Judge David Kirby
First Place:
A Poem That Thinks It Has Joined a Circus
by Liz Gallagher
Inside the Writer's Studio
A handkerchief is not an emotional hold-all.
A cup of tea does not eradicate all-smothering sensations.
A hands-on approach is not the same as a hand-on-a-shoulder
willing a chin to lift and an upper lip to stiffen.
A forehead resting on fingers does not imply that the grains
of sand in an hourglass have filtered through.
A set of eyes staring into space is not an indictment that the sun
came crashing down in the middle of the night.
A sigh that causes trembling and wobbly knees should be
henceforth and without warning trapped in a bell jar and retrained
to come out tinkling ivories with every gasp.
A poem trying to turn a sad feeling on its head does not constitute
a real poem, it is a can-can poem dancing on a pin-head
and walking a tight-rope with arms pressed tightly by its sides.
Judges Comments:
While some critics will tell you that movies about movies or plays about plays are self-involved and decadent, sometimes I feel as though poems about poems are the only ones worth writing. Why? Because, at the moment of "getting it," and this applies to the moment of reading the poem as well as writing it, there is no more electric charge than that which comes with seeing a poem strut its stuff. Of course, part of the poem's and the poet's and the reader's achievement is that none of these three essential elements of the artistic experience knows exactly how that experience works. Just as the tightrope walker has to wobble on the wire, so the poem has to shake and tremble in order to startle and amaze as much as this one does. --David Kirby
Second Place:
There Once Was a Daughter Who Lived in His Shoe
by Laurel K. Dodge
The Writer's Block
In the unmade bed, she had no legs.
The fruit that her mouth coveted
was bruised, the milk in the dark
refrigerator, watery and blue,
the bowl in the barren cupboard, cracked
and empty. Her legs were watery
and blue, her mouth unmade and bruised.
She was dark and cracked and empty.
She was covetous and blue.
She was barren. She had no fruit.
She was a cupboard, a bowl,
a refrigerator that could not be filled.
She was a bed no body slept in.
The leash waited, coiled in the dim hall.
The dog was dead, the birches, bark peeling,
bent; the hill she once scaled, slippery.
She was the dimness, the coil, the wait.
She was the peeling and the impossible
ascent. The dog was dad; she had no legs.
The dad was dead. She was unmade.
Judges Comments:
Is there anyone breathing who does not love fairy tales? The poet Miller Williams says that you ought to be able to explain any poem to a six year-old, and fairy tales do that for you. There's the surface story for the child in us all, but for you adult readers out there, there are elements reminding you that life is not all beautiful princesses and knights in shining armor. There are depths in this poem, disturbing ones: we look closely, we turn away for fear of seeing too much, and then, because of the poet's power to mesmerize, we find that we can't help looking again. --David Kirby
Third Place:
Escorting a Child Offender to a Wake
by Derek Spanfelner
The Critical Poet
Her body is crumpled plastic laid flat,
complexion waxy. Crow's feet mark
the tendencies of her nature. Her grandson,
my ward, tells me of milk and cookies,
the simple tenets she upheld, unquestioned kindnesses.
He wrote a poem about it Mom will read in eulogy.
We meet the rest outside, who greet each other
(hard-shelled and sentimental alike)
in the camaraderie of grief. This child,
who has shown younger cousins who is boss
by stripping their underwear and ignoring their pleas,
is a puffy-eyed prize in the open arms of his mother.
"My oldest (of eight)," she beams to obscure relatives.
The uncle auctions salvaged cars. Knuckles having
earned their gold, he asks questions as one acquainted
with the ease of plain answers. He offers money because
"he's a good kid at heart, always the first to help out."
I can't tell him how the boy put his hands around
their necks and threatened to kill them if they told.
Instead, I note more auspicious behavior, for the man
expects to run the value of therapy
through his calloused fingers and know
the knot will hold. I cannot tell him
that no boy is a convertible. That if a dent
could be smoothed, another is bound to surface;
that where I work, no one is ever fixed.
