Poetry Tournament

I thought I would take part in the Protagonize Seasonal Poetry Tournament. My poetry writing skills were quite rusty so I was not expecting much, just a whole load of fun and much practice. Funny thing is I made it to the penultimate round but did not make it to the final. Good enough for me and great fun too. Here are the poems I submitted as part of the challenges in the order they were submitted:

Title: Hunting the Hunter

Animal: Fox

I pricked up my ears and followed the scent,

With food aplenty, only fools would relent.

My nose twitched, excited, as my eyes scanned the field,

One prey then two, I counted, their fate would soon be sealed.

I charged and attacked, dug my teeth in but backtracked,

A loud bang resounded, then blood flowed from impact.

It seems that I, the hunter, was also the hunted,

By two legged mammals, I had been outsmarted.


An acrostic poem about my worst fear

Losing sense of those around,
Often I find I am pushing away,
Naked displays of ardour, to
easily find a way to downplay,
Longings, of many a face, those deep
images of grace and love but
Not here. I’m without a smile,
Elbowing away companionship and
Staying in exile,
Sailing away, a hundred and more a mile.

Title: Giving in and Giving out

Event: Famine

She’s slumped in despair trying hard to stop needing,

While her baby cries,

Her body crippled and deprived takes on another beating,

And she sighs.

Aching to find a thick slab of stone and around her waist she ties,

Still hunger lingers,

Her baby’s tears, streaming down a ghostly face, are food for the flies,

Fists enclose fingers.

A parched existence continues for today kept alive by singers,

in the camp,

it is a song that cuts through the endless pain, thirst, frailty and hinders,

a stomach clamp.

Thoughts of long gone days of nourishment invade leaving a stamp,

In her mind,

It does nothing but intensifies the destitute longing and she feels a cramp,

She is resigned.

Dizziness whirls her around and soon her vision is less defined,

Fighting on she tries,

But her baby has gone awfully quiet and in darkness she’s enshrined,

Slipping away she dies.