IBPC Winning Poems, 2013, Congratulations Poets! Options

[Cleo_Serapis]

Winning Poems for January 2013
Judged by Deborah Bogen


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First Place:


Down the Street
by Fred Longworth, of The Waters Poetry Workshop


The kite slings upward into the wind,
and for a moment the two boys shout
like pole vaulters clearing a higher bar.
Then it dives hard toward the grass,
and the boys look her way because they want
to holler things she would scold them
for saying. And faintly out of somewhere
only she can go, she hears two pairs of shoes
crunching caramel-colored sycamore leaves
along a riparian trail. One runner chases
the other, and she can feel the hammers
of their legs against the anvils of the path,
and taste their salty newborn sweat.
She marshals her mind back to the yard
and to the plastic laundry basket
on the table by the dryer, with its molting
cotton towels and wrinkled garments
that she's been folding and unfolding,
and folding and unfolding again,
so that the boys won't think she's watching.
And in a part of town she never goes to,
the father of the boys retreats
to a barstool farthest from the jukebox
with its chance encounters, and closest
to a nook of shadows. He licks the salt
from the rim of a cocktail glass,
and wonders if he has the gumption
to go home, or resign himself
to sleeping on the sofa at the office.
As he taps his fingers on his mobile phone,
miles away a second phone is waiting—.
Maybe it will join the first in voice,
or share with it the void of silence.
The liquidambar trees are dancing,
and the boys are running with their string.
The wind is picking up, and the kite
will either lift off, or it won't.


"Down the Street" brings to mind a Hopper painting with its dark vision of American family life, or perhaps lack-of-family life. Reading the three scenes [the boy’s kite run, the mother’s clothes folding and the father’s drinking] I was struck by the feeling that although nothing is working quite right in the relationships portrayed, there remains a connected dis-connectedness among the players. The closing lines are perfect – a truism that you cannot argue with, but one that gives no comfort. --Deborah Bogen


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Second Place:


for what is given
by Dale McLain, of Wild Poetry Forum


I saw the fallen stars in the orchard yesterday,
well not an orchard but a stand of pear trees
bent and knobby as that jazzman from Metairie.
I walked there to give my thanks up to the wind,
but looked down and saw them there, stars strewn
like charred jacks, thorned and dead amid the pears.

I wore love like a treasured broach, my children
the sapphires and the pearls, worn close to my throat.
Then I saw your eyes, no, I mean the sky, but blue
and impossible. In Texas winter is a drifter that comes
to sleep in the barn. He leaves things behind, a crease
in the hay, a sprinkle of ash, stars burnt like bones.

I remembered my blessings, these boots, this ridge
where someone thought to plant some pears.
I thought of all the days gone past, a tree in bloom,
a song, a cry. There are stars hiding in the bright sky,
glittering stones set fast in gold. I lack for nothing
save a voice clear and true enough for this quiet joy.


"for what is given" is either prayer or odd explanation, perhaps both. The voice of the speaker is compelling and rich (“charred jacks, thorned and dead amid the pears”) even while it is conversational, interrupting itself to tell us what it meant to say. How to resist a poem that says “Then I saw your eyes, no, I mean the sky, but blue and impossible.” --Deborah Bogen


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Third Place:


An A-Z of fruit: A for Apricots
by Marilyn Francis, of The Write Idea


It was Monday and the grandmother was buying apricots
from the stall in Church Street market. She squeezed the fruits
between her thumb and first finger, testing for ripeness,
feeling the whiskery skins brush the flesh of her hand.
She chose three fruits to be wrapped.

Later, the child opened the wrapping,
unveiled the unfamiliar fruit,
and refused to eat.

She smoothed out the paper,
saw a map traced in brown ink,
fingered its contours and pathways,
but couldn’t figure a way through the
wastes of marshland, and the land where
there be dragons.

The grandmother ran a blade around the fruit,
tore the halves apart.
The child still refused to eat.

She took the three discarded stones
wrapped them in the crumpled map
buried them in a secret place.



"An A-Z of fruit: A for Apricots" creates a small but marvelous world, at once storybook like and strange. There is a clear sense of ritual and an ambiguous sense of identity – who are these people — gypsies or the boring neighbors in the next apartment? If the child is a girl the ambiguity is increased. Is the “she” in this poem the child, or could it be the grandmother? Finally, the poem’s sound effects are great – e.g., “whiskery skins brush the flesh.” --Deborah Bogen


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Honorable Mention:


Christmas, Connecticut, 1960
by Christopher T. George, of Desert Moon Review


I was in school in Connecticut that December of 1960,
“The Little Drummer Boy” hung on the brisk air.

I was eleven—I identified with the song about the boy who had come
to honor him and its insistent chorus, pa-rum-pa-pum-pum.

Our hero of the moment was John Kennedy, the clean-cut New Englander
who'd be our new President. A new leader and a new Pope: John XXIII
—advent candles following a long darkness.

