Montye Rivera 

Riverbank, California USA 

Montye Rivera, born in 1933, has been a Distinguished Member of the International Society of Poets since 1997. She received one of the Third Place Awards in the North American open poetry competition in 1998. Montye has been published in several anthologies from the National Library of Poetry, and has received three Editor's Choice Awards, one under the name of Tigra Rivera in 1996. Montye feels "poetry is the shadow of the soul traced onto paper."

Lost Youth

They say I wait alone for one so long ago,
But the boy across the street is no more.
The girl he loved, too, ceased to be.
They are buried there in borken heart
Beneath the calloused scars
Engraved: Ignorance and injustice.
Though bullets missed the boy
Helplessly swinging on a rope,
They killed without a warning.
His ghost walks in prison blue
A body devoid of manhood.
The girl cast from society
Wears well the stain of hurt
That none see 'neath their lies
A love most pure and holy
Buried deep in memory.
Tears mourn the loss of youth
And the boy no longer a man.
Happy in prison he was not
This one whom I had hoped to love
But gayer and gayer about his time
The facts seemed quite apparent
Until in tears, I sobbed a cry
That echoed in my heart
"Go stop the Wedding March
And play the funeral song
For a soul no longer mine
I'll mourn this loss no more.
I'll find another one to hold
And love as I had loved you!"