IBPC Winning Poems, 2008, Congratulations Poets! Options

[Cleo_Serapis]

Winning Poems for January 2008
Judge Fleda Brown
Congratulations!

First Place

The Bottle Tree
by Allen M. Weber
Desert Moon Review

I was so proud, Mama, to get that robe, to help
fashion a cross with Hale County's finest men.
They let me have two swigs of shine and load up
Papa's shotgun.

That boy was kneeling on the hard-swept floor
below a char-drawn likeness of Jesus.
In a rightful fury, his ma'am fought like three
big men; her sorrow bit like a sour bile
into the roof of my mouth.

We dragged him to their bottle tree, and Mama,
those bottles made a sucking sound and poured out
colored moonlight at our feet. We staggered about
grinning like fear

as someone shot the barking dog, cackled when another
tore down the damp unmentionables that fluttered
on a single taut line.

As the rope was drawn around a limb, too near
a hollowed gourd with purple martin eggs,
I raised my hood to throw up supper on my boots,
then helped to paint a home with kerosene
and fire.

Since then my children raised up children, who play
with brown-skinned ones; and those who'd force it otherwise
are mostly hair and bones.

But southernmost branches caught the flames that night;
their splintered wounds still bleed. The heat-shocked
glass still takes my breath, to howl for reckoning. So

the animals keep wary: deer won't rut, dogs won't
lift to pee; and until I too go on to Hell,
the martins may never come again.

A child's experience, in the child's voice, of being allowed to join in a lynching--the subject could easily turn cliched, but this poem manages to keep a hard light on the memory--the sour bile, the bottles in the tree. The scene comes vividly alive. The martin's nest, full of eggs, just above the head of the child throwing up witnessing the horror--is a brilliant focus for the poem. It's the martin's nest and the skillful control of rhythm that charms me, here. --Fleda Brown



Second Place

Goose Step
by Lois P. Jones
Pen Shells

The Goose-Step
. . . is one of the most horrible sights in the world,
far more terrifying than a dive-bomber. --George Orwell

He loves to goose-step in her parking lot,
fluorescent light casting the stage
for Dachau. He grins in his brown
skinned suit, marvels at the way the Germans
treat him like a countryman. Loves the coarse
consonants of their commands, the wild sex
with the German girl he'd had on the road to Spain.

He wanders through Jewish graveyards to feel
the faded dates of the tombs. A pastime,
in the way that stepping is his pleasure
in the darkness. He loves the swastika,
tells her about its ancient origins, the dotted quadrants
of the Hindus, the Neolithic symbols 10,000 years
before Christ. "A tradition" that dates to the 17th century,
the Prussian army stepping on the faces of the enemy.

She finds him aesthetic, like the tall leather
boots of the Reichswehr. Tries to think
about his love of flamenco, the dark hollows
of his song unbedding a command. She knows
to pass under him is the terror
she needs. He knows to pass over her

like another graveyard. She prays the neighbors
are not looking. Begs him to stop but he smirks,
lifts his legs higher and higher. A sign of unity
like the men who stepped around Lenin's tomb.
It says that man can withstand all orders
for love, no matter how painful, how ludicrous.

A tightly controlled, dense poem that in its language evokes the goose-step itself. I like the way this poem moves from the image of marching (under the fluorescent light, scarier still!) to all the ramifications of the love affair, from flamenco dancing, to wild sex, to the study of gravestones--all at the emotional pitch that the word Nazi implies. "She finds him aesthetic" says everything we need to know about their relationship, and about what can drive people into inhuman behavior. --Felda Brown



Third Place

The Cardiologist Has a Word with Us
by Yolanda Calderon-Horn
The Town

Cold fingers prowl my spine
even though no one I know is
touching me: nothing doctors
can do. Not a thing. I brush

fingers on one sister's elbow,
greet my son's shoulder with mine.
Another sister clings to mami's hand.
My husband embraces me, lets go;

embraces, lets go. I call the rest
of my siblings in Chicago. I just
say it. I leave the hospital knowing
little about what comes next and too

much of what came before. Days after,
I'm a Radio Flyer covered in snow.
The body and mind lug its brood.
When I walk by young gals at the office,

endlessly pigging up their darling lives,
or the elderly neighbor shifting dust
to the street, I want to grab normalcy
by the collar, ask: why did you dump us?

I think of mami who has the right
or should raise her voice to suit,
and wonder if the phantom of the opera
will have untrained notes trapped

in my stomach. I go to bed trying
to sort fear from anger, resignation
from gratefulness, faith from hope.
I awaken tangled with pipes of the smoke.

I want to wish papi a feliz ano nuevo
the moment I walk through his door-
but the unpredictability of his failing
heart gobbles happy out of terms.

I stand by the fireplace hoping
the ice-storm will melt. Minutes later,
the hearth inhales moisture out of words:
my tongue is heavy like cooled clay.

I like the way this poem slips up on the sorrow, embedding it in the details before we understand its source. The Radio Flyer, the neighbor shifting dust/ to the street, the coworkers "pigging up their darling lives"--the images skillfully keep us one step away from the actual event, the one that matters. The poem stands in its length and its quatrains as testament to Emily Dickinson's poem that begins, "After great pain, a formal feeling comes." I am particularly fond of "The Cardiologist..."s last two lines, the way the poem ends with "cooled clay." --Felda Brown



Honorable Mentions

Come Back to the Raft Ag'in, Huck Honey!
by Guy Kettelhack
Desert Moon Review

Let it go? Vapid palliation! --
which at best can soothe one
into thinking there's a truth quite
simply to be had, if only we'd get
calm enough. Stuff it: here is
what I know today. I've got a cold
I'm almost happy won't too quickly
go away: I've just ingested
chicken broth with matzoh balls --
Balducci's tasty anti-flu soup (lower
east side wannabe) – and I've been
on a spree of fantasizing lightly:
watching Turner Classic Movies
circa 1933: and it's as if a Cupid
had alighted on my knee, to entertain
me with this possibility: that
someone full of glow whom I have
just begun to know might turn
into a Huck, or Jim -- I do so very
much like him. It's quite a mix, this
pile of pick-up sticks that one
calls one's perceptions: full of
chicken soup deceptions: but
nothing's here for seeing that we
haven't dreamed up into being: so
allow me Jim, or Huck, and I will
be the other shmuck, and it will
half be daring, half be luck,
if we, out on our raft, get into --
something -- ineluctable.


