by Laurie Christolear, thrid place winner of the Poetry Cafe third block

In a game of duck, duck, goose,
do you sit around waiting,
or get up and run?
Do you wait to get noticed,
or do you already stand out?
Are you bland and dull,
or colorful and bold?
I am untranslatable,
for I am a goose.
But you are translatable
because you are what they say you are.
I dance when you are still.
I skip when you walk.
I speak when you are silent.
And I find myself,
while you conform to your society.
Where you are just another duck,
I am the great, graceful goose.

by Dani Beach, winner of the Poetry Cafe 3rd block

The marbles I so carefully placed in a rowhave scattered.
They fall to the floor, then split to pieces.
A shard rips through my bare foot
Opening a wound from a time
When color drained from leaves.
I looked to the leaves full of hope,
Believing they would cling to the branch longer,
Until the last one fell.
I cursed the pallid sky
And resisted the frigid air,
But a wind swept me from my bed
And tossed me to a place I'd been before.
A place of fear
A place of rejection
But a wind swept me from my bed
And tossed me to a place I'd been before.
A place I once called home.
Now the fields are green once again;
The forests teeming with life.
Still, a wind takes me to that place of desolation
Now and again,
And I wait until the tide pulls me in, drowns me,
And I'm spit back onto dry land.
My spirit is chaffed and worn from repetition.
How many times must I die to
Convince myself to accept life?