Country And Continent
Winning Entry by Cara
Emigre
For some people,
where they come from is a geographical absolute,
an intersected space of latitude and longitude,
a continent,
a country.
My homeland is grief.
Its citizens are too numerous to count,
but we all feel alone.
I have sucked milk from its rivers
since childhood,
and its weight bows my body.
Our culture is founded upon
an ideology of worst case scenarios.
We expect bad things to come for us
always
because they have come for us before.
We measure the likelihood of our salvation
by the toughness of our hides.
The customs of our country
seem intolerable to tourists,
but none of us ever claimed to be content.
I don't plan stay here,
but it's where I come from,
not a place I will ever disparage,
ever apologize for.
When I move on,
no one who lives here will notice that I'm gone.
I will tell my new neighbors I don't miss it,
and most of the time, it'll be the truth.
Still, I'll always remember how to get home.
It's not that I plan on wanting to return,
but I suspect it will be inevitable.
The coordinates of grief are impossible to forget.
For some people,
where they come from is a geographical absolute,
an intersected space of latitude and longitude,
a continent,
a country.
My homeland is grief.
Its citizens are too numerous to count,
but we all feel alone.
I have sucked milk from its rivers
since childhood,
and its weight bows my body.
Our culture is founded upon
an ideology of worst case scenarios.
We expect bad things to come for us
always
because they have come for us before.
We measure the likelihood of our salvation
by the toughness of our hides.
The customs of our country
seem intolerable to tourists,
but none of us ever claimed to be content.
I don't plan stay here,
but it's where I come from,
not a place I will ever disparage,
ever apologize for.
When I move on,
no one who lives here will notice that I'm gone.
I will tell my new neighbors I don't miss it,
and most of the time, it'll be the truth.
Still, I'll always remember how to get home.
It's not that I plan on wanting to return,
but I suspect it will be inevitable.
The coordinates of grief are impossible to forget.
Featured Entry by Fletcher & Beaumont
Two minutes
Gathered inside the small box, on a sea of red
They stand.
Oversized feathers in cap
Fur piled precariously.
'Turn the telly up so we can hear the silence.'
Momentarily, he falters, heavily plummaged hat hits the ground: sick, embarrassed.
The small scenes move from the dignified to the gaudy, but sad, always sad.
A young boy still in a war zone holds his breath under the insistent gaze of the world.
'I always observe the silence,' she proclaimed loudly.
Then,
'Oh for goodness sake!' She mutters as her phone sounds, breaking the two minutes. Fingers eager to check the contact fidget over the digits until the wake up tone is permitted.
All desperately hoping without hope
that there was a reason
to send a generation across continents
and spread their blood to feed the greedy soil.
Gathered inside the small box, on a sea of red
They stand.
Oversized feathers in cap
Fur piled precariously.
'Turn the telly up so we can hear the silence.'
Momentarily, he falters, heavily plummaged hat hits the ground: sick, embarrassed.
The small scenes move from the dignified to the gaudy, but sad, always sad.
A young boy still in a war zone holds his breath under the insistent gaze of the world.
'I always observe the silence,' she proclaimed loudly.
Then,
'Oh for goodness sake!' She mutters as her phone sounds, breaking the two minutes. Fingers eager to check the contact fidget over the digits until the wake up tone is permitted.
All desperately hoping without hope
that there was a reason
to send a generation across continents
and spread their blood to feed the greedy soil.
Featured Entry by MirisB
My Facebook’s full of sentiment about how mammals
miraculously understand one another,
we watch a monkey’s empathy, cry with emotion then kick the cat.
It alternates with sentiment about mammals that
make money from abusing one another and we watch half,
then stop before we cry bitterly,
It’s interspersed with efforts to save mammals
For, I guess, one of the above purposes.
But on another continent someone’s having an election,
Trying to choose a safe form of freedom, fighting for the truth
On another continent they’re saying never, never again will we
Suffer, now we will be great, everything will be alright now, this
Human has his priorities in the right place, and his morals
More or less – another new dawn.
And all of this through social media makes her feel
Sick and trapped and depressed and that the only
Decisions we can make are what to click and what
To press, and what to watch or not to watch;
all our morals and actions have come to this;
and I long to be up a high mountain in thin light air
with only a few thoughts
miraculously understand one another,
we watch a monkey’s empathy, cry with emotion then kick the cat.
It alternates with sentiment about mammals that
make money from abusing one another and we watch half,
then stop before we cry bitterly,
It’s interspersed with efforts to save mammals
For, I guess, one of the above purposes.
But on another continent someone’s having an election,
Trying to choose a safe form of freedom, fighting for the truth
On another continent they’re saying never, never again will we
Suffer, now we will be great, everything will be alright now, this
Human has his priorities in the right place, and his morals
More or less – another new dawn.
And all of this through social media makes her feel
Sick and trapped and depressed and that the only
Decisions we can make are what to click and what
To press, and what to watch or not to watch;
all our morals and actions have come to this;
and I long to be up a high mountain in thin light air
with only a few thoughts
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