Poetry Contest Winners Jake, McKinleyville, CA Patrick Do, Sacramento, CA Aaron Ingles, Peoria, IL Brooke Taylor Walker, Franklin, TN Nicole Hemings, Fishers, IN Congratulations! Winners will be contacted shortly! Read their poems!

Writing poetry is a very important part of my life. I use poetry to capture my emotions and chronicle my life. Here are some of my favorite poems:

Ambivalence

I miss the cocks that shout out loud
Arise, arise you wretched sloth.
The day has dawned and passeth by
Dragging night's drape across the cloud.

I miss the beach, the sand that's pure.
The water that makes the land secure.
Its reef, a quilt with blinding hews,
Adorns the painted mystic view.  

I miss the pain I ever hate
Whips and ropes, my haunting fate.
One does not only love the good,
But grows in disdain, misunderstood.

I miss the face of those trusted few.
Whose love was but a weakness too.
Home, illusion of bucolic paradise,
The rosy dew, and stinging lies.

Adonal Foyle

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A Place of Mystery

Of time and place without a name 
Narrow paths and winding roads,
Of secrets old and filled with shame, 
A falling star that no man hoards.  

If I sound foolish, cold and bleak, 
Judge me not with hate or scorn, 
Pity me.  I fear what I seek, 
Unleash the raging passions born.

How many went to that raw place?
Where airballs and injuries roam.
Even a child must run this race, 
To conquer thee, the masses moan.

I end this query with shame and fear
But look, there, nearer to the clear... 

Adonal Foyle

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A King For His Time

The King,
A prizefighter refusing to raise his gloves,
Inflicting a moral whipping.
Like a kid he dared the bully to take a punch, 
From his wounds the blood of love poured.

His tears quenched the thirst of millions, 
His religion a beacon on uncharted waters,
His imprisonment the hope of his children,
His death the price for our freedom.

Love was the dagger of his salvation, 
A matador waving his cape before the raging bull,
Forcing it into submission,
Despite its cruelly sharpened horns.

Adonal Foyle

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Damn Sun

Before I am ready, the sun climbs through 
the crevices of the door and settles on my eyes.

I can smell the morning glory 
scuffling with balsam tea boiling on the fire,

And when I open the door I taste the sea salt 
upon my lips. The chirping of the doctor bird. 

She sings, Rock of Ages cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee.

The guava tree sways, struck repeatedly
by the breeze climbing gently off the ocean.

Then warplanes explode across the sky
as I seek a futile refuge beneath my bed. 

The United States invades Grenada.
My world becomes a battleground.

Who knows how these things get started
But I will like to volunteer a few guesses.

2.

The evil Grenadian with communist intent
Or Reagan social policies that's not worth a cent

Whatever the excuse the masses accept
The island was leveled with fighter jets

Bishop and them were put in jail
Do you know no one accepted their bail

They went to the fort in handcuff
And were shot in the head without much fuss

Now I am not blaming the US for the deed
That would be most unfortunate indeed

Was it Castro's manipulative assistant
The Grenadian cunning ploy of resistant

Charles draws the US a backdoor map
Manley's made sure there was no gap

Code was the man who started the war
Reagan wanted a sure victory from afar

Adonal Foyle
December 16, 2002

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We Too Can Build Computer Chips

No one tills the soil 
Such proud people,
Keepers of the land

Bags of peanuts, 
Mountains of peas, 
Oceans of corn, 
Red sweet potatoes, 
Scarecrows with 
Big straw hats, 

Fishermen" gum boats, 
Pulled to the shore, 
Hidden in the shade 
Of the tuckeryberry. 

Now we scrub, 
White man's floor,
 From seven to four,
 For pennies.

My beaches
Sold to strangers,
My gardens 
Golf courses with  tiny carts. 

Farmers, fishermen, 
Independent contractors,
Now are waiters, 
Laundry specialists,
Toilet engineers.  

What will we do, 
When the beaches 
Gone?
Damn you beautiful beaches,
I curse the day you were born. 

You bought the tourists, 
Charmed them with your Caribbean breeze, 
 Golden sand, 
Diamond sparking water.

I am no hater of tourism
Nor of Green gold.
But must we live a hurricane 
Away from poverty?

My people,
Turn the banana to drinks,
Make tourism work 
For our children.
We beat colonization, 
Even slavery.

We are smart. 
Me want Doctors, 
Professors, 
Engineers, 
Scientists, 
Me want education man.

Adonal Foyle

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