Poetry Contest Winner and Poems

[Joelle Lyons Everett]

Friends--

The winner of the November, 2003 Open Space Poetry Contest is Florian
Fischer.  Florian is now our Poet Laureate for the next six months, with the
responsibility to organize the next contest, in six months, and to support the writing
and reading of poetry in any way he sees fit.

Congratulations, Florian!  Please confirm for me your post office mailing
address, so that I may send a small gift with my congratulations.

Along with the votes, I have received many favorable comments on the overall
high quality of the poems.  And the voting was very close, with the apparent
winner shifting from day to day as the sticky dots arrived.  Many distributed
their dots to several poems, to honor more than one poet.  The poems, with
author names, are copied below.  I also have them in a Word file, so let me know
if you want them as a formatted file.

I love that the OSList honors poetry, in our everyday mail and with a
"contest" twice a year.  I am deeply honored to have held the title of Poet Laureate
for these last months.  And now, Florian, the job is all yours!

Love,

Joelle Everett


OPEN SPACE POETRY CONTEST—NOVEMBER, 2003



POEM #1


Leadership #20
--by Rich  Foss

A leader knows how to be close to loam,

a loose mixture of loss, death, and microbes.



I wonder how a leader makes room for a falling tree.



Now don't get me wrong;

I love energy, creativity and joy,

and I long like a pruned raspberry bush

but a leader must know how to sit alone

when the tree falls.



He knows that in the decay

a few words will wriggle free

and he will be able to say who he is.


 POEM #2
--by Alan Stewart

I wonder if you see

that it's  up to you and me

and all the other we

who see

humanity

differently

to be as free

as she or he

can be

ferociously

passionately

responsibly .....

and take the next step!




 POEM #3

I Wonder
--by  Audrey Coward


I Wonder What Would Happen If I Always:

Appreciated life
Beamed brightly
Chose courage
Did daring deeds
Expressed my love
Felt compassion
Gave freely
Healed completely
Inspired hope
Kindled friendships
Let go
Meditated calmly
Navigated wisely
Opened space
Passed over the past
Quit worrying
Released creativity
Soared higher
Thought great thoughts
Understood everything
Visioned recklessly
Wondered why
X-ed the to-do list
Yearned for peace
Zigzagged on a scooter



 POEM #4


I wonder
--by  Florian Fischer


I wonder
whether words will work
I wonder
whether wanting will work
I wonder
whether worrying will work
I wonder
whether voting will work
to get answers on
where to go and
when to stop and
how to stay

will worshipping work
or waiting for wonders

or is it simply giving welcome
to the wonder happening
already and continuously
as selffulfilling reality
not answering any question
about right or wrong
or how or where or when

I am to witness the wonder
and to stay wondering until
perhaps to my two words before last:
I wonder

 POEM #5


I WONDER WHO
--by  Chris Weaver


It’s  human
to be angelic surrounded
-florian


i wonder who
lights the fire whose sparks
glitter along the rafters of this lodge

the sparks cast a beckoning wey
and by day you have been arriving
your feet are long sweet walking

along a daily way of dust, a beckoning
of small damp circles on the earth
a trail of tears

of joy, for following
and i wonder whose
eyes cast this beckoning wey

in the dust of your today
who cries softly
solely for the love

of your following feet ?
and by night you have been arriving
your face by night cast upward

where you glimpse her robes gathering
now
across the crescent moon

your feet by night are long sweet walking
where the sparks glitter
a beckoning wey across the sky

to this lodge
where a circle
is long sweet gathering

tonight
in breathless
one-der



 POEM #6


Tomorrow Space
--by  David Adams



  I wonder if I really will write my poem tomorrow..

  What will open into the space of its now-ness?

  A million things crowd in, scampering possibilities

  Bustling, pushing at the fringe of my consciousness,

  Grown dull in the history of so much thinking..



  Can this space be held empty for a while, as an

  Invitation so sweet that no-one rushes to reply?

 As a sacred pool of stillness no breath dares disturb?

  As the hush of the moment's encounter with a masterpiece?



  What moves in this precious, protected nothing?



  Shhhhhhhh....



  [Angels are opening the petals of a heart...]


POEM #7


 Simple but not easy
--by  Alan Stewart

 "Too simple, too obvious, too long-lasting

and too applicable to our whole of life

to be a management fad."



So said an MD about the spirit of open space

now bubbling in their wholesome place.



What a gift to see

that the 3 Rs of our common humanity -

relationship, respect and responsibility

make for all we all can be.



I wonder if those now free

will act accountably

to bring advocacy

that such simplicity

does not grow on a tree?

*
*
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