Judges Comments:
I'll add this poem to my list as I complete my stint as judge by saying that it, like so many others, could have easily been my first choice. This is a poem that I don't understand, though I offer my lack of comprehension as a supreme compliment. What I want to say is that this poem, like a lot of the many I have read during my time as judge, has what I call a meaningful ambiguity to it, a scary, hypnotic power which lets me know instantly that I'll be reading it again and again and getting more out of it each time. A thriller only works if the audience is slightly behind the detective's perceptions; if you know who done it from the beginning or if you never find out, you'll be disappointed, but if you're poised to shout "Aha!" a few seconds after the mystery's revealed, well, that's art, folks. I'm confident that that's what this poem is doing and will continue to do for me. That's how poetry works. --David Kirby
Honorable Mentions:
Beans (Curgina)
by Denise Ward
Lit With Kick!
September came like winter's
ailing child but
left us
viewing Valparaiso's pride. Your face was
always saddest when you smiled. You smiled as every
doctored moment lied. You lie with
orphans' parents, long
reviled.
As close as coppers, yellow beans still
line Mapocho's banks. It
leads them to the sea;
entwined on rocks and saplings, each
new vine recalls that
dawn in 1973 when
every choking, bastard weed grew wild.
Solitude
by Cherryl E. Garner
South Carolina Writer's Workshop
There is small art in solitude.
It shakes sometimes like random shock,
as though one spot explains the arc
or one fine point defines the line.
There is no talk when none's received,
when simple converse meets no mark,
as though the circle rolls the ball,
as though the line supports the box.
There is no black like night assigned
to pounding chest and clenched, cold heart,
as though the sphere explains the sky,
as though void space can break the fall,
when locking shut in one timeframe,
some voodoo shimmies out one name.
Beach
by Millard R. Howington
South Carolina Writer's Workshop
I liked to jog to
the pier my one day off and have
breakfast, gazing at an ocean
through salt stained windows.
There was a bar nearby, mainly
deserted in the off season and
I'd stop in, enjoy a brewski, flirt
a little with the waitress there;
she loved to draw my attention
to the rare big busted patron and
ask me if I knew how they got
that way. On the slow walk back
to my summer rate motel, I skirted
water's edge and wondered just
how long that little sandpiper
with the one leg was going to last.
Judge Pascale Petit
First Place
Wolf Dreams
by Laurie Bryo
Desert Moon Review
I wasn't sure what he wanted of me; the ice
in winter birches had made the forest slouch
into spring. All that winter I peeled
and sucked papery bark for the sweet taste.
I recognized him from his red tongue,
the furtive runs when I entered his dream
and we crawled along the forest floor, repenting
the dark. I had nothing to bargain with,
no deal to make him human. The night
was filled with briars and salt. In the summer
the air became thick with honeysuckle, slick
with mating. Beetles droned in messy beds
of clover. We slunk along, weeds stroking
my belly. I hadn't yet decided which life
was better. Grass combed the plume of my tail.
The nights were crystal sharp. I waggled
my slit high, what was left of my breasts pushed
into a pile of decaying leaves. Who cared
how many and how often, I was not entirely his.
Eyes of owls glittered in the sleep of trees, tree frogs
sang in a green-robed choir. The moon clamped
its yellow tooth into my shoulder. I took the whole
night inside. What was to become of us I had
packed away my white Juliet cap and veil for just
such an occasion. I held him like a warm
peach in my palm, longed for his juice to run
down my chin. Most nights I didn't care about
the names they gave me. I held my fingers
out to him, felt the tug as my ring fell off, carried
my limbs down to the entrance of his den,
planted a birch just outside his home
as a token of my loyalty. I was free
of the chains of consequence. I gave birth
to his amber-eyed bastard who without hesitation
he devoured. When he becomes old and says
he always dreams of me, I shall make myself
a meal of him, savor his voluptuous tongue,
and suck all the bitterness from his bones.
He will not make such promises again.
