Competition Entry

Winner

Finders Keepers

Guess what? I found your bike.
It’s my bike now.
Finders keepers, rich boy.
Anyway, I need your bike more than you do.
If I don’t have a bike I can’t get to school in the morning
without being mugged for money.
My new bike is the lifeline that lets me learn
Without being attacked on the way to school.
If I lost my bike I would lose my life.
That’s why I had to take your bike,
Because you have another one
Because you’re a rich boy.
I’m a poor boy with nothing to live for
Apart from not dying.
I live in a slum and I don’t care.
I have no possessions, but I don’t care.
If I didn’t have a bike I wouldn’t care either because I would be dead.
But I do have a bike so I do care.
You have plenty of bikes and you don’t care.
So think about your bike,
Care for it, look after it.
Don’t lose it! Don’t lose your bike! Don’t lose your head!
(Just because I found your bike doesn’t mean you lost it.)
I never lose. I find, find things, find out things, collect, store.
Because I don’t want to lose.
I want to win, win by finding out what it takes to learn
and love and live the life of a lowlife without losing my mind.

Winner

Forgive Me, For I Have Lost My Mind

Have you ever been lost
In your own subconscious
Afraid that you can’t find yourself again
And the voices in your head
Are your only friends?

Have you ever been lost
In someone’s eyes before?
Or in their embrace?
Have they ever been real
Or are they just there to make you feel real?

Some say being lost is scary
Some like being lost
Others welcome being forgotten
Most want to get back
Most just stay lost

Being lost isn’t that bad
In your own mind
When you can only hurt yourself
Becoming nothing but fear
That’s when you’ve lost your mind

Winner

Has Anybody Seen My Soul?

They say I’ve lost my soul.

I’ll take the desolation if it feels this good:
the glares and glances if I can be this joyful.

It was only a hot, powerless, human act
on a cold Midwinter night
when we were alone and he wasn’t ploughing,

And he entrapped me in his arms
and took everything I ever had
and it was incredible and further and seamless
and all the life of my present-day and my forthcoming

And now I have no soul but a glow fills me up
from the inside out so I’ll take the swap.

How weak is our God!
How pitiful his strength!
If all it took was a smooth moonlight
to steal from his own hands,
I’d do it again just to feel omnipotent as he.

But I’ve lost my soul.

They say you shouldn’t look your reflection in the eye
or you will be cursed:
well, I’ve got nothing to lose now, have I?
Orbs stare back but they are empty blue
like the middle of the fire
or the winter sky reflected in his eyes.

Are they mine? Maybe they hold my missing piece.
I lean closer; a splash a choke a sigh
but I reach for my soul
I can see it just there but why can’t I reach it?
Deeper it goes but a flash of red like lava
where has the sky gone but…

Winner

Ink Stained Fingertips

You should see me when I’m alone
& I’m unaware of how long my nails have grown
so when I scratch my neck
I am pulling out the seeds of lust
& the coronation of lies you have planted.
Four sugars. No cream.
Don’t let it wash over your tongue after our heated kisses,
that sparks like a dripping constellation.
Because really, it should never have happened.
You are like a poem –
you live inside the letters.
Your freckles are full stops.
Your smiles are commas.
But,
The words smudge against my fingertips,
because I write too quickly to let it dry.
So you are left smudged & messy.
But I prefer you with tousled hair
and rain spattered clothes,
your shoes stuck to the weeds that grow
like limbs between the cracks in the pavement.

Winner

I Ain’t Got Rhythm

I looked everywhere
And yes I looked under my chair,

In half an hour I have to sing at the school fair!
Who, who would dare…

To take away my singing, dancing, tapping
my jumping, clapping, rapping
my stomping, napping, snap,snap snapping
flair for rhythm?

I ain’t got rhythm! Look high and low,
but soon we have to go,
oh no!

But I hear a song on the radio,
and I groove to the beat and I keep

Singing, dancing, tapping
my jumping, clapping, rapping
my stomping, napping, snap,snap snapping

I have got rhythm,
Yes, I have rhythm

Winner

When Friendship Fails

It’s not an object,
Nor a thing,
She’s my best friend,
For everything,

The one who tells me secrets,
The one who paints my toes,
The one who is special to me,
The one who only I know.

She’s always nice,
Never spiteful,
And she always shares,
Her strawberry trifle.

Then someone better came along,
I really don’t know what went wrong,
All I know is that my heart felt dark,
I had nobody to replace our spark.

All alone in my empty home,
No one to call my own,
No one to tell me secrets,
No one to paint my toes,
No one who is special to me,
Nobody to know.

Now I look back on her day of leaving,
And I’m glad I didn’t stop believing,
For I have found someone new,
And as it turns out,
She’s better than you!

I’ve ascended into adulthood
with shock at my own success.
Living my life today
is an act no one seemed to expect.
On this insightful journey
I’ve lost my way more times than not.
Turning down a daunting alley
and then returning to that fateful spot.
But on every path to discovery
there’s the risk of a wrong turn.
Though from experience I can say
that those mistakes I now prefer.

Winner

Lost My Way

I may have taken every detour
and needed every map.
But my eyes have been opened
as a result of those mishaps.
I’ve experienced others’ dreams
including their nightmares and fears.
And determined that happiness is stronger
than even struggles and tears.
I’ve gotten lost numerous times
but I’ve always made it back.
No matter the twists in the road,
I’ve shown I can find the right track.

Winner

Old Football Boots

Tattered and worn and electric blue
Old football boots where are you?

Not under my bed
Nor in the shed

Come out, come out wherever you are
For tonight I need to be a superstar

You see, she will be there tonight, Emma Poole
And she thinks Footballers are oh so cool!

Winner

Lost Trust

The guiles and lies form a web,
And we are all the spider,
An innocent fly or two fumble around,
As if they have drunk too much cider.
If you have conscience and,
People fall to your searing wit,
You will master verbal combat
Every word a direct hit.
Yet some don not their verbal armour
Let their swords of irony rust,
For they have the almighty weapon,
A weapon, many call trust.
Trust has great power,
A power you must wisely use,
For though it’s hard to gain it
It’s something you easily lose.
If you want to find out to whom,
I give my trust add a letter ‘e’,
I give my trust to those,
Who are truest to me.

Winner

Losing

Continents are lost
Islands are drowned
Countries wiped away
You lose your shelter, your home

You lose history
To the ravages of time
Kingdoms and power
Life and security.

You lose your culture
Your language
Your religion
And even your voice.

You lose your identity
Your individuality
Money, job, wealth
Your health to death.

You can lose your faith
Your trust, honour and humour
You lose in translation
You lose in communication.

You lose to childhood, to youth
My Great Grandma lost her memory
My Grandpa, his mobility
My Grandma, her confidence.

A girl in my class lost her friendship
The child lost his innocence
Many lose love and to time
The world is losing tolerance.

You can lose almost anything
All things last long enough
Only to be lost.