking,
their hands covering their faces.
I've lived a long time and am ready for you.
I've had a good life.

I like that, Death said
I need to think on it some
as he turned to leave.
You're not taking me with you?

Not just yet - maybe never.
You will change me, make me smile.
I'll be listening to music
and become joyful.

83. Leap of Faith

83.
Leap of Faith

No song can be sung by the mute
No wind can be heard by the deaf

Yet it is us who despair
Yet it is us who salute

the laws stripping others of rights
the laws telling others they're wrong

Still it is us who are blind
to the 'Yeses' among the 'Nos'.



The inability to follow our noses
leads us right to the brink of the world

where we stand still and look down
like a flock of half-suicidal lemmings.



Now, I really do hope we'll jump...

Surely, there is something on the other side 
or not...

It just takes one leap of faith

One leap of Faith. 
Not two,not three, not four, 
not five, not six, not seven

Just one.
One Leap of Faith
to change it all; to follow the heart into an abyss

Yea, it's not even that grand.
it's just a leap of faith

Hop, hop...

82. Serenade of the Wind Chimes

82.
Serenade of the Wind Chimes

Hello and goodbye was all he had 
time to say.
Life just seems so unfair when 
things turn out this way.

God thought he was too special 
for this troubled place of 
strife.

So he took him without 
explanation, and gave him a 
better life.

I know your heart is broken, and 
your eyes are filled with tears.
Thoughts of your baby boy will 
flood your heart for many many 
years.

Please take this little gift, 
and hang it in a tree.
It will play a serenade as you 
soon will see.

A gentle breeze is blowing. 
Look to heaven past sky blue.
And when you hear its serenade, 
he is thinking of you too.

81. World Traveller

81.
World Traveller

Gonna rise up
find my direction magnetically...
from "Rise" by Eddie Vedder
You have gone on a journey without us
without me -
taken the high road.
Inside jewellery close to my heart -
small pieces.
What remains, rides
shotgun on every outing,
travels to places once dreamt about.
My son, universal tourist,
now, you are everywhere,
ashes
released
in a single motion.

80. Ode to the Drunken Counselor

80.
Ode to the Drunken Counselor

You've shamed my daughter
my daughter...she cries
Limestone tears
from ancient skies...

Over the cliffs
in the land of Wold
her spirit waits
in canyons cold...

You'll wipe my people
from the earth
Paint them white
In Woldish dirt...

Murderous shame
Skeleton peaks
Abraham's altar
Where God won't speak...

She lie so still
in the silence of God
Tangled black hair
in bloody sod...

Absalom...Absalom
How I wish't I were there
for my heart is old
and yours still fair...

The new moon rose
the new moon died
in the canyons of Wold
where her shame fed your pride...

And when the last blood is spilt
from the last you can give
Hewn by the reaper
The Earth may forgive...

Then the spirits will rise
and weep at their fame
as they climb the cliffs
you’ve built of shame...

79. Death in Venice on the Half Shell

79.
Death in Venice on the Half Shell

Foot-sore and 'mazed on Venetian streets, my Clytmenestra points.
"I see the dragon's tongue... just there, beneath the Lion Gate."
"How cute," I think. Of course, she has her ax to grind;
Once more I've made her miss the monthly maenadic tryst
With the 'Women's Will to Power Club'. Just so we can wander
Aimlessly in the foul Doge's breath of these Stygian canals.

I'm searching for the Tintoretto of my dreams; all brown shadows
And tawny light and sweet baby Jesus smiling on meae culpae...
I'm listening for a sigh of Casanova's, deep in his cell,
Recalling, atumble, all his vacant pleasures...
I'm watching for the Turkish fleet, scimitars and cannons poised
To destroy every gondolier, every marble balustrade, every hope..

"Fuck these tourists," she says. Only an old fool would trust
That leering smile. "Let's go back to the hotel and do it up
Against that cheap armoire. Let's do it, me on top, 
Inside that faux-Baroque tub with the little lion's feet."

What can I say? She knows too well my tastes. I nod and make
A mental note: When she starts her downswing, duck.

78. Here In The Life Of An Unknown Poet

78.
Here In The Life Of An Unknown Poet

I am not a woman people envy for her confident, got-it-all-together stride.
I am not the person who is called to offer prayer in a gathering of Christians.
I do not sing like an angel, or paint beauty into hungry and inspired artists’ minds.
I am not that woman. I’m not destined for dizzy fame or breathless stolen kisses.

I am a woman who smiles at grasshoppers, and lifts her face to smell rain.
I am a woman standing in the middle of a muddy pasture with hay in her hair.
I am a woman who loses her giggles in quiet corners of inappropriate places.
I am the one who wants to chance wearing purple with green, but chooses black.

I am the mother who knows a special child is always on stage, and should dress accordingly.
I am the desperate daughter and sister who kneels to confess pain before cold headstones.
I am a jealous lover of time, and all things I missed before heaven thrust me 
wet, screaming, and angry into the unprepared arms of my religious mother.

