When I started this it was Young Poets Write For Me. But the response was something different.
I'd seen so many talented young writers become trapped in a one way street without any avenue of escape.
Well hopefully I've given you that avenue.
With virtually every challenge I receive PM's saying I can't do that when in truth you can.
Everyone of you who writes is brilliant in their own way
But
The horizon is wide and deep so broaden your own horizon


For all the rosebuds waiting to bloom

I saw the old man circling the tree trunk
Weather beaten skin, bent gnarled hands
and piercing blue eyes

He seemed to study every knot and crack
in that ancient timber

Then without a word turned and picked up hammer and chisel

The wood chips then began to fly and like confetti on the ground lie soon in heaps some ankle high

Occasionally he would stand back and look but never once a rest he took

Mallet strokes both hard and soft some from under some aloft fell there with unerring skill always busy never still

Long into the night he worked now by the light of an oil lamp and so the tree stump 'neath his hand then became a work of art

At long last he stood and turned to me and said three words " that'll do lad"

I approached to see just what he'd done and there I saw the perfect rose every petal and leaf in place the slender stems in the breeze did sway

With no plan or picture he had made the start
And created the perfect work of art.


So what is creativity? Well that's your next challenge.

No love poems because they've been done a million times. This time something unique

We were told to bring umbrellas,
to grin and bear it till we wept,
to hold out for the sun,
yuck yuck I want none.
For the reason we came:
we'd been told there'd be rain.

Bring the children,
call the neighbors,
cuz I want to see their faces.

Singing over the stove,
crawled into the oven for warmth
and boiled by the gallons,
yum yum I want some.
Oh why did we come?
There's been only sun.

Count your blessings and your pennies
and impress all your employers
and dress like no one's watching,
tsk tsk so self-conscious.
How ya feelin'? The usual?
Just act natural, casual, and cool.

Bring the children,
call the neighbors,
cuz I want to see their faces.

INSANITY-one persons interpretation of another persons state of mind

I am told to take out the garbage.

To rid myself of things that are bad for me.

Every time i do this,

I feel nothing but,

Empty inside.

Dear mother, father, brothers, and friends,
What is happiness, but a trend?
I never found it, but I did crave it.

I spent day and night crying over a lost love,
A lost chance, a forgotten friend, a speck of dust.
Everywhere I looked, I saw the beauty I couldn't find in me.
And it pained me so. It pained me quite so.

A wonderful world ruined by a broken soul
Is not such a wonderful world, is it?
I could not stand ruining other people's happiness,
When I knew I would never find it.

Once, a friend told me that just like love,
Happiness finds you.
But I guess the line was long enough already,
And all the operators were occupied.

I shall join all the forgotten souls,
All the dead ones somebody used to love or hate.
In happiness, in love, in bliss, in joy, in death.
Goodnight, and joy be with you all.

this is my last and final goodbye
as I write this I think of the times you made me cry.
with your hurtful words
and your loving smile to others
the leather belt that struck my back and left the open wounds
the hot iron on my arm when I talked back
and the fist against my skull if I did something wrong.
love me, to mom

My veins are inside-out
Blood's not of importance
All this slicing doubt
With the metal in accordance

Things are out of hand
I'm all washed up in red
Too lost to understand
I might at well be...

"Miss? Can you hear me?"

He said my luck was with me
But would he mind to ascertain
He would find, the things, I see
Would make most people go insane

Drip, Drip, Drop!
The tears come running,
Splashing to the floor.
The blank page dotted,
The ink running away
From the letters I try to deliver.
I need to say why
I choose to leave.
Because of this,
The tears come running.