Even now, fifty years later, I thrill to that song
thrumming in my ears—pa-rum-pa-pum-pum.

Witnesses said the noises did not sound like gunshots—
unforeseen—like hammerblows—pa-rum-pa-pum-pum.

So many bullet holes, so many nail holes—
Black crepe and muffled drums—

Pa-rum-pa-pum-pum. . . pa-rum-pa-pum-pum. . .
pa-rum-pa-pum-pum.


"Christmas, Connecticut, 1960" is a vivid photo of a time and a weirdly accurate portrayal of the way kids, perhaps all of us, re-constellate events in ways that make a particular sense given our vantage point in the world. The merger of the Drummer Boy song with the Kennedy assassination is exactly the kind of thing an eleven-year-old would do. --Deborah Bogen


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[Cleo_Serapis]

Winning Poems for August 2013
Judged by Robert Sward



First Place:


The Grail Is Both A Cauldron And A Spear
by John Wilks, of The Write Idea



Mum makes us tea: two cups on two saucers
from four separate services jingle
in her palsied grip like sleigh bells. Can’t beat
proper china for a decent brew. Mugs
aren’t ladylike. Out come garibaldis
and fig rolls, soft from the rusting Peek Freans
tin of long gone Cream Assorted. Thanks ma,
but I’m on a diet. Don’t be daft girl,
you don’t eat enough to feed a sparrow.

Our drinks are dilute milk, scalding with mere
hints of tea-bag. Auntie Ellen would be
mortified: without the leaves, the patterned
dregs to read, she could not shape our future
with her dread pronouncements. I take a pinch
of salt with each cube of sugar. How’s tricks?
mum asks. Mustn’t grumble, says I, blowing
steam like a rolling haar around the rim
of a porcelain shore. Same old, same old.

I take a noisy sip and am a child
again, yet feel no younger. Touch my tongue
against the back of my teeth and expect
to taste metal. Frown as my forehead tenses,
as if from pigtails pulled back tight. Most nights,
I dream this is still home. Dream of strange paths
that trip my questing feet. They say the Grail
is both a cauldron and a spear; chalice
of vajazzled gold and wooden vessel.

In all its forms, a woman is not pure
enough to touch, or even look upon,
the holy cup of blood.

Sod it. I dunk
a biscuit in my tea and let its sweet
sacrament melt in my mouth. The body
of Christ. Bless me father, for I have not
confessed a single one of my sins. Nor
will I ever. Bless me mother, instead.
Ah! The cup that cheers. She smacks her lips. Bliss.


Without question, the #1 spot goes to author of "The Grail Is Both a Cauldron and a Spear."

There is an authenticity here, a ring of truth that holds the reader's attention from beginning to end. I like, too, the effective, the wonderful and compelling use of dialogue, the mother's voice clearly different from the daughter's so the drama, the tension between mother and daughter, such as it is, stands as a playlet. And certainly one gets to know something about each of the two women, the mother and her cups and saucers "from four separate services." And the daughter becoming a child again in the presence of her mother ("yet feel no younger.")

"How's tricks?" Mum asks. "Mustn't grumble," says I. "Same old, same old."

Relaxed as it is, utterly offhand, there's an underlying iambic pattern to the exchange and indeed to the poem as a whole.

Prosaic seeming, yes, it's true, yet poetry enough for the moment. Even an exchange as mundane as the above can have rhythm, drama, a crystal clear "now," the predictable, the "ordinary" becoming unexpectedly memorable. "Heightened speech," it's called, and, yes, here we have one definition of poetry.

So there's a transformation taking place here, a transformation culminating in the earned breaking out of charged speech, what one hears in the poet's ringing last four lines,

"....The body / of Christ. Bless me father, for I have not / Confessed a single one of my sins. Nor / Will I ever. Bless me mother, instead. / 'Ah! The cup that cheers.' She smacks her lips. 'Bliss.'"

--Robert Sward


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Second Place:


1929
by Bernard Henrie, of The Waters


I came to New York City a young, unpolished
South African diamond; handsome as David
Prince of Wales when first meeting Wallis;
debts of a sun god in shops along 5th Avenue.

Cheated a little on Wall Street — front running
for large banks against small banks, learned
enough French to pronounce parfums sprinkled
over dancing girls and somnambulant debutantes.

Sped in taxis yellow as South American bananas
and drank in Spanish Harlem; anonymous girls
with eyes black as storms kissed me, Tanqueray
and crushed ice on rouged lips.

Half-draped blond bodies, silver bodies beside
mauve tea lamps and RCA phonographs;
Brownstones along Lexington Avenue. Tarot
card readings and séance reconnections
with the lingering dead;

played poker like a maniac, bet the Yale-Harvard
game, sat ringside at Yankee Stadium
for the Sharkey vs. Tommy Loughran fight.

