MARLEE ONGARELLO took first place in the 2024 Wangaratta Young Writers Award year 10/11/12 poetry or song lyrics category with this piece.

The competition was jointly run by the Rotary Club of Wangaratta, and the Rotary Club of Appin Park Wangaratta.

oooo

What more mystical reveries will be endowed,

As the stars prowl in the darkened heap.

Birdsong falls hush as the mist of dusk comes forth proud,

A silver moon begins to crest beyond the deep.

A beauty deep and profound,

In the land of the dreaming will she find her peace,

So let the music lull her asleep and sound.

Reveries, enchanting like a siren’s song, tease a mind without surcease.

In the deepest reaches of her soul lay worlds of wonder;

The faerie that dance about so enthralling in the great wild,

And adventures that await her, like pirates that plunder.

Of Greek legends that entice her, in her mind they compile.

Worlds that capture the complexion of her thoughts and views;

Mythology, beasts and the divine were her muse.

But Morpheus’ Land of Dreams can be sinister like,

For nightmares, cunning and deceitful, prowl and bloom.

They feed on the mind, and in the darkness they await to strike.

Mystical reveries manifest into something wicked and entomb,

an innocent mind into the throes of spiralling madness and consume.

Despite the inevitable, a mind is tugged from the heaviness of sleep,

And so suddenly is left in dismay.

For these musings are forever trapped within, looming deep.

Left with reality, void of mystical wonders it is, and longing to stay.

If but only for a little while, lost within its charms of adventure and promises sweet.

For delving into those worlds each night… she longs for that rhythmic beat.