JUDGE'S COMMENTS:
First Place
Wolf Dreams
by Laurie Byro
Desert Moon Review
This poem creates its own world. It made a deep impression on me from the first reading. It's utterly magical yet I am convinced of its reality, that something important is being vividly communicated. All the senses are employed to persuade me that the emotional heart is true. I can smell and taste it, hear the poem's heartbeat. It's hard to write well about sex but this accomplished, elemental fairytale has a considerable erotic charge. The surprise ending adds an extra edge to the intense love affair and mention of a white Juliet cap and veil keep us anchored in the human despite the wolf persona. The language is taut, lush and has a consistent, lulling rhythm. I love "the sleep of trees" and "The moon clamped // its yellow tooth into my shoulder. I took the whole / night inside" which draw me even further under the poem's spell. --Pascale Petit
Second Place
Brrmm
by AnnMarie Eldon
MiPo
He drove his engine into me. The fuel was humus, jasmine
juice and lapis pigment. My aorta the combustion
chamber. His piston upstroke was practised not in the
street outside because each time I made him up in a dress
and rouge with Rage Red lipstick around his nipples. He
therefore had taken it apart and put it together again and
again behind closed curtains but with due regard for oil
and grease stains. In the confined space his exhaust spin
gases were risen in the massed morning when rooks should
have been. He prises something jelly-like between thumb
and forefinger. Switches on. Leaves one open kiss to balm
my bitten bloodying auricular helix. Burns fuel-air iron.
One closed kiss to damn revolutions amongst tics who knew
vibrations when they fouled the thudderless earth. And
hackles trumpet bell-shaped valves. And camshaft a poison
promise creeping its oval protrusions. Cam rotors careless
as a strumpet's petticoats. Labia red ramsails in a
rotational sunset. Talked me up crankshaft cranky. Valve
springs snapped into the open position. All position. All
pushrod hierarchy. And intermittent male logic which paled
the toothed gear phenomena. Afterwards there would be
empty rocker arms, the oscillating parts a'fire and a too
obvious cylinder head. My ghostpenis on my timing belt his
intake legacy. The colliding masses a droolseep upon carpet
become road. The internal a sprainblue bruise. Would display
mileage despondency. Would walk away. He drove his engine
into me. It is still. Still here today.
JUDGE'S COMMENTS:
Second Place
Brrmm
by AnnMarie Eldon
MiPo
"Brrmm" reminds me of Marcel Duchamp's "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even." In this experimental prose poem a partner is encountered as an engine. The couple become a human/machine hybrid. The language used to describe this metamorphosis is so dense and baroque that the paragraph resembles an assemblage sculpture, all mechanical parts, jasmine juice and lapis pigment. This piece, with its playful agglomeration of textures, like Duchamp's "Large Glass," is both a love machine and a machine of suffering. Despite the surreal construct I believe that I'm reading about real people and real experience. It is indeed "the unexpected meeting, on a dissection table, of a sewing machine and an umbrella," the tender, brutal meeting of one human with another. --Pascale Petit
Third Place
untitled
by Steve Parker
The Critical Poet
I had this meet, see,
with Sam Beckett's ghost,
I was trying very hard
to survive,
to make something work,
trying to be well.
The river sent telegraphs,
black things that fizzed at nightfall,
that sat outside
sparking.
(They were going to kill me:
that was all pretty obvious.)
That turkey with no head
rode out across the clifftops
towards Dun Laoghaire,
but we paid him no attention.
All day we shuffled
on the Liffy bridges
looking keen,
grunting through our cans.
Nightfall we drifted
down the antique hoardings,
feeling the gut
welling in our barrels,
doing the tour -
the poets, the Provos,
Easter 1916, a gun cache
in a wardrobe...
me invisible to myself,
Sam a gaunt hawk
like some other
Max Ernst-birdhead-Loplop,
as though
to remind all people
of the violation of childhood,
make them look,
make them look away.
That tower out there
past the bay (a Joyce-dish
filled with foam)
collapsed into the sea,
and we both went running
after John stuck on the train
his face full of alarm
waving under the bridges.
I was trying to ask the right questions
very carefully and slowly,
see past it all, what it was really.
Trying to stand alone
in the dark
with my omens,
with my stuff.
No one got a light?
No one?
Fucking disaster
of a place.
