Thank you to all the students who submitted poems this year. The editors of the Golden Falcon selected these SIX poems.

1st place goes to “Diseased Love” by Rudra Sharma and 2nd place to “Pencil Cases.” Honourable mentions go to the remaining four poems.

Diseased Love

By Rudra Sharma

Oh my love, oh so lost,
Art thou here?
Where hast thou been?

Take a place, a place in my heart,
Share a piece, a piece of my love.

So when it beats, it speaks our love,
it beats for you, it beats for us.

Where are you? I seek your love,
don’t leave me blinded in this forest of lust.

Day or night, I ramble free,
searching deep,
a twisted world I weave.

East to west,
we are like the sun and moon,
this world against,
a bond bound come true?

Oh, these waves,
let me be,
drown me down,
out me free,
a sailor, a truth,
a reality-past been,
catch the wind, sail thy heart,
open your gate, dive in my love.

Time grows weary,
inevitable broken trust,
lightning to copper,
shattered glass upon a gun,
loss of flow, no veins to trust,
blood rushed flow,
floral a flower, laced in my heart
same to your glow,
that once lived throughout
my feeling of love.

Scrambled-straight-scrawled to dust,
a torn page of a book,
the story yet to be spoken,
never told.

Burnt our chapter,
left to bleed.
An ocean, a lake-surpassing the sea,

nothing left to live,
or bear to see.

As time spoke, it came, it rose,
romantically gone insane,
a case I call diseased love.

Inevitable to be broken.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Pencil cases

By Anonymous 

I am from pencil cases, like small worlds

holding a thousand thoughts.

From Vietnamese fish sauce and warm bánh mì, 

giving off a pleasant smell.

I am from a mess of toys in my bedroom’s corner

(Colorful, chaotic, a sea of vibrant plastic).

I am from the tangerine tree

at the back of my grandparents’ house,

whose rough rinds hide fruit bursting with sunlight.

I’m from never taking selfies and playing Sudoku,

from my father and my brother.

I’m from nights

spent burning the midnight oil and eating like a horse.

From “Why didn’t you get a perfect score?”

and “Drink more milk to grow taller.”

I’m from incense smoke and whispered prayers,

from faith carried quietly through generations.

I’m from Vietnam, from the Huynh family line,

from Vietnamese grilled pork sausages and tapioca dumplings.

From the sweat running down my parents’ foreheads,

their shirts damp with toil, their wills never bending.

From my mother, who began working at fifteen,

with the greatest courage I have ever seen.

My phone’s wallpaper is a picture taken at the airport 

before I came to Canada,

the only picture we took together that morning.

That moment is where I was born. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Life 

By Gabrielle Angelique B. Amigable

As the rain pours out,

 I was crying my eyes out.

 I want to shout,

But I can’t —so I just close my mouth shut.

Now my sight is shaking,

As if the world is breaking. 

 What am I lacking?

I thought it’s enough to give my everything.

 In the middle of the night,

I’m thinking if everything’s alright.

 Did I do it right?

 Or am I missing something to see the light?

I thought I gave my very best,

 But why do they see the worst,

 and leave the rest?

 Is it because I’m the weakest?

Oh, why am I thinking this way?

 I should leave it, and do it my way.

 Mistakes are the ray,

To find ourselves and be better someday.

And as I wrap this poem,

 I hope you felt better like a foam,

 soft and wholesome,

  Because life is also awesome.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A House Near the Wood

By Anonymous

There once was a girl in a land not quite near

And her name was Annie Soleil

She lived far away with her mother and father

But was not always willing to stay

She would come to the woods when times got too tough

And she couldn’t bear her own house

Whether her mother was drinking, her father was yelling

Those walls shrunk her down to a mouse

And so she would walk, and walk even more

Till she reached the towering  lumber

Then her heart slowed its beating, her mind’s thoughts went fleeting

It’s like she had woke from a slumber

She could finally breathe the air that she needed

At once, Annie felt she was free

No longer trapped in by the four walls of sorrow

Just rested in thought by a tree

Although Annie knew the moment was transient

She’d soon must return to her house

Time’s ticks were still ticking, it’d be her own licking

If she didn’t revert to a mouse

So she started to make her way back to the house

Dreading to reach her own doorstep

She took her sweet time and walked zig-zag lines

And took big deep breaths just for prep

Annie walked up the stairs to the house she once knew

And suddenly felt she had shrunk

She knew it would happen, but still kept her breath

Because soon she’d return to that trunk 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

ME

By Elivjo Likaj

I certainly know who I am.

I am the voice of the unheard,

The one whose stories will remain told,

But not one storyteller will tell about him.

I certainly know who I am..

I am the blood rushing through the veins,

Like the Illyrian rivers flowing in between mountains,

Ready to inject their spirit in the lakes.

But I also am the art,

The creation of a mortal through a story,

Through the oxytocin inherited from generations,

Trying to survive.

I might know who I am..

I am the doubt experienced through emotions,

Struggling to live happy,

Just to fit in my family’s expectations.

Yes, I know who I am.

I am the fondness and the loathe,

The sunshine and moonlight,

The what art is to an artist,

And what life is to a human.

I am the happiness I bring,

The laughter I put on people’s faces.

But also the tears I unwittingly construct,

Being so young and unaware.

I for sure know who I am..

I feel it in me,

The light shining bright,

Bringing back what the darkness had taken.

And it’s telling me.

I am,

me. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sick, Yet Again

By Emma Carneal

Today I feel sick.
I go for a walk
I walk until I’m sick of it.Again, I feel sick.
I decide to write a story
I write until I’m sick of it.

I wake up feeling sick.
I eat my favourite food
I eat until I’m sick of it.

I couldn’t sleep – I felt sick.
I lay there doing nothing.
I lay there until I’m sick of it.

Still, I feel sick.
I cry about it
I cry until I’m sick of it.

If I’m sick, either way
I might as well live
Like how I want to regardless
Live until I’m sick of it.