Weekly Contest

No contests this week.

Classic poem of the day

Out in the late amber afternoon,
Confused among chrysanthemums,
Her parasol, a pale balloon,
Like a waiting moon, in shadow swims.

Her furtive lace and misty hair
Over the garden dial distill.
The sunlight—then withdrawing, wear
Again the shadows at her will.

Gently yet suddenly, the sheen
Of stars inwraps her parasol.
She hears my step behind the green
Twilight, stiller than shadows, fall.

“Come, it is too late—too late
To risk alone the light's decline:
Nor has the evening long to wait”—
But her own words are night's and mine.

member poem of the day

UNFINISHED


A fascination with the blank spaces
keeps this city still—the quick
inhale of dawn, the white
between your words—
 
My senses stay grounded
in the world’s wait, with days
heavier than years and the explainable
like steam skating off lakes,
refusing to sustain itself.
 
But I am always miscalculating
distances, running into edges
of walls, corners of conversations—
everything and everyone
pieced too closely together
for even the body to contain itself.
 
Never able to avoid
the physicality of even our
pauses, we hold ourselves
tight, contain ourselves, control
our selves, and lift up
the space between as proof
that the world noticed us
enough to dismiss us.