Wow, thank you, @pangolin! I didn't expect to get first place at all; it was a lovely surprise! Congratulations to everyone else too, you're all such dedicated and unique poets :)

The next theme is picture, and judging day is August 20, about two weeks from now. I can't wait to see your poetry! :)

Pictures

Frozen in time

In love, in tears,

In stony expressions that say

More than smiles ever will

In the darkness

Shadows of truth

That collide and contrast with

The glorious light of lies

The song of silence

Plays so much louder

Than the music that floats

From long-forgotten streets

Captured in life

As if to tease those

Broken in heart that only

Death is left now

Pictures that were taken

To be remembered

Now lie dusty and forgotten

And locked away for eternity

Photograph

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Immure us in sepia,

Blazed into paper

A form of us, a ghost

You keep locked in your memories

As we were that day

Untouched by age 

Unbroken as we were

Un-/

Filtered through a layer of light and glass

Paper-thin and paper-deep

But at least you still have our faces,

For our real ones are so far away

Carved into neither wood nor stone

Instead these are 

Something that you can carry in your pocket

Hang up on the wall

Hold in your hand, like you would our real faces

Because our real faces are far away,

Six feet deep and sealed in wood and stone

Or wandering the world without you

Indeed, a picture is

Something so much less unforgiving

Than a carving (lest you forget

you carved our faces from flesh, too), but so much more superficial

But I'll stay as silent as that little figure in the picture

So keep believing it will last forever

That we are still the children in your photographs

so, picture this.

there's a street downtown. there's some traffic,

but not too much, just enough to get that

bustling-city feeling without being truly 

overwhelming; and there's little bursts of

music, and snatches of conversations, and the

whizz of bike tires --- just that symphony of

people, existing. and it's bright and it's

sunny, and the colorful canopies of the shops and

cafés shade the sidewalk in random

bursts. the day is good, the shops are

busy, the breeze is perfect, and we are happy.

right?

okay.

now, picture this:

I am in a café. I sit cross-ankled at one of those

high bar seats facing the window, and

I furrow my brow at my laptop, which is covered in

weird, bold, rainbow stickers. there's a drink and a

pastry next to me. I am wearing

hiking boots, and baggy green pants that have

seven different pockets, and a black T-shirt with

some phrase that would make a school administrator

frown. I've got a flannel from the men's section of

Goodwill and handmade jewelry drips from every 

part of my body. 

now, picture --- oh. you're

frowning. not a fan?

image too rebellious...

clothes too streange...

huh. well, I just ---

no, just trust me!

ugh. okay, okay ---

picture this.

I am exactly who I am meant to be.

And you see me just so...

not as the woman you always hoped.

But as me.

mom walks away; she does not picture this, for the picture I paint and the one she had commissioned of me seventeen years ago are too divergent to reconcile. 

The girl of my dreams~

There’s a photograph

In the kitchen.

It’s in a wooden frame

That my grandpa made.

It stands on the windowsill

Just above the sink,

Just beside the pot of pink geraniums.

The glass that protects this picture

Is covered with 

Fingerprints 

And water stains,

But never dust.

It’s my chore

Every other day

To dust the photo

Carefully, gently,

With love. 

On the days

In between

My older sister

Dusts it,

And we take pride

In the chore that’s been entrusted to us.

Some days, when I’m washing the dishes,

I gaze up at that photograph,

Staring into the eyes of the people,

Frozen in time, 

Smiling softly, as if at some private joke.

Sometimes, I pretend I’m one of them,

I imagine that I’m the one who made the joke,

I’m the one they’re smiling for.

@admins was my poem not appropriate for the CB? sorry if so. is there something I should edit out so that you'd post it? li

the
secret of good make-up is / let the blood become your blush / the tears
will bring out the green in your eyes / just before you blink /
heartbeat a stop-motion pendulum / always freezing. 

/ in the same place / there at least you can pretend to be stuck.

/ in time / living in the moment / because i’m scared what if there isn’t another / you know sometimes i only smile so someday you’ll remember me happy / straight out of that horror movie we watched together / i am so brittle and so sorry / so close to breaking but i will look into the camera before i shatter / and assure you i’m okay because it has to be true for just one more minute / while the earth continues to spin and i begin to stand still / because i will never cry or hurt where you can see me.

/ and so i wait for the flash.

/ . / . / . / - / - / - / . / . / .

/

I'll post this much. The first part was too gruesome. 

Admin 

Not so picture perfect ~

Next to you I feel like

The dark side to your bright moon 

Though we're friends 

The comparison 

Between us well-

There is none 

We're complete opposites 

And I'm always shadowed 

Besides your brilliance 

You stand out like the sun

The only hope

While I'm like an asteroid 

Coming in for a crash landing 

Destruction and dark in my wake 

Devastation 

And yet you stick around 

Defend and comfort me

It makes me hate you

Like I'm your community project 

Something to check off your list

But you're every picture 

And if you left 

I couldn't live without you 

Our companionship runs too deep

We contrast each other

You light , I dark 

You brighten the faces 

I smudge the edges

Harsh lines cutting through 

Your smile is brighter than a dying star 

You go all supernova on me

While I try to swirl it in

Make the bright dim

Like a dark hole

You say I'm your whole world 

But to me you are the galaxy 

My universe 

You smother me in your endlessness

But still, it feels like home

I veil, feel vile and evil

You bring me life

Make me live

Your sunny eyes coax me 

From the nocturnal night 

You see me, accept me

Don't try to change me

Just ask me to give life a chance 

Dark and light 

Day and night 

Black and white

Bad twilight 

Beautiful sunrise 

We're a picture

An abstract painting 

You and I 

grasping for wispy lines and streams of paint

drowning in the thick yet subtle pigment

watching as the dark pool of spidery ink consumes 

the thick jagged paper that is my claustrophobic world

and my escape is hexed by an intricate carved gold frame

the metallic of it diverges sickeningly with my scraped hands

mangled under an abyssal,endless sea of sharp,clear glass

-so this is my fragmented memoir of villainous, everlasting time

preserved for eternity under a varnish of perfect smiles and painted lines

folded hands to hide the scars and flawless skin to hide a broken heart

my empty soul and hungry heart yearning for life outside of this cage

this cage of glass and ink and bones, with immortal memories

far too fresh to ever be unlocked from this sealed paper prison

the paint is just there to make the remnants of who I used to be

make my fluttering soul soar beyond the deep caverns of my heart

reminding me that there is life beyond this tangled spiderweb of

snips and shreds and shards, that there are words other than

stuck and sad and trapped, and then maybe one day the glass

will shatter and with the ends, there will be new beginnings,a melody ringing with tangible hope, and a fractured bliss that is my swelling harmony 

with every torn wing, a new butterfly emerges from the cocoon

and so I keep these precious thoughts tucked in the rapidly growing garden

blossoming inside my heart, growing spikes and thorns to crack the glass,

-and using the beautiful, colorful paint bring color to my petals, the paint i’ve missed all these eons of hurting and hoping and wishing and wanting

and it feels too good to be home again