Poets Forum
In recognition of April being National Poetry Month and April 10, 2022, being proclaimed by Governor Asa Hutchinson as Arkansas Youth Poetry Day, the following student poets are featured as having been winners in Poets’ Roundtable of Arkansas 2022 Dr. Lily Spring Celebration contests.
THE SICKNESS
We all feel the pain of stress sometimes.
Surely, everyone dies a little inside sometimes.
I will be here fighting for what seems like forever.
I am falling to pieces-
In order to feed this sickness.
When I wake up in the morning-
I notice it’s darker than yesterday.
I find myself chained.
But I find the will to keep going on.
But which mask will I choose?
Sing or wail at it all-
It is this darkness that I try to hide.
My dawn and my dusk.
Thoughts constantly run through my mind-
What’s another existence like mine?
This slow death seems a little boring.
In the waning lightthe
Shadows slither around-
They turn into my only friends.
I am a victim, with a sickness inside.
I am a fading memory-
Only the fellow lost knows who I am.
Living in these Shadows-
I keep searching.
Until I finally find myself.
My soul’s in an awful condition.
Breaking away from my chains-
I will find my own way through this Hell.
Because Paradise is full.
And Purgatory will not have me.
— Brooke Nettles, Second Place, Collegiate Contest, Arkansas Northeastern College
STUMBLING HOME
You’ve never had to live without me
I lived without you before but I don’t think I would have the strength now
I crave your conversation in the dark of night
When the only sound I hear is my own heart beating
Do you think of me then too?
What about when the sun is shining on a place you’ve never been before
Do you want to show it to me?
On a night out when the liquid courage mellows my soul
I stop and think about holding your hand
I think we’d have fun, you and me
I spin in circles, alone
I stumble home, alone
I wake up, eat, work
Alone
I have you in spirit
That will have to be enough
— Davia Fuller, Third Place, Collegiate Contest, Arkansas State University the cure to time daylight’s honey drips from a spoon as a flood of molasses once purged boston’s streets of bitterness,
heralding 1919. hands clasping blades, my friends and i carved our names into the stone walls of our school —
red brick buildings with horse stable changing rooms by the pool,
cobblestone paths through bauhinia buses —
our ancestor’s emperors reborn in bids for immortality with mercury dripping from our fingertips and palms onto the dirt. preserved
by a teacher’s red markings across my dictation pencil scratches, in fading yearbooks and class photos,
i mourn a childhood lost to numbers and torn paper, days when all my problems disappeared underneath
a felt-lined mahjong table, safe within the prison bars of family member’s shins;
when the queer silence of blanket forts
stole and gifted and hid from a cross-ridden day.
herein hangs a wall of certificates with my name on them: herein lies the loss of a child who replaced dreams of riding horses through clouds
with drifting dreams of free falling through
white and blue until sky turns to concrete ground.
— Chiu-yi Rachel Ngai, First Place, Senior Division, Haas Hall Academy, grade 11
FROSTBITTEN DAY
A gelid kingdom of glass and ice
Is silvery in the night
The glassy trees and icy leaves
Seem to reflect starlight
As winter’s gloomy grasp
Loosens with the golden sunlight.
The eyes of a young girl
Are opened to a fresh day
Our hideously beautiful world
Always being led astray
Opportunities come this way
As yesterday’s regrets slip away.
This frostbitten day is generous
Here to offer us shiny new chances
We will slip into the golden light
As the dawn advances
Ready to conquer
Our own untold stories.
— Sam Olvey, Second HM, Senior Division Mount St. Mary Academy, 9th grade
To submit poems for publication, please send poems of 16 or fewer lines to Dennis Patton, 2512 Springhill Circle, Alexander, AR 72002, or patton_dr@hotmail.com. The Saline County Branch of PRA is scheduled to meet at 1 pm, at the Parkview United Methodist Church, 514 North Border Street, Benton, AR, on April 23.