JUDGE'S COMMENTS:
Third Place
untitled
by Steve Parker
The Critical Poet
The voice in "untitled" pulled me in straightaway. I empathised with the main character and his or her struggle to survive, to be well. That authentic voice is further reinforced by the questing tone of "I was trying to ask the right questions / very carefully and slowly, / see past it all, what it was really." This poem is attempting to get to the nub of what it's like to be alive in a bleak emotional landscape in Dublin, "black things that fizzed." The lean freeform stanzas add to the desolate atmosphere conjured by the sinuous language. The gritty realism subtly shifts into surrealism through images of urban disintegration. Max Ernst's Loplop even puts in an appearance as Samuel Beckett. --Pascale Petit
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Honorable Mention
Stone Soup
by Allen M. Weber
Desert Moon Review
Honorable Mention
Flint Michigan
by Stevie Jean Reed
Blueline
Honorable Mention
Elders: Vincent and Prudence
by Adam Elgar
The Writer's Block
Judge Pascale Petit
The Bird Artists
by Laurie Byro
About Poetry Forum
When my skin no longer fits, I carry a bag of bones
to the edge of the ocean. I steal the breath from a gull.
On the beach a mother bends to help a young boy
bundle up a baby cormorant. I watch as they cradle it,
hold a wing into the air and fling it eastward.
I thought you could teach me how to fly. I made you
out of sand dunes and red clay. My husband sleeps.
I conjure up you, Merwin, and you, Merlin.
Palm trees and ancient words, a black cauldron
of seawater and fire. You spread the fan of the cormorant's
wing and arrange your pigments and brushes, stroke
each feather with woodland brown or green.
I feel my skin begin to loosen. I pick away the lice,
curl back the sclerotic welt of paint.
First Place Judge's Commentary
The Bird Artists
by Laurie Byro
About Poetry Forum
"The Bird Artists" is poetry as spell or charm, as container and transformer. It begins and ends with a skin: "when my skin no longer fits" to "I feel my skin begin to loosen... curl back the sclerotic welt of paint." In between there's a body that I can't quite pin down: a bag of bones, a baby cormorant, a gull's breath, sand dunes and red clay, seawater and fire, pigments and brushes are gathered as ingredients for the "black cauldron" of the poem. Merwin is conjured to work magic for it, (which brings to my mind W.S. Merwin), and Merlin the wizard. By the last line human skin has become painted feathers. Every line is weighted with a surprising image or action. Even though the effect is mythic, there's a precise highly wrought feel to this poem. Not a word or space is wasted. Vulnerable, visceral and ethereal, it lingers in the imagination and draws me back to marvel at its compact power. --Pascale Petit
Second Place
Omen
by Dave Rowley
Inside the Writer's Studio
This morning an omen: the blue jay's stiffening
legs receive an open sky. Sad, like a blue flame
cradling a teaspoon, or the tap-tap-tapping
on a tenuous vein in a break-down motel.
Even the wallpaper peels away
from the cloying stories that stink this room
like rats who've crawled between the walls
and died. Now it's summer and their ghosts
thicken and swell in your throat. The sting of steel
is mirror-flashed and plunging, close your eyes
to hear its sinuous song. Close your humming eyes
and wait, it's close and warm, like morning singing
and the walls become blue-feather filled
quilts as your legs fall away and up into the sky.
Second Place Judge's Commentary
Omen
by Dave Rowley
Inside the Writer's Studio
Second place goes to another fine "bird" poem, also tautly constructed and packed with organic, chiming imagery. A blue jay's legs embracing the sky metamorphose into blue flames around a teaspoon, then into a room with blue-feather quilted walls. The images vibrate against each other; the language is trance-like, allowing the blue images to burgeon and transmute in semi-abstract motion. Synaesthetic phrases such as "their ghosts / thicken and swell in your throat," "close your humming eyes" and "it's close and warm, like morning singing" have a hypnotic effect, lulling the reader over the transitions and merging the triple image of blue jay/ blue flame/ quilt walls seamlessly. --Pascale Petit
Third Place
Show but Never Tell
by Brenda Levy Tate
Pen Shells
In the Guller house, terrible things
were done to all the children.
