First Place Winner

Second PlACE WINNER

SO LOST ARE YOU IN THE SILK NIGHT OF GRIEF
JOELLE COHEN

 So lost are you in the silk night of grief,
 When I call you don't answer, ha
You don't even look up.
It weighs on you like hot stones, seeping into your skin, Presses into the heat of your chest,
Makes it hard to breathe.You won't look down; because you're sure the snowstorm will break over us,
And looking down,
Means getting hit by hail.
My sister, or Atlas?
I am here, too, under the smog of the city. Do those city lights blind you?
Is that why you won't look at me anymore?
You carry the burden of loss like a weeping child,
      held tight to the chest,
     swaying back and forth-
Something methodical and heavy,
A grandfather clock soothing time, each moment it swings its pendulous channel,
Without pause or hesitation.
But once, you startled awake from your open-eyed sleep in the messy wake of our kitchen,
I waited with bated breath, my heart beat like a jackrabbit against my ribs,
Maybe--maybe--maybe
And then you sat back down, starkly. The moment was over.
Under your flat thumb, saltine crumbs scattered.
Your shadow, once harsh,
Is now slippery.
The sharp planes of your face have lost shape and meaning,
Become colours blending into each other aimlessly.
Your eyes are honey always,
Dripping sweetly down onto the rest of you,
The red of your mouth, and the pearl of your skin,
I don't know where to look, so I look everywhere,
I want to trek to the center of your heart and untangle the arteries, hold them together if I need to.
I want to shake you from the inside until all your broken pieces fit together again.
I want to look up God's number in the yellow phone book, and beg him to bring you back, do the work I can not.
I want to tell you, your grief is sensational--
but it stops being poetry, when you stay stuck

Third PLACE WINNER

HOW TO PRETEND
​ SHAYNA HERSZAGE

When new leaves
Sprout from bare branches,
Do not remember
The broken, grey fingers,
Outstretched in the cold,
Reaching out
For a touch of life
That may -
Or may not -
Still exist.

When fruit bursts forth
Across hopeful limbs,
Do not remember 
Young, green leaves
Pulled to the ground,
Turned to dust.
Buds buried in the earth,
Promises 
Never given the chance
To blossom.

Pretend this
Diamond spring
Never began
On the skeleton of winter,
And will never end,
Only to fall
Beneath a bed of frost
Once again.
After all,
Trees are always
More beautiful
If you can forget
The roots.

KALEIDOSCOPE
Gal Kavaler

Kaleidoscope goggles placed over their eyes
and opinions observed 
as painstakingly as an artist with a muse fosters his art,
from one angle black, from another the colors of toxic waste
yet the people appear indifferent
And the girl who is always happy viewing the world from a corner
can't even begin to comprehend the grim colors of next door boy
with the broken goggles
he sees only smog in a world broken
sheer fabric blurring all senses
the remaining tatters stained red
Life lived through the filters placed upon the people

STORY OF THE NIGHT
HADASSAH SUNITSKY ​

I waited for the stars to emerge
But they weren’t there for me that night
They had other matters to attend to                  
Beyond the clouds
And that was when I understood
The value of those trivial sparkles
Which can mean the difference
Between hope and loss

I looked up at the moon
Queen of the night
Cloaked in the splendor of blackness
And wondered
How it must feel
To serve as a mere reflection 
While the light of her glorious gold partner
Dances merrily on the bright side of the world

I blinked at the neon storefronts
Resentful of their blinding shimmer
Wishing the light bulbs would calm down
And allow passersby to bask in the solitude
But the wild lights zoomed on
So I thought
It must be the eternal darkness
Which spurs them to cry out for notice
So much pain expressed 
In every flash of their colored brightness
While the public rushes on 
To warm homes

And then I watched the people
Heads bent, faces in shadow
Each with a story
A rose resting on a white stone
In memory of a beloved sister
A ring being slipped on a hopeful finger
Only to be cast into the sea
When life broke apart

And as I walked slowly home
I knew my story was not so bad

BULLET WHOLE
MICHAL TREITEL

I hate writing, but love having written,
and I'm not alone, though it seems absurd.
Past logophiles were likewise smitten
by the sweet torture of the written word. 

Stories are reversed bullets in the heart;
they strike me from within, square in the chest--
can't move, can't breathe, I fear I may depart. 
To survive, my thoughts I must manifest. 

I pour out the ink surging through my veins, 
build people and places so intricate. 
Words keep me sane, so I write hurricanes
until my words and I are infinite. 

I drop my pen--whole again--and portal
to where words armor, and I'm immortal.

VINDICATION
​ BRENDA TAWIL

Suffice it to say,
My soul was never bitter 
As it was on that starless night of my
Vengeance; never was it so
Drastically daunted by a task
Simple as self-sacrifice, never
More exposed, and never more hollow.

The air was eerily silent;
Perched upon the frozen lake I glimpsed the
Darkened emerald of your bellicose eyes, 
The black of your heart beneath the ice 
Upon which I stood,
And then I heard you.

Words harsher than Winter's winds 
Tangled themselves in my hair,
And I wondered why I still paced
And pondered the evils of your
Actions, your greed and your apathy.

I paused.

My hands like parchment pressed
To the lake which encompassed you,
Enslaved you and set me free.
I melted it;
The barrier, mightier than you yet
Frailer than I was on that night,
Threatened to dip below even your virtues.

As you lay under the miracle and I stood above it,
Ice became water slipping through my fingers,
And I found solace in this:
However deep I'd sink, 
You'd sink faster.

