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Festive Cutesmasher

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Contest: Write a poem (any kind) that will make me really think about the events of 9/11 in a different way.

There are 10 spots open in this competition.

I will be starting a poll once all 10 contestants are selected to determine the winner.

All entries will be public and open to critique.

Post your entries on this page with a title, and all 10 entrants get prizes.

First prize: 10,000g
Second, third: 5,000g
Fourth, fifth: 2,500g
Sixth, seventh: 1,000g
Eighth, ninth, tenth: 500g

These prizes are furnished by yours truly. I will post a poem below, but it is just to inspire--it is not an entry.

NOTE: This is NOT a first-come, first-serve competition. I will select my 10 favorites to be eligible for prizes. Those poems will be put in the next post. however, while the poll will only be on my favorite 10, I will critique anything you post for the challenge.

Open until: October 11

Selection begins: October 12

Poll opens: October 13

Poll closes: Halloween

Prizes awarded: Once poll closes and winner is determined.

If you have any questions please pm me.

RULES: Follow Gaia ToS, poems only, off-topic poems will be ignored, any inappropriate comments will be blocked. No restrictions to length or style but BE REASONABLE.

Good luck!

Festive Cutesmasher

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In this post, eventually, I will post the contestants' work. For now, this is for inspiration. A poem I wrote.

EXPLOSION

My nightmare of steel and sorrow
Exploded onto the skyline of New York City.
Three thousand stories of ash-reduced hearts
And skeletons of cinder…why?

Three thousand seconds of stillness and silence
And they will never return home to eat dinner again.

Three thousand faces that will never smile
Upon their children again.

People think there are reasons for everything.

Maybe
the explosion was the birth
of a new era, one where our dictator
is fear.

Maybe
this was a calling to grab a shovel
And unearth our anger rather than bury it
in shame.

Maybe
there is a new kind of person being born
somewhere in the universe, creation
of some alien divinity, and when we see them
we will laugh because they have skin that's a different color
and they speak only their own language
and they pray only to their own God.

Maybe
the Earth is cracking open and letting us fall through,
so that maybe we will learn to stand up again.

Maybe
it was the question of a sin forgotten.

But maybe that explosion was the violent lullaby
Too many were sung as children.
This song tells them to hate, and to grow up holding a gun
Instead of loving a doll. The lullaby of a crazy, molten heart
And we fight for it, we lose, we drag ourselves across minefields for it,
we fall in love with the insanity and pain, and scream as we find
we have lost again.

And then in the silence, the drowned, the burned, the broken
Speak to us in their voices of wizened pain, those who remember it
As we never let ourselves forget, no hate but in fear:

then

into the madness of war. Dank fields of blood-soaked earth,
no sound, no sound, not in words but the last echo of the fall.

then

into the Memorial to sweep away the knived faces of hatred.

then

into tomorrow, where they refuse to fall in love
and instead wait for the rain to wash away the day before

then

into reflections of the world where we thought we were so damn fearless.

—all gone! And some will never see it again.

Maybe.
…but I know it.

I was there, cowering under my bed praying for my daddy to come home
I was there, listening to the rattling of nerves as the collapse shook the earth
I was there, watching the smoke rise from the ashes.
I was there, a place I was never meant to be.

If it is all I do in life, I swear to do it—
to wake up one day unafraid.

But some of us have already woken up, their bodies of sleeping volcanoes
rocked awake, until they see past their bodies
past the magma of their blood, into the burning of their white-hot souls

and they will see past different minds

to see what we have become.

Anxious Astronomer

The Tale of a Child

I am six
Not seven, not five.
Too innocent for today, not daring enough for tomorrow.
At school, I can't remember much, but home today's another story.
Mommy tells me not to look.

I am waiting,
And not patiently.
I want to go in, the bus stop's too hot.
Bounding up the steps, I hardly expect it.
Mommy thinks on what to say.

I am confused
Not in awe, not afraid.
Someone attacked America? Inconceivable!
I watch as the planes hit, again and again.
Mommy just sits there with me.

I am afraid
Of another attack.
How can I sleep tonight? The planes flew over my house!
Images of the black smoke replay in my head.
Mommy tries explaining.

I will remember
Never forget, always respect
The ones who died that day.
Mommy says some of the dead were my age.

I am seventeen
No longer a child, not quite an adult.
My view was skewed by innocence. My view is skewed by hatred.
I still remember. I can't forget such tragedy.
Mommy says it's a curse of living.

Fashionable Genius

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Bang.

Humans are screaming,
Screaming “Mother! Mother!”
What is happening?
I see them running
over each other
Through the crowds, through the mess and
through the dust and through
the cacophony
of Humanity.
My human is crying,
Sobbing her eyes out
As the smoke burns them
It stings my eyes too.
My slit-like pupils expand
To see through the dark
My human! She’s trapped!
Under piles of rock
Useless to try to lift
It, I’m just a cat
After all, no strength
To save her, to save
My human, who feeds me and,
And pets me and loves
me no matter what, she
loves me. I can’t save
her, I can’t save her and
so I’ll stay with her
As long as she needs
Me to. I love her.
So I will stay with her, my
Human who is hurt
On this awful day.

Interstellar Warlord

Near Death

Sat in the car,,
Stroking my cat,
A few meters from the towers,
Planes flew over mummies car,
And crashed into a tower,
The smoke filled my lungs,
Fo I couldn’t breath,
Mum honked her horn,
Reversed then screamed,
Another plane was on its way,
Crashing into another tower,
I slowed stroking my cat,
For I felt like dying,
Then mum turned the car around,
And sped through traffic,
Soon we where home,
And I was being nursed by my doctor,
I could breath again,
But soon on tv,
Something extrodenary I see,
The tower toppled over,
I screamed I cried,
For my big brother,
Was in that tower,
He might be dead,
I wailed I shrieked,
And ran out the door,
Mum screamed no,
And ran two and fro,
The doctor just shrugged and walked away,
For that day,
When I was 4,
Brother had disappeared,
Under the rubble,
Never to be seen again.
But with my cat,
Well that’s another story,
Because he almost saved my brother,
But died next to him instead.

Garbage Trash

A Different Perspective

Crash and burn
Towers fall
Children scream
Babies bawl

Fingers point
Names are called
Races hated
Counties walled

And yet amid
The pain and strife
Nobody thinks of
That one poor life

Her son's a martyr
But she loved him true
Emotions the same,
Yet a different view.


(This is about the mother of the man who crashed the plane into the towers. Her son will be honored in his country, but she's still got to be sad her son's dead.)
Screeching cries echo in my ears
Daddy's warm hands fall upon me
Suddenly I'm facing my biggest fears

Worlds suddenly clasping
Ashes fall on my face
Trying to find something to grasp

Everyone around me is screaming
Ambulances are blaring
I just can't fight this feeling

A five year old girl
So scared
She could hurl

Suddenly she finds a gem
Grasped tightly in Daddy's hands
Passed from Mommy onto Them

Keep Daddy safe is what she always said

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