Surprise Email

On the 31st of July I got a surprise email: "Congratulations! It is my pleasure to inform you that you have been awarded a First Place Gold Medal Prize for World Poetry Movement’s Best Poets and Poems of 2011 International Open Amateur Poetry Contest!" The award name is so long, I think they should have shortened it down to Best New Poet of 2011.

Here's the prize-winning poem:

Yesterday's Rose

dedicated to Hazel, Margaret, Betty and Doris

18 January 2012

While passing into my yard

By the white picket gate

I noticed the rose on guard

Had entered a wilted state.

When a faded petal goes

That's yesterday's rose.

Still wanting to belong,

Joining where she can,

Singing her own song

While hoping for a man.

Wearing old-fashioned clothes,

That's yesterday's rose.

She can still kick up her heals

And enjoys dining and dancing.

She know how it all feels

And what's life enhancing.

One of today's widows

Is yesterday's rose.

Looking for a good time

When she can whim it,

Spending her own dime

Within society's limit.

Not youth but wisdom shows

That's yesterday's rose.