EVERY CREATURE PRAYS
​ TY ROCKER

Do the fullest winds not begin Nature’s sermon
by harmonizing with the deepest valleys,
 composing an ancient, 
 whispering cry?
Do you think that the moon doesn’t shout 
its loudest appreciation
at night in return for the sun’s illumination?
Do the trees not worship in the summer,
then precede to roll up their prayer mats in the fall?
Does the ocean not send multitudes of waves
to crash onto Her sands in continuous,
bowing motions?
Do the wild salmon not get so drunk with the Divine
and fling themselves upstream in attempt to become intimate 
with Nature’s sacred sobriety?
Did you know that once the first snow melts, 
Her praised name can be heard from every woodland, 
marsh, 
peak,
and range?
The rivers chant hymns as they continue to feed on newly thawed glacial spirit.
Oh! And the Groundhog!
Once he awakens from his sleepy slumber
His prayers are heard and commended across the Mighty Plains, and far into certain forests! 
Do sparrows not sing to Her in the early hours of the morning before you even awaken?
Of course they do you fool!
You’re not the only one that prays!

NAMED YET NAMELESS
​ TALIA SIMPSON

A passing dream, each one finite
Dust in the wind, insignificant
Stars, reflections of light
From thousands of years ago.

Waves and beams streaming 
Warmly welcomed with eyelashes fluttering open to greet them
The light flows through us; it's our lifeblood 

Though the twinkling luminaries fill the ache in our hearts,
We don't know their names

And don't be mistaken-
The stars do have names.
Names given individually by God.

Similar to human souls
Our names that we wear proudly around our necks
To show that we matter
That we are more than blips on the infinite line of time 
More than a star, a reflection of light.

Yet names go in cycles,
Circles of lives
Named after another to keep them alive
So the name is not your own.

Circles swirling
Like dust in the wind
A passing dream

Like one of the infinite stars in the sky
Whose pinprick of light gives joy to those who gaze upon it.
And thousands of years later,
A human on earth will look up at that star
One of many.
And only God will know it's name.

THE CONCEPTION OF A THOUGHT RACHEL JACOBI

Something takes shape
Twisting, turning,
Morphing into something that’s larger than itself, 
Something unparalleled in its blinding beauty, 
Something that for one moment, 
For the one second that the start of it lasts, 
Steals the breath of its owner. 

It's oddly gratifying, isn't it,
How a small spark in a person's mind
Can grow into a blazing flame that solidifies with time
Into something beautifully tangible
Something miraculous

HOME
​ REBECCA SPIN

People don’t seem to realize that
“Where do you live?”
Is different than
“Where is your home?”

To be entirely honest,
I don’t quite know where
“home” is yet.

Home implies connection,
A feeling of wanting to stay
A feeling that there is nowhere else
That you could possibly be
That could make you any happier
Than you already are.
And I haven’t really felt like that
Anywhere
At all
Yet.

Being “perfectly happy”
Is different from being “happy”
And I’m never quite sure whether I’m “fine” or
Whether I’m actually happy and I can only find true
Happiness when I know what it is that I actually
Want and what I want is to be happy.
Does that make sense?

I can see it sometimes, you know
When I close my eyes
I can see it
Home is dark
Home is warm
Home is in front of a window
The size of a wall
Where it rains

Home is in an apartment
And the apartment has lights that look like floating orbs,
And bookshelves full of graphic novels, and a warm drink
And a purple beanbag, and a sketchbook, and complete and
Utter solitude- by no means forever, but for one perfect
Moment of complete serenity and empty silence and I
Am as free as I can possibly be, and the world is blue-tinged,
And it is cold but I am warm, and I look out at the rain and
Sigh and realize that I have been waiting my entire life for this
One moment which has finally finally arrived and my simple
Wishes are finally becoming reality
Home is a dream
Home is temporary
Can you understand?
Can you believe that all dreams
However simple
Have the possibility of becoming reality
And that is home?

Can you see your future,
As I hope that I can see mine?

Encapsulate that moment
Savor it
Elaborate upon it
And when you reach it
As I hope to, someday
You will have found your home
And life will be
Perfect.

And then what?
Nothing is forever, moments are
Fleeting
And everything will come crashing down
Home is a dream
Home is temporary
Home is unattainable

But
That’s the beauty of it all
You paint a new picture
You keep chasing it
And hope that someday, 
Some wonderful, perfect day

You won’t have to search any longer.

A SPECK OF DUST
JESSE WEISS

It’s difficult to decide how we live our lives. 
If we ever choose, is there even a point?
But this is for the resisters
The ones who want to stand as sisters
Where there lies hope
Who are not quite ready to provoke
For the girl whose best friend’s have always sat on her grave
Always said they would stay same
But the world kept changing
As she was colliding
Was the world created for me?
Or am I nothing,
but a speck of dust.

Your words,
My words,
Nothing sticks to originality 
Because the way we work with the mentality
Of new world order
Of a way to see the stars 
instead of being stuck in this tar
A way to fly to the sun before our story is done
Was the world created for me?
Or am I nothing, 
but a speck of dust.

I’ve never heard such hateful thing come out of my mouth.
I have never been more disappointed then when I had to talk about-

Or the fear I felt when I heard the news,
The things you said that were colored in blue.
I never imagined how close this would come,
To my earth shattering because you thought you were the only one-

So I ask you,
I beg of you,
Answer my question.
Cause as our world keeps spinning,
I continue to wonder,
Is there even a reason to ponder?
I am blessed with this confusing space known as reality,
And that there is even a place left just for me, the irony. 
Was the world created for me?
Or am I nothing 
but a speck of dust.