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:

Night and Day: A Poem of Love

Fear not ghost of darkness,
Master of night's realm,
Morning's light will not dowse 
Your fiery midnight passion,
Locked in my bosom of eternal touch.

Dagger of day pierces your trembling inclination,
Burnishing you with ubiquitous fear of unnatural longing.
A camellia of mundane tranquility, 
Serpentines through a chorus 
Of unexplored betrayal, of untested feelings.

How you move through night's shade, 
With the nobility of kingly privileges, 
Steps leaving undeniable prints of passage.
Lestat must have taught you how to rule
The dark heaven of your true calling.

Concealed jealousy waters a sanguine journey, 
Of unreachable hope lost in night and day.
Man's path chokes with life's grand design.
Looting animals pray for Shakespearian fall.
Slivers of mistrust precipitate the fall.

Nature's truth undeniable,
Imposing presence trapped by day's glaring rays.
We were naked in the dawn of possibilities
Morning's gloom threatened last night's hopeful union.
Wretched day be gone, 
You belch poison upon my face.

You ghost, who walks night's corner and midday's roads,
Proudly displaying a band that masks the dual truth of oneness,
I am savagely in awe. Day walker - night stalker lives an
Indistinguishable truth, 
With a simplistic need of survival.

Must not day abandon its heightened chord of war,
And walk in the slippers of "live and let live?" 
Night, who clutches our secrets,
Allows mortals a sojourn 
From morning sadness and midday blues.

Adonal Foyle

Return to top ^

Beneath the Waving Flag

Beneath the waving flag
The ground feels no rain
The earth remains the same
Withering plant finally dies

Beneath the waving flag
Everyone sings the hymn of conformity
Dialogue locked in the coffin of fear
Feet trampled in unison and contempt

Beneath the waving flag
No one can hear me scream
I cannot see the sun
Faces hidden in zealousness

Beneath the waving flag
Stupidity is called patriotism
Greed and revenge moral codes
Terrorism a mad manÕs reprieve

Beneath the waving flag
Enron becomes a memory
Questions are the enemy
Fear our justifiable gift

Beneath the waving flag
My freedom borrowed
We become blind al quedans
Zealousness without moderation

Beneath the waving flag
I cried for dead victims across the world
I cried for September 11
I cried for clarity of leaders

Beneath the waving flag
We did not raged when unmanned 
Plane kills Americans without due 
Process 

Beneath the waving flag
Barbara Lee vilified for her
Conscientious votes

Beneath the waving flag
Killing their innocents 
Collateral damage and ours
Unspeakable horror and murder?

Beneath the waving flag
I am afraid to sign this poem

Beneath the waving flag
I cannot breathe

Adonal Foyle

Return to top ^

Before They Throw You in the Ground

The intoxicating rhythm of the 
Steel pan feeds their zeal. 
They call Dan Sandy's banjo
And Gabriel with his African drum.
Death they say is a celebration of life.

They wind their bompsie to the ground 
Barcardi and sunset, coconut water 
And lime squash spike the air. 
Salt fish and bakes move center front. 
Death they say is not the end.

The tambourines shake to the lyrics
Of Banana Man and they tell Nancy stories 
That nails you to your chair.
Then they pass me over her coffin and under it.
Death I say is a scary thing.

Adonal Foyle

Return to top ^

Maypole Dancing

The regatta was a fun time for my Aunt Islar
But she wanted only one event.
She was not interested in the egg and spoon, 
The boat races, the queen show, not even the calypso show.
She was 81 and skilled like a matador.

A pole standing upright in a clear spot 
With bright multi-colored strings 
Descending from its apex. They drop 
Like shimmering snow in the island sun. 
She wears her blue flower dress 
That her good child got her, 

She even went to the hairdresser 
Where they managed to plait her hair
Which is now 99% white.

Sandy recognizes her impatience 
And sound the drum and the participant rose
Circled the pole of the hour
Glide forward, as if to salute the pole,
They took a string floating down the pole, 

With 1-2-3 the drums let loose
Like my neighbor's bad dog chasing
Me from the mango tree
Their hands moved with such adroitness

Now that everyone had a string, 
Auntie Islar's own was bright orange
They heed the call of the drum 
And danced toward the pole until 
They were crunched together 
Then retreat back to their original position

They weave a net so tight, 
The spider web in my dirty room
 had nothing on them
They moved, crossing, 
Ducking, spinning, holding, 
Timing it's a work of art 
Until Molly made a mistake 
And had to deal with my hostile Aunt Islar 
Who will growl under her breath, push the child
With her hip, but by the end of the dance though bruised
Will know how to dance the May Pole,
My Aunt's favorite sport.

Once there was a string vacant 
And she beckoned me to come to it 
But I am not trespassing on that womanÕs domain

Many have tried but at 81 none will emerge victorious
As she used to say
	
"I teacher them all and I know what they're thinking before they do it"

Adonal Foyle

Return to top ^

I Remember Her

And like a terrible hurricane silencing a once rowdy 
Island or the fire that burns the soul in Gomorra.
The storyteller's chair sits vacant,
A shoal hanging across the back,
The hoe no longer ploughs the loamy soil.

The image of a lady climbing Manny Hill,
With a white flour bag carrying the sign ECFM
Fill with peanuts and potatoes, balanced on her
Head but she disappears into the rays of the 
Steamy Caribbean sun.	

Like serenaders knocking on your door 
Capturing your air and escaping into the
Cover of night. Gone is your dancing
And singing to bring in the morning. Your 
Crocked eyes close one last time.

I sit on the plum tree waiting for a glimpse
Of your sunburned face, but all I can see is memory.

Adonal Foyle

Return to top ^

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

Return to top ^

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

Return to top ^

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

Return to top ^

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

Return to top ^

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

Return to top ^