Winners of the Poetry Competition

Third Prize Winner of the Best Poem in Polish - Katarzyna Plamowska (3Vita)

Strzępki moich zmartwień

Rozłożyły się wygodnie

Pod moimi powiekami

I niczym czarny deszcz

Przypruszyły braki...

Więc postanowiłam

I poszłam

Ze łzami na spacer

Wodospady mojego

Bólu spłynęły z gwiazd

W moim ciele

I w ożywczym prysznicu

Zmyły ból,

Wyprały i oczyściły

Łzy - poezja

Wyrażają smutek i ból

Radość i tkliwość

Wreszcie pokój i

Ukołyszenie

Spokój i ból

Wydobyły się z

Tkanek mego ciała

I dokonały roszady.

Czuję pokój i radość

Zbolałe ramię

Służy mi za poduszkę.

A cichy szept

Już nie budzi

Krzyku.

Spokój, cisza....

To jest właściwość

Dobrze przeżytych Łez

Spokój i cisza.

The Winner of the Best Poem in English (ex aequo) - Julia Obrębska (4Lex)

Forget-me-not

There is no way to forget

When you do not quite regret

When you distinctly remember

though it’s already December

you wish to bring back July

When he said that you would try

When he did not make you cry

Before the unsaid goodbye

the unanswerable why

There is no way to let go

Though you’ve never been so low

Yet before that you were high

And you felt that you could fly

You will not try to deny

Even if it was a big fat lie

That he made you feel lovable

And so darn comfortable

Despite your friends’ advice

You kept staring into his eyes

Impenetrable and gleaming

Oh your face could not stop beaming

Muffling the inner screaming

Yet you chose to keep on dreaming

You’ve been searching for a cure

Somebody whom would you lure

And finally treat you well

Yet you still lie down and dwell

Those memories can’t be drowned

When there is an unhealed wound

Festering and stinging

But to him you keep on clinging

I still distinctly remember

Though it’s already December

I wish to bring back July

When you said that we would try

When after our first meeting

Quite long, yet so fleeting

I was walking mesmerised

Unimaginably surprised

With so many open doors

I put on Wanna be yours

Yet with time each of them closed

I was fervently opposed

To exit was the only choice

God, I still hear your voice

So mysterious and deep

The memory I wish to keep

And listen to in my sleep

Even if it makes me weep

I wish I could just erase

To get rid of any trace

Of your presence in my life

Cut it out using a knife

Yet there will remain a scar

I wish to lock you in a jar

Yet I cannot find the lid

Which you so meticulously hid

I close my eyes to drown out memories

And forget all the funny stories

That you told me on the phone

I keep looking for your clone

Out in the street and on tinder

For a while more let me linger

To stories we used to share

Soon I will let go I swear

I just don’t think I’ve lost hope

And therefore around I mope

Think of ways to bring you back 

Any minute I might crack

I simply wish I knew why

you have said your goodbye

Which I refused to hear

To my heart you were so dear

I don’t know whose fault it is

Though they keep saying: “it’s his”

I just thought you understood

And therefore I felt I could

Trust you with my troubled soul

You so shamelessly stole

I don’t know how to forget

That we have once met

All those times you made me smile

And now I am full of bile

I just feel so suffocated

And with you I was elated

I know this is the end

That no more time will we spend

Looking in each other’s eyes

Unaware of dooming goodbyes

An ode to Montagnes Russes 

The most gallant of men 

did not dare foresee 

the utmost mirth one would meet 

by gently indulging in a ride on thee 

Thy slender limbs reaching the welkin’s bed 

Make me shudder and quiver and lose my breath 

Thy tender curves and sharp slopes 

Bring forth spasms of elation as one is briskly welcomed with sudden acceleration 

Oh Rollercoasters let me exalt Thy name 

For when I lay eyes on Thy blessed weight 

All plight or ordeal go weep in shame trembling before your splendid frame 

Whilst an amused man ungalled plays 

Thou arouse me 

Liquify my flesh 

Render my members flaccid and weak 

At Thy behest I shall renounce even a certain death 

For it is a mere phantasm, a spectre, sheer trifle 

When I am held in Thine embrace a warm gripple 

Oh Rollercoasters, aere perennius 

Should Thou wither I shall come to Thy rescue 

Per aspera ad astra 

The cosmic void whispers dearly in my ear 

Without Thine aid I would have never come so near 

The Demiurge’s scope Her nurturing gaze 

Had it not been for Thy conception 

Dreams of demise would appear before me, wary of the looming fate 

For a tainted sorrow, doom incarnate 

Would at length veil my inert, torpid self 

Thus I rejoice each instant I encounter Thy kin 

But equally each time dread accompanies me 

ill as crime, menacing as sin 

Since I know this jovial state is but eternal 

And once the bells toll 

And You hear Israfil’s calls 

The Sacred Providence’s will is final - ascension or damnation befalls

hollow soul of mine

deep and tight like my blackest wound

red waves kept crashing against my tomb 

no sailor would stop to help me, in my day of doom

when they mentioned my name you asked them - whom?

so i drowned in tears, filled an empty room 

as you let your darkness get 

the best of the brain that you were given 

thoughts cluster, forming a river

and the vines of life hold you down 

forcing me to drown 

forcing us to drown

youre so judgemental - i fear im mental

my prefrontal cortex got the best of me - a foresight?

to be honest - im petrified

but with all these words it seems implied

i feel like im crawling in circles

i feel like im locked up inside

with nothing and nowhere to hide

just a child, locked in a cage

diyou might as well spit in my face

a pity that follows around

nowhere is lost - you are found

the vines of life are choking me now

they all forced me to drown

choked me as i drowned.

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