Poetry Contest

[Audrey Coward]

  Thank you everyone for the honour of serving as  the poet laureate. Please check to make sure 

your poem is listed. Each person has five sticky dots .You can disperse them anyway you 

wish.Apply them to the poem you like best. The person with the most dots on their poem 

becomes the next poet laurate. Please e-mail me your choices by April 17.

  audreycoward @bellnet.ca  

Audrey Coward

# 1
  We have only one poem .... to focus on peace. 
and if there will be 
only one poem 
focussing on peace 
sung by a poet 
with low voice 
millions will listen 
as they had been waiting 
for to listen 
when the unknown one 
will offer her voice 
to the will of millions 
because poetry 
is the power of peace 
and peace is the will 
of the people of the world 
  
# 2  Peace Here and Now

I'm breathing the smoke
of gunshots, mortars, missiles,
and oil wells burning.
I'm stirring in the night,
hearing children crying and mothers keening.

The soft spring breeze
has the grit of desert sandstorm.
The night sky is torn by explosives,
cut by the arc of a missile.
There's no place far enough
to put my heart at ease.

Can I buy another chance?

I want to refuse to take sides.
I want to imagine a world
more spacious and more intimate.
I want the courage to buy
homes and meals and schoolbooks
instead of guns and tanks.

I want to be peace, wild and fierce and sweet.



# 3 Peace Emergence

 There is a mment

When from the inside of a circle

The horizon seems to be out of reach.

 

The circle seems to be bound

Only where the earth and sky touch

Where the sand ends and the air begins

 

At that same moment

Standing outside the circle

Everything seems turned inward

 

And as you are standing there

You see time curving away from you

Into still darkness.

 

The boundary between light and dark

Is an illusion

We transcend all the time.

 

Stepping from one into another

It is clear that the peace of a desert of light

Is the same as the peace of quiet darkness.

 

Somehow, from the faintest whisper,

A boundary emerges, curving

To mark the unlimited possibilities 

 

That are both contained and placed outside

Included and transcended

Quieted, and set in motion.

 

 # 4

On the one hand...


The desert whispers
Then wails, with the wind, of death
Yet no one listens!


On the other...


A cardinal sings
A fallen pine hugs the earth
Spring is here again!


On the one hand...


The desert whispers
Then wails, with the wind, of death
Yet no one listens!


On the other...


A cardinal sings
A fallen pine hugs the earth
Spring is here again!



# 5
Open space
for the universe inside of you.
Open space
to include the world around you.
There is no material separation, 
Only the wall built by fear; leaving a shrunken head and heart space for spirit to crouch in.

May the circle of tears and fears 
laughter and despair
blood and longing 
anger and sorrow
passion and responsibility
expand our space.
Gently washing away the illusion
That we are distant from each other and from peace.
Peace lives inside and beyond this chaos...

Reach and reach farther again
to touch the edges of that place within and without where peace includes all.
The time is the ever-present now...
The person is whomever you are...
The place is here...
The space waits...
Peace is...
Us.
The person is whomever you are...
The place is here...
The space waits...
Peace is...
Us.

# 6 Peace becoming
 

People came from all around our tiny planet

Floating so alone 

to collaborate on making 

a documentary film about 

things that matter to 

the life forms on our little globe

 

Floating so alone.

 

They set themselves a challenge

How may we show our human denizens   

in daily coexisting and cocreating?

 

In a way that captures the emotioning of 

the thrill of the chase

the pounding heart of the assailant

the cries of anguish and pain as the tanks roll in

stealth bombers on a deadly mission.

 

How do we display the passion underpinning 

a nod of agreement

a smile of recognition

a friendly debate

the bustle of the local market

sitting in the sun on a park bench conversing

with a stranger

people opening space for others to be beside them? 

 

The film makers found themselves perplexed

And were working on it.

 

That happened just a few days before the event 

which changed perceptions of peace forever

A happening seemingly more seminal

than 911 or any other.

 

When people spontaneously organised 

to stride out for peace.

in great rallies 

all over our mother earth

   

expressing powerfully and confidently

that the only true axes are those of hope.

 

Since that February day our world 

is asking different questions 

and the 'crisis of perception'

of all humanity 

is that is a second superpower

hitherto unknown and unrecognised is unfolding. 

 

Already seen to be the only one 

which will ultimately

prevail

is the voice of the people 

all around our lovely home.

 

Singing anything war can do

peace can do better. 

 

The film makers now have peace scripts

and screen ploys

ad infinitum.

 

And while we earth dwellers

will forever be

Floating so alone 

 

The gift of being so connected 

removes the loneliness.

 

# 7 

remembering who we are 

innocent as the morning dew

harmless as a newborn babe

capable only 

of the swirling ecstasy of  Love

 

resisting (yes resisting) temptation

to indulge in sorrow and pain

fear and anger and reprisal

refusing belief

in the dream nightmare

we named reality

 

reawakening to the Truth 

imbedded so deeply i can scarcely reach Me ~

wedded so truly I never leave me ~

seeing Me 

seeing You

 

thankful for the sweet glimmer of awareness 

of Who created us

and why

of the journey

and the destination

heart overflowing

awed

by the goodness and rightness of it all

(my heart catapults with the impeccable rightness of the gift!

come see it with me ~

the vast undisturbed unlimited opportunity to find our way home

in our own way and in our own time

always available

never forced

reachable only when sought truly

only when all true questions have been undone

each moment an opportunity to undo another)

(such love!  such trust!  such patience! such certainty!)

 

surrendering finally

smiling

i find peace

 # 8

While the war goes on,
a moth flutters earnestly in soft spring air
as I sit on the pot.


                     
 # 9                                                                                        
      Ultimatum
      War may come in two days
      Our President has lost touch with my heart
      maybe yours too
      a head, a chest,
      a fist
      What is the job of the peacemaker now?
      Blessed are the peacemakers
      but how happy can we be?
      how can we be a happiness for all,
      bring a blessing to all,
      to all?
      Bind up the wounds.
      Bring soothing water
      to clean, to drink.
      Hug...
      smile...
      pray...
      mightily.
      Find a way
      to help the wounded,
      neither oppose
      nor give more trouble
      to troubled ones
      comfort, embrace
      make whole
      again
      bring again home.
      Who are the wounded?
      Our neighbor
      our enemy
      two presidents:
      who can tell among them?
      Make whole
      give to wounded chest
      legs
      and heart
      and open hand.
                                                               

          # 10                                                  Turquoise monarch chrysalis
Fourteen days will pass
Alive with it's self.






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