Red Cap
by Sarah J. Sloat
Wild Poetry Forum

Tarry, stray,
and you fall into his lap:

a pillory and bellylaugh --
for that is the plunge of strumpets.

Down the hatch lie rooms
strewn with wool, stockings

and children's shoes,
lined with moss and stumpage.

No surprise to hear
the village hiss, complicitous.

Gossips consider it
no mystery how girls

go down, kindling appetite,
when the wolf asks what you have

under your apron, little
mistress, and you reply --

wine and tarts, old beast,
a ruse, a rosebud.

[Cleo_Serapis]

Winning Poems for November 2008
Judges Hélène Cardona and John Fitzgerald
Congratulations!

First Place

Russian Crucifixes
by Emily Violet Swithins
The Writer's Block


Mama kept the Russian crucifixes
in the same drawer as her panties.
It gave her pleasure to think of the rough wood
rubbing up against silk.

She'd bury swan eggs to make flowers
more beautiful, and broken glass
to protect the garden from thieving foxes.
Dirt was magic; only city people called it filth.

She beat me with a cedar switch;
afterwards my wounds smelled holy.
When the black dust storms descended,
we hid in the underground shelter,

while papa read from the Old Testament.
I blamed myself for sneaking a peek at the crucifixes
and trying on mama's underwear, for kissing
the Jewish boy with my wicked tongue,

and hiding from papa at the bottom of the well.
The next morning we walked through the ruins,
and papa found the crucifixes, still neatly wrapped in silk.
He beat mama with his calloused fists.

Afterwards she filled the house with new
crucifixes, the cheap pine ones you buy in the dollar store.
The old ones she buried with the corpses of sunflowers.
I like to think of them that way, tangled in golden hair,
little priests in the arms of harlots.


Strong imagery and command of language, with a great rhythm and flow, make this piece stand out. It's full of contrast and surprises, and poetic lines, with a very strong end. --Hélène Cardona and John Fitzgerald



Second Place

My Father's Family Tree
by Anna Yin
Pen Shells


It all started from an ink spot,
my father took it as a sprouting bud.
Sucking on his smoking pipe,
he drew his long narrative
on a piece of paper.
I can sense his smile,
as leaves spread their dense fragrance:
always his favorite,
now highlighted by a brush -
son: a high-ranking officer,
daughter: a respectable scholar,
(my father decorated each with details
like my mother's Christmas tree)
then me, the would-be poet.
My father has never known poets,
and, to him, "would-be" worse than the rough bark.
(I can feel his pause)
then, a tinted soft orb beside me:
"engineer abroad" perfectly mirrored.
My father ensured his final touch
to free me from starving.
I roll up this glowing paper,
and place its warmth on my chest -
Someday at harvest,
out from the chrysalis of my heart,
I shall start a new scroll.


This poem also tells a great story, unique, yet universal. The piece is sure-handed, and captivates the reader from beginning to end. Both this poem and the first have a strong beginning and a strong end. --Hélène Cardona and John Fitzgerald



Third Place
only waitress at the truck stop who never uses the cash register
by Justin Hyde
Salty Dreams


pamela
is half indian,
grey-black hair
in a double braid
down her back.

every time
she serves me
another waitress
rings the ticket.

i figured
she was slow
or bad with numbers,
maybe had a
theft charge
in her past.

but yesterday
on my way out
she was sitting
on the
hood of her car
smoking a
cigarette.

come here a sec
tell me
what this says,
she motioned over
and handed me
a white piece of paper
creased in thirds.

told me
she found it
taped to her
apartment door
that morning.

i told her
it was a note
from her landlord
saying she had
five business days
to get rid of
her dog.

she stood up
and snuffed out
the cigarette
with her heel.

bear's been
with me
since idaho,
she said
and walked back in
leaving the note
in my hand.


This poem has a nice flow and interesting narrative. It's concise and compelling, and keeps the reader surprised until the end. The waitress is very well captured, almost cinematic. --Hélène Cardona and John Fitzgerald



Honorable Mention


An Endangered Species
by Melissa Resch
About Poetry Forum

Across the flats in Provincetown, Cape Cod
walking at sunrise in autumn
breathing in coolness of morning     low tide
like a bathtub draining empty
bubbles and crabs slinking
airborne gulls crying      loud and terse

This promising hour before coffee
prospectors laden with rakes and buckets
proceed over rocks and beach
ready to stake claim     a bit of sandbar as their own

Clammers are an endangered species
exteriors of calcified armor
too soft in the middle     just like
the clams they cherish and gather

Gashing at sand with tines of hard metal
eager for each clank of promise
fooled by broken shells     robbed of their innards
by one who came before

Buckets are filled inch by inch
heavy and ripe, lifted and lugged     the retreat begins
Briny ripples trickle in, cover and flood
this stretch of toiled, torn sand
chasing the diggers back to town     this wedge of land we call home
to study and share and shuck
bivalve bounty from an ocean garden