I once lived around the corner, down
a mud road where the youngest
son sometimes walked. His name
was Charlie and I knew something
had to be wrong with his brain.
Nice ponies, he'd tell me, staring
past the edge of his own boyhood.
Ay-uh, them's real nice. He'd grin
so wide I could count every one
of his tumbledown grey teeth.
He was eleven then, and growing.
In the Guller house, brothers, cousins
and uncles didn't wait for the girls
to get their periods. None of them
stayed virgins much past five or six.
Except for the cripple, who had stumps
for legs and arms. They used to park
her on the step just to get some sun,
like a plant kept too long in shadows.
Neighbors said she didn't mind, she was
a vegetable. I had no opinion on that.
In the Guller house, they ate cow-corn
stolen from a field across the highway.
The farmer hooted and slapped
his knee, because they were filching
his cattle-food and he figured it
was funny. I never saw any garden
in their scraped-raw yard. Battered
cars buried the lawn, and junk trucks
made fences. But the social services
and public health station wagons shone
in the dust. So did the small daughters.
In the Guller house, a nurse hesitated
at the threshold with her medicine kit,
while Charlie's father was breeding one
of his nieces on the kitchen floor. Hold on;
I ain't done yet! he grunted, and finished.
The nurse told everybody, but this was
the 1970s. Incest was just a family affair,
except for the babies. Every once in awhile,
they got taken away. Charlie became
a man--with two kids by his sister--
before a Guller finally screamed, loud
enough to disturb the sweet community.
She was thirteen. They tried to shut her up.
By then I'd moved to another county.
In the Guller house, two hundred years
lie black as a dirty stove. The rape-
room is gone: part of a chicken coop.
I suppose the cripple died; Charlie
and his kin should still be in prison,
although probably they're not.
The laughing farmer's dead, too. Lost
children drift in the convenient dark,
names without faces, because it's easier
for the rest of us. Good people still
drive past the ruin, shop and work
and age. Harsh January air cuts
across the South Mountain and sandblasts
an empty driveway--the same wind
that abrades me now. But I've never
been hard-blown open, a broken door,
a Guller child.
Third Place Judge's Commentary
Show but Never Tell
by Brenda Levy Tate
Pen Shells
This is more than a narrative poem telling us a shocking family tale. It's hard to write convincingly about child abuse especially from an outsider's perspective, but the narrator's tone here is just right, a tactful observer who ends by describing him or herself through images, as someone who's "never / been hard-blown open, a broken door." It's this ending that enriches the poem, so that the final draught blows back up through the whole story like the wind in Munch's The Scream. The language is low-key and evenly paced in its steady recounting of the horrors of the Guller house. Simple, stark statements such as "two hundred years / lie black as a dirty stove" and "battered /cars buried the lawn" paint a vivid picture of the place. What shocks is the calm way we're shown how commonplace the sexual abuse was, so much so that visiting nurses would stumble upon it as they went about their work. The narrator is abraded by the sandblasting wind of memory and what has been witnessed but does not over-dramatise the facts. --Pascale Petit
Caisa Thorbjornsdotter
by Jana Bouma
Wild Poetry Forum
I've known the small red farmhouse,
the dear blue curtains and the white china,
the husband behind the oxen on the rocky hillside,
the patch of oats beside the tall pines.
I've known the forest alive with skogsra and wight,
trolls and huldre-folk, the hymns in the small church.
I've known the wash day and the birthing day,
the son gone off to the city, the iron crosses,
each with its name, beside the small mounds.
I've known the long journey, sick with fever,
the crowded passage, the strange new city,
the setting out by lake and river and wagon,
arriving at this place that stretches on forever,
a land of nothing, no tomte or myling
to murmur in the night, no neighbor, no fencepost.
This land did not turn easy to the plow,
but I planted myself here among the tall grasses.
The grasses' deep roots, they welcomed me.
