Unleash Your Voice:
Enter the Legacy Online Poetry Competition 2025
Read Editorial Guidelines here.
2025 Competition winners
1st Prize Winner
Midnight Chronicle
By Beverly Claudel David
Thoughts, memories, half-dreams,
laughter, tears, the occasional scream.
She will not shut down; my head splits,
Jekyll, Hyde, a fool tap-dancing on the ribs of night.
A fork appears, its choices blink in morse,
I overthink until the room contains only eyes.
I dare not visit my heart at this ungodly hour,
pages turn some light, some dark, some sour.
Midnight’s menu, a chronicle or cold pizza with Coke,
both burn the same if you prod the smoke.
Shades of ending tuck the light away,
curiosity trips and keeps its prey.
Am I the only one awake tonight,
or do sleepless mortals hide in plain sight?
So, I wonder, and I wonder, too many roads,
this life here, or the one that glows.
Mr. Sandman, pass a favour through the seam,
no supplication — only this small, honest plea.
Runner-up
The Body Will Not Rest
(Personal Sleeplessness)
By Michael Gavin Koopman
My body will not rest tonight.
Each breath scales the walls of silence,
the ceiling listens to confessions
I bury in the dark.
The pillow is a river of prayers,
soaked with what my tongue cannot release.
I count not sheep,
but regrets that kick at my ribs,
apologies unsent,
dreams delayed, lessons left unfinished in crowded classrooms.
The clock accuses me with its sermon of ticks,
preaching wasted hours.
Yet even here, unrest bends toward mercy.
From the marrow of night,
a whisper rises:
Be still,
even sleeplessness can be holy ground