I am not someone you would remember meeting on a sidewalk in Paris.
I am a woman who drops her papers in the crowded hallways of life.
I leave bits of myself to be sorted for future generations to read and wonder; 
“Who was she, to find herself deserving of a legacy in love and words?”

77. arms

77.
arms

I imagine what it's like to be held
someone's arms
holding me up
folding me in
until I am weightless
in a downy nest
of feathers and bits of hair
and the sadnesses I exhale
float up like smoke
and the sadnesses on my skin
evaporate in wisps of cloudy air
and the sadnesses in my heart
rise up out of my chest
and I am finally ready 
to lift my arms
to hug someone back. 

Then I realize 
I'm alone
and there will be 
no one's arms
holding nothing up
folding no one in
and the sadnesses come
skulking back
holding only their shame
that they even exist.

76. This And That

76.
This And That

Things I wish I said and did,
things I wish I hadn’t,
why can’t I keep my big mouth shut,
or sometimes open wider?

I have a tongue inside my mouth,
it’s been in other people’s,
I was born a catholic, no doubt,
I walked by church steeples.

I held hands and this and that
and sometimes a bit of the other,
I am a miracle of birth,
a credit to my mother.

Is talking just a waste of time,
who turns water into wine,
can words ever change a thing,
who turns winter into spring?

Enjoy yourself, I did, I know,
sometimes a bit of quick, quick, slow,
oh come outside, enjoy the ride,
forever after, laughter.

What I’m trying to say is this,
is a word better than a kiss
or a necessary prelude?
I could say more, encore, encore,
but that would be rude.

75. Voice

75.
Voice

I’m an old voice and a new voice, am I a true voice?

If a thing is worth saying its worth saying well,
if its not worth saying, go to Hell.

What am I, who am I, what do I know?
My birth certificate tells me so.

I have a tongue in my mouth, I speak.
If I was born in Greece I would be Greek.
A mouse may squeak.

What gives me the right to speak the truth, or not to?
That is something many know, but they forgot to.

Once I was like you, younger, for example.
These words are a free sample.

74. Good Try

74.
Good Try

I’ll try to be less offensive, it will be hard,
I am Irish, I’m a poet, I’m a bard.
I use words and phrases I have heard,
here and there and everywhere,
some of them absurd.
I am made of what I come from, what I am,
If you find me offensive, I don’t give a damn!

73. Music

73.
Music

Balm of the soul.
Your truth is whole.
You come, you go,
how, I don’t know.
I love, you come,
oh moon, oh sun.
Bring my heart ease,
flowers, trees.
In tune with these,
a summer breeze.
Robin, wren,
singing, then.
Butterfly, before I die.
Golden note,
thrush’s throat.
Goodbye, hello.
I love you so.

72. Mad

72.
Mad

Why do the Irish go mad? Because we feel.
Must we be ground beneath another’s heel?
Must we live and must we die, must we laugh and must we cry?
Oh yes, we talk the hind legs off a donkey, and often act the monkey.
We kill, we love, we play the fiddle, and muddle along in the middle.
Our worst is hate, our best is great, we sing, we soar, we give more.
Do you want a story told? Ask Paddy, pure gold.
Heaven, Hell and Purgatory are there for everyone to see.
Including me.
The Irish may be mad.
But they’re not bad.
Indifference is what gets you most.
Oh God, come back, oh Holy Ghost!
Still, at our best we do so well, tell the begrudgers to go to Hell!
We talk out of both sides, you know.
It only goes to show.
We like to have it both ways.
All our days.
Will we never get things straight? All things come when you wait.
It rains a lot, it makes grass green. The greenest grass I’ve ever seen.
We’re not as green as we’re cabbage looking.
Emigrating, ticket booking.
Would you like to be in our good books? 
Then don’t give us dirty looks.
We write good books, do you know that?
The cat sat on the mat.
That’s a bit of writing there, it came out of the air.
My dark Rosaleen, Kathleen mavourneen, Finnegan’s Wake.
I’ll tell you a story, how long will it take?
Once upon a time, in a land far away, a man said, I haven’t got all day.
I have a year, or more or less, wait ‘till I tell you, you’ll never guess.
This story goes on until the end of time, it goes around in circles, I tell it in rhyme.
There is no rhyme or reason to what I have to say, one thing is for sure, gossoon, it will take all day.
That’s all I have to say.
Until another day.
Irish people, pub, Pope, church steeple, throw me a rope!
Anyway, I’ve got to say I love it here.
With or without green beer.
Breathes there a man with soul so dead who never to himself has said, this is my own, my native land.
Robbie Burns said that. That’s grand.
It’ll do to be going on with, until the real thing comes along.
I end my song.
Music, love, laughter, wine.
Have a good time!