Every Day Poems

A Poem A Day

Summer Contest 2013

Plaid by Victoria Walters

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Plaid a poem

Plaid

by Victoria Walters

He had a thing for plaid skirts.
It’s what I tell them when they call.
An apology, the best I have.

He had a thing for rulers,
and chalk and knee-high socks
with shiny black buckled shoes.

He had a thing for red marks,
for pigtails, for commands.
It was harmless. I believed
it was harmless.
But he had a thing for plaid skirts,
A little thing for little plaid skirts.

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Victoria Walters is an accomplished poet who has studied at Lafayette College in Easton Pennsylvania. Recent adventures include a study term in London which inspired a whole new style of writing. She prefers to spend her life behind the lens and aims to capture the world through images and ink.’

Victoria Walters

It Gets Late Before It Gets Dark by Whitney Walters

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light1

It Gets Late Before It Gets Dark

by Whitney Walters

I wait for the rain.

Heat lightning stretches across the sky’s horizon.
I stand outside,
Mesmerized by the rhythm of spider-web flashes.
Swirling warm and cool summer wind comforts.
My hair dances,
Awake and stimulated by the electric environment.

Surely the rain is calling, as the sirens sound.

Aubade by Molly Kirschner

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Photo_MK

Aubade

by Molly Kirschner

By daylight the lake appears
to be missing its stars.
The black hole is now a blue island,
trimmed in green and brown.

Patches of shadow stretch out in their
beds beneath the trees. Branches bear flowers,
and tree trunks branch three ways,
like braids come loose.

Come loose. Won’t you? While the sun is still
intact, and you can, and our little planet spins
like a handful of leaves in the hand
of the wind.

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Molly Kirschner is a rising sophomore at Bennington College; she studies literature and drama. She is an avid poet, author, dramatist, and journalist, who has been published on Ms. Magazine’s blog. She was a winner of the 19th Annual Young Playwrights Festival of Bergen County, and she won Honorable Mention in the NJ Young Playwrights Festival of 2011. Molly is also a dedicated theatre artist, with a passion for social justice. She is an alumnus of Girl Be Heard, formerly Project Girl Performance Collective.

Sausalito by Thomas Boyd

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leaving

Sausalito

by Thomas Boyd

The talk this morning is about the weather
And the eyes of dogs in the sun on the deck in California
There were dreams
About being left behind
And about being powerless
But those dreams are gone now in the sun

The low steady hum of traffic up the hill
Coming and going through the rainbow tunnel
The highway to the redwoods and farther north
The highway that connects the rest of the world
To the big red bridge

The house is dry wood and when the wind comes up
There are creaks and pops and other complaints
That are natural in a house turning fifty
And a house that has been drenched, blown dry
And baked a hundred times

The green hill below the deck almost, but not quite
Hides another dozen houses
And most of them are just as dry and tired
But the sound of cutting and hammering
Promises a second chance
But not this house because the man
Died a few years ago and the woman
Is a poet
And those days are gone now
In the sun

Rocket by Pamela Riley

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ril

Rocket

by Pamela Riley
I hear the rustle
of thick lipped sequoias
tip-toeing on the wind;
while underneath the bracken
the light is barely breathing.
Take me where the moon
will not drop below the horizon
and the call of morning doves
is but a passing life – andromeda.
I want the cool rapture of stars
and the false color of evensong
jettisoning the sky
like a rocket.

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Pam Riley is a native New Yorker, who still misses the Big Apple. She likes to spend her free time going to the theatre, museums and traveling. She has been writing for years and enjoys working in both poetry and prose. The little quirks and imperfections of life are her inspiration.