My mother visited and for five days I stopped
drinking.

Became engaged to Glenda Tilton, but she dived
off the pier at Far Rockaway Beach, they found her
three days later wrapped in sour green sea weed,
show girl legs albino white and nibbled at the edge.

I smoked all night above the East River, vodka
the color of snow I imagine at Moscow’s Bolshoi.

A margin call on US steel cleaned me out. Falling
wheat prices in Kansas made certain I was poor.

A Santa Fe took Glenda’s coffin to her parents,
the train stole away like a guest leaving a party.
I was too hung-over to recall the rhyme scheme
of a villanelle.

I wore white shoes. It was that long ago.


Second place goes to the gifted author of the poem "1929," which I like for its poet-musician's voice, its details, images that are at once "real" and that ring historically true. I like, too, the sense of the speaker whose voice grabs you right from the beginning, "I came to New York City a young, unpolished / South African diamond..." I personally find it hard not to want to read on... "Cheated a little on Wall Street---front running / for large banks against small banks."

I feel I should know who Glenda Tilton is ("became engaged to Glenda Tilton, but she dived/off the pier at Far Rockaway Beach..."). Is she the lover of a famous musician? I try Googling the name, Glenda Tilton, but that doesn't help in identifying her.

It's true: The more things change, the more they stay the same. There's that and the sense the author is writing "naturally," that is, in a particular dramatic voice, which the poet sustains throughout and does so without forcing the material, without artificially striving for effects.

Because the poem concerns a young man who came to New York in 1929, well, going by the title, one would imagine the poet is writing in the voice of a famous "personality," perhaps a jazz musician.

Just a hint of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" in the speed, the conjuring up of New York City in a series of flashes ("Brownstones along Lexington Avenue. Tarot / card readings and seance reconnections / with the lingering dead..."

Love the energy of the poem, and only wish I knew more about the Glenda Tilton reference and how, dramatically, she figures into this poem beyond the facts and/or clues we are given.

--Robert Sward


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Third Place:


Flash in the Pan
by Walter Schwim, of Mosaic Musings Congrats Wally!


In wartime, lights in the night usually signify something bad is about to happen – somewhere!

Breaking the stillness; a bump in the night!
Is that the start of an Eighty-one’s flight?
Payload of chaos to no one knows where
till H.E. and shrapnel light up the air.

Bursting in splendour, bright star in the sky,
Icarus riding a thousand foot high.
Just for a minute she dazzles the eyes
then swinging in circles, gradually dies.

Lazy green fire-flies, starting out slow
floating through darkness – all in a row.
Lazy green fire-flies rapidly change
to green killer-hornets streaking up-range.

Flickers of lightning! (A storm’s overdue?)
Katyusha’s big daughter, the one-twenty-two
shrieks overhead like a flaming banshee;
the zone near her grounding you’d rather not be.

Lurking in shadow, as patient as Jobe,
mine waits a victim to press on its probe,
renting the soul with a blast out of hell;
a few have survived their story to tell.

Of battle aurora commanding the night,
nothing’s as heinous as one out of sight.
Tiny hot flash of a rifle well aimed
could modestly signal “Your life has been claimed!”

Notes:
“Eighty-one” – 81mm NATO calibre Medium mortar. The Russian version had an 82mm bore.
“Icarus” – Hand launched parachute flare, also known as “thousand foot flare”.
“Katyusha” – Russian nickname of the older 82mm artillery rocket also known as “Stalin’s Organ”.

It was superseded by the powerful 122mm projectile with a range of up to 30 km.
Other references are to; machine gun tracer fire, mines and booby-traps.


Third prize goes to author of "Flash in the Pan" with its effective use of rhyming couplets (and four-line stanzas) to describe a night-time artillery battle with mortar shells, hand-launched parachute flares (also known as "thousand-foot flare") and Katyusha, AKA "Stalin's Organ."

"Flash in the Pan" is an "action poem" that opens with a frightening exchange of fire, "a bump in the night? / Is that the start of an Eighty-one's flight? / Payload of chaos to no one knows where..."

A scene experienced from a distance before the camera, so to speak, zooms in close on a soldier, a single individual, at least as I read it, "Tiny hot flash of a rifle well-aimed / could modestly signal 'Your life has been claimed.'"

Hats of to a poet who can write about war (possibly in Afghanistan?) and doing so in rhyming iambic pentameter lines, i.e., ten-syllables to the line, two rhyming couplets to each stanza. There's a slight sing-songy quality that actually works for the poem, momentarily lulling the reader into a relative quiet, a dangerous quiet which, moments later, will be shattered by "shrieks overhead like a flaming banshee..."

Ambitious, a poem suggestive of a war veteran author, a poet with battle scars, and I like, too, the appropriate references to "Job" and "Icarus" which, in this context, feel right, that is, they seem to me "earned" and function as something more than decorative elements.

--Robert Sward


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