--Larissa Gula, Grade 12

I once picked up a violin
With a flimsy, cracking bow,
And I softly coaxed a tune, until
I recognized the whistle being thrown out.

It sounded like my old machine companions
With creaking pistons, and gears,
And proud smokestacks marking the trail taken
Until the message was lost in the clouds.

It sounded like the night
When I rode along to the next station
Watching fields of barley
And snail-ridden marshes
Flash by.

And the midnight train, with no destination,
Carried me on, on, on
And away from the demands
And requirements.
My only companion was peace.

And we bumped along, the motions
Soothing cracked fingers, and beyond them
Into a weary nack, nudging,
Opening constricted capillaries--

Until the whistle suddenly screamed
And pierced the quartet circle
And my eyes snapped open
With the dream echoing,

Echoing...

      Echoing...

Leaving me
Nowhere appreciated.

This is the fifth runner-up in READ magazine's 2008 Ann Arlys Bowler Poetry Contest. Check back every day through May 1 to see 14 fabulous student poems. Did you enter? One of them could be yours!

--Rory C. Dibley, Grade 11

It's the way your eyes twinkle
The way your teeth gleam
The way your cheeks dimple
When you smile at me

Or it might be how you kiss me
Is what makes me feel so right
Or it might be how you hug me
Holding me close and tight

But I know it's the way you love me
Is what makes my worries seem gone
It's when I see your smiling face
Makes my heart sing a song

This is the fourth runner-up in READ magazine's 2008 Ann Arlys Bowler Poetry Contest. Check back every day through May 1 to see 14 fabulous student poems. Did you enter? One of them could be yours!

--Shawn Wu, Grade 7

Through the lofty oaks and into a nest,
a small sliver of glistening light explodes.
Popping up instantaneously, an alert head looks around.
The silent forest stays still,
refusing to awaken.
Suddenly the blue jay's scream cuts through the forest--
she waits.
The uniquely audible echo reverberates back,
back to the lonely jay.
Once--Twice
As soon as it comes back again,
another cry is heard,
it is that of a different blue jay.
A robin joins in.
Next, a curious moole surfaces,
its head covered in dirt.
The day has begun.

This is the third runner-up in READ magazine's 2008 Ann Arlys Bowler Poetry Contest. Check back every day through May 1 to see 14 fabulous student poems. Did you enter? One of them could be yours!

-Zoe Lee-Chiong, Grade 6

A bridge of colors hangs motionless in the sky.
Rays of color play across the sidewalk,
still wet from the storm that just passed.

I long to reach the end of it,
but as I walk toward it,
it only seems to run away,
laughing meanly.
I run,
but it just skips farther from my reach.

It slowly fades away,
I sit by the window,
waiting for another one.

This is the second runner-up in READ magazine's 2008 Ann Arlys Bowler Poetry Contest. Check back every day through May 1 to see 14 fabulous student poems. Did you enter? One of them could be yours!

-Hannah Colbert, Grade 12

The sky at dusk is like my father doing Tai Chi in a big room;
early in the morning, he's moving through the porcelain stillness,
after the sun sets, the clouds are waltzing towards night.
Both are all soft moves and graceful circles,
the slow gestures of strength across the empty room,
the slow paths treading on the wind, across the sky.
There is no curtain to go up.
If there are any viewers, it is accident only.
The man, the sky, they perform for no one;
it is their very nature to be purple and common gold,
to be patient, practicing,
the man moves even as the clouds do,
the clouds move even more like the man.
When they finish, no applause.
It is only the end.
The man and the clouds go their separate ways.
My father starts to make breakfast.
The clouds fade over the horizon.

This is the first runner-up in READ magazine's 2008 Ann Arlys Bowler Poetry Contest. Check back every day through May 1 to see 14 fabulous student poems. Did you enter? One of them could be yours!