the Drug Free Youth Poetry Contest:Winning Pieces. Special recognition- Ghouls from the gods

Like in the old days when Abel had worked and worried Cain,
Abel warmed his heart to ward off cold
From Kate with the face and Betty with the gait’s freezing stares,
A sniff now from Mazi’s pouch and a single jab
From his special pin
Was all it took to stand tall then.
With a voice deep and his body fit
He tickled all babes with his glowing gaze,
A real man he was and more defined,
Even if on pills himself refined.

Days declined all offers to stay,
Months floated past on time’s vessel;
Abel’s offerings had blessings yielded,
Only that of unrest now they were,
He spoon-fed his heart and made it brave,
Sharpening his senses so that they strayed
into marijuana fields and the world of crime,
It cost just a dose.
An offering it is he said,
A jab to Athena and a pinch to Ares,
For his gift of courage and her basin of wisdom.
That was all that mattered.

At least until when they came,
The keepers of hell in morbid dreams
And the angels of law in conscious times,
He saw sights they wouldn’t see; those sorry mortals,
His offerings now sufficed for one or two,
In the count of hours,
His pastures died and less he could give,
So in a moment of truth and a stint with cuffs,
His own tongue he gladly chewed,
Hoping, perhaps, the shadows would leave
And a mortal could live.
Now upon a leafy stone,
Were scrawly carvings made
In the likeness of an epitaph:
“Here lies a troubled soul
haunted by himself and the Furies of hell ”

©Akorede