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The Sudbrook Spotlight |
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Sudbrook’s first on-line magazine featuring literary and visual arts |
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Contest Winners 2006 |
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Tombstone The wind croons a somber, whistling tune A fluttering breeze bends the grass The tombstone enlarges in my mind, almost suffocating Until it consumes me, and the pangs of grief return Why did she die, God? All of my family are asking themselves, searching within for a response any response. Even now, three years after my grandmother’s death, These questions shatter my heart like glass. My mother gives me a gentle push toward the grave I stumble forward, eventually sinking to my knees The colorful blossoms tumble from my stiff fingers And the letters on the cold hard stone are unfamiliar, Unable to capture the sheer vigor of her life. Retrieving the bouquet, smoothing the soft petals and Placing them on the grave The tears erupt and I fold my arms around my head Drowning in my own self pity and grief Sobs rack my shoulders, and my head Swims until I can’t think straight…
Natalie V.S. Grade 7
I’m Not Sorry I’m not sorry for my devious ways Despite this newly found reform My dear statue I’m not sorry My fair Electoral College and free market enterprise economists
The smell of fresh cut grass would hang in the air and the overworked birds would chirp in unison and we would lay down in a circle like the children we were With flowers in our hair and wild ideas in our fragile brain
We would think of peace and love and freedom And crazy nonsense like that.
And we would drink stale coffee Brewed three days before With too much Sweet and Low We couldn’t handle something bitter But we couldn’t afford real sugar
If we could have found an outlet we would have plugged in the radio But the park isn’t electric until it becomes a construction site Forget the ants and the dirt and the trees and animals And those crazy kids with nowhere else to go Fetch me some coffee Make sure it isn’t stale Like what you drink One sugar and one cream straight from the cow Set out to pasture That eat the grass we built this fine establishment upon That greedy cow
HmHmmmMhmmmmmmhmhmHmmmhm Someone hums A whisper of the jazz from the radio station That we aren’t listening to.
We are a lost generation, you and I. Our trouble created by we the hipsters doomed t solve it
We ain’t got nothing to fight but the fight itself, man.
Someone leaves and reminds us that the war is over Walking away and taking her radio with her Our notebooks still fresh With the rotting ideals that’ll never really die.
They just sit
Stagnant and stale.
Karl Marx! Your system never worked! Even though we all still read about it And pay Barnes & Nobles $7.95 For a brand new hardcopy reprint Who is Friedrich anyway?
John Lennon! They’re silk screening your picture onto t-shirts Imagine a world where you can wear your own lyrics And have your face across your chest For just a small fee
Che Guevara! I have a nice bumper sticker With your image On my brand new electric car I’m still the commie I once was And jazz plays on the car radio The old one was taken away That’s not my fault.
I’m not sorry, my dear flag Your were never hung from my rooftop I’m not sorry, my sweet pledge That I would laugh when they recited you And sing songs of socialism to which we never learned the tune
Etcetera! Etcetera!
We are the Etcetera Nation Mi anti-mind rambles on into beat up notebooks And torn apart keyboards As I tell you of my communal existence
A shopping cart is pushed through the dying corridors of Wal-Mart Who efficiently kills for only 8 cents a day. I’d like to read you my poem Mr. CEO As if art ever really hurt anyone
What’s on the agenda today?
I can now only protest to my own anti-mind and the beat up notebooks and the torn apart keyboards.
I’ve never been shut up and shut up I shall stay And like an old Ghost T own I’ll whither away.
Ken G. Grade 8
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Literary and Visual Winners |
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Date: March 22nd 2006 |
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Ellen S. Grade 8 |
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Clayton M. Grade 6 |