*skogsra, wight, trolls, huldre-folk, tomte, myling: creatures in
Scandinavian folklore
Thorbjornsdotter: daughter of Thorbjorn
Venetian Notes
by Adam Elgar
Inside the Writer's Studio
Cannaregio
It's this way in, an umbilicus through a living monument
to everything that long ago mislaid its century, and stands
now on the sufferance of time, a backdrop to the boat's
raucous trance, its grunt and shudder as it strikes the Campo
wall, our shock in finding that the tunnelled waterways
and pox-peeled facades are not illusions after all. This
is the unmoving dance of brick and stone on ether.
Santa Croce
This is the capital of claustrophobia
where liquid alleyways drown light
in pungent green, steep furtive passages
conspire along their dark cammin, and slip us
through the city's corseted heart.
One humpy bridge will take us only to the next,
our dread and fascination mounting
till the pesceria like a sudden tide
grants us the gift of openness,
the sea in boxes on an ice-slicked floor,
fish gilded, rosy, silver, veined with blue,
beside a flaunt of sucking discs in stars
and jointed creatures trying not to die.
Our hearts' tides make no sense of this.
Dorsoduro
Our eyes stream at the dazzle on the Zattere.
Here the world's light tightens to a smack,
there's no escape from blue except returning
through the narrow calli where the shadows
sulk in loyalty to winter.
This taut geometry discharges us at last
to lunch in kinder light subdued by stone.
The weary curve of Campo Santa Margherita
drinks, as we do our Friuli, the declining sun.
The Box Which is Myth
by S. Jason Fraley
Inside the Writer's Studio
For each brother, the box contains Agamemnon's skull, a collection
of precious stones, and Dad's old Playboys, respectively. All their stories: how each made love for the first time while it was in the room, how it survived as their parent's house burned. The slight indention where a thief's head landed when clubbed with a trophy. Not a mildew stain. No, a glow.
* * *
They arrive at Dad's birthday party. In the corner--the box covered with a decorative table cloth. Someone puts a red plastic cup on it. When the two oldest brothers go outside to bring in extra bags of ice, the youngest takes the box, sneaks into the laundry room. He slices it open with his pocket knife. An explosion of flannel shirts.
* * *
The box is meticulously taped. The lead detective stretches latex gloves over his hands, drops the knife into a plastic bag. Fingerprint dust floats. Handcuffed to chairs, the brothers share stories. One insists he stole the box from behind the museum when a Greek exhibit traveled through town. The other says that when it is time to retire, he will live as he has always dreamed.
Takes your breath
by Kathleen Vibbert
Pen Shells
We settle in close like apples in a round bowl,
while the moon brushes off bits of light as awkward;
you remove the white shirt with button down collar.
And in between split spheres,
the hairs on your neck become soft-wheat.
You find your way through my breasts.
Hands separate dusks from the corners
of our mouths-
some colors enter and never leave - -
the world knows how to cool and warm,
which scars never sleep and which voices say yes.
The world knows when and how to dress a peach--
and how the thistle slowly takes away your breath.
Judge Bryan Appleyard
Winterset
by Bernard Henrie
The Writer's Block
Your dwarf Tangelo
is frostbitten,
rigor brittles the pulp;
a re-planted Nagami
kumquat lumbers
in a terracotta pot.
Myrtle shrivels
beyond the porch
and the birdbath
is still iced;
Spring empty handed
and brown.
I pull on heavy gloves
and clear debris;
Later, we begin a card game,
we discuss a travel book
but break off and then stop.
Someone telephones.
The aimless evening
falls on the house
and like widow weave
folds along the chair
stopping at the lamp.
When did I cross
an invisible line
and never
find my way back?
A palsied old man
tapping the steep stair.
First Place Judge's Commentary
Winterset
by Bernard Henrie
The Writer's Block
"The first stanza is a showstopper. The first two lines signal at once that this writer feels poetry. I'm not sure about the one line short fourth stanza--though I can see why it is lopped. This poem does much with little." --Bryan Appleyard
Second Place
Mary Lincoln Communes with the Dead
by Ellen Kombiyil
BlueLine
Is that you, Willie? You sound muffled,
like you're tangled in the bedclothes.
You must come closer and whisper.
Father tells me I've already wept
too much; if he catches us he'll send me
to the asylum. But tell me,
how should I mourn you? I still glimpse you
in the sun's glint on the brass knocker.
The oak tree creaks in wind--your boots
on the porch floor, coming in
from the river, home for supper.
It's not you, only the whisper of you,
like the quietness of books. I envy
your Father the preoccupation of work.
I know you visit him. He calls them "dreams"
when you sit beside him on the train
clasp his hand in the theatre.
I've kept the flowers from your coffin
pressed in our Bible. Come here, closer
to the light, let me see once more
your sweet face. I won't ask to hold you,
I know I can't, won't ask you what it's like,
can't bear the immensity. My grief,
will it be eternal? You smile.
I know you can't stay. Look at you!
Exactly as I remember, your face
like a saint. Tomorrow I'll light dusk's
candle again, William, William.
Second Place Judge's Commentary
Mary Lincoln Communes with the Dead
by Ellen Kombiyil
BlueLine
"This a triumph of tone and rhythm that easily survives multiple readings. The poem sustains the drama of its opening question well, shifting confidently between narrative and detail. It is a touch more perfect than "Winterset," but came second only because it didn't have the same poetic originality." --Bryan Appleyard
Third Place
Bird Caller
by Daniel Barlow
The Maelstrom
By twenty-eight I'd moved to Idaho
from Auckland, got the girl, the job, the car.
My Mum came once, but said it was too far
and never made the trip again. I know
she would have loved the way the sycamore
transforms the yard and those on either side
with autumn drifts. When Luke was born I cried
to know she wouldn't be there any more.
Yet sometimes, through the kitchen window, dawn
bears rising sounds that call the winter brave.
I hear the furtive trilling of the birds
and catch the gentle timbre of her words,
her tutelage that lives beyond the grave,
reminding me to go and rake the lawn.
Third Place Judge's Commentary
Bird Caller
by Daniel Barlow
The Maelstrom
"This poet set himself a difficult task--writing a strict sonnet in a relaxed, conversational style. He pulls it off by sneaking a strong but easy rhythm into the lines. The poem doesn't fall from its own fiction into excessive directness, a common crime with naive sonnet attempts. It is, simply, very complete and lovely. --Bryan Appleyard
Blas Rivas
by Sally Arango Renata
South Carolina Writer's Workshop
Blas Rivas wanted to die on Socialist soil.
I heard him say it twice, once on a bus to Cienfuegos
and again days later as he lay dying from a blood clot
exploding in his brain.
I say nothing. It is a quiet pronouncement, an inward ken
requiring not even a delayed response.
Humidity veils the window, blurring shades of red, blue,
hues of skin with the green of sugar cane.
Workers turn to wave and smile, an interlude necesario,
the essence of custom and fecundity in Cuba
the island that rests like a smiling dragon
just beyond the chalice of Miami.
Judge Bryan Appleyard’s comments: “A really excellent piece of writing that leads you into a mysterious drama of the imagination. But, somehow, it didn’t quite do enough for me. I don’t doubt, however, that this is a poet.”
Drought
by Jan Iwaszkiewicz
Mosaic Musings CONGRATS!
I
We sink the corner posts first, as each defines a neighbour.
It is here where the bottom six inches are the most important.
It is here where the strength is muscled into the fence.
The heart of a fence lies in its foot.
I tamp until the bar sings of possession,
the bar bounces and writhes.
We snug the stays and tighten the wire,
each barbed note is tensioned into voice
the division sings a warning.
II
The fence cannot hold back the drought.
The sky aches blue and the sun eats green;
the earth coughs dust as rich as blood.
My bones hunker down beside the rock.
Eagles hang; wings wound into the wire,
heads nailed down by the sun.
Ribs rack a heaving fleece.
I watch my image fade
from the eye of a lamb.
Judge Bryan Appleyard’s comments: “Could have been a winner easily; it displays a really passionate sense of detail and sinewy effort. I think, however, this poet needs to develop a little more.”
For PMD
by Mitchell Geller
Desert Moon Review
Normally this week I'd gather together
the ingredients for your special birthday cake:
a rather grandiose Victoria Sandwich.
Two layers of orange Genoise
filled with lemon curd and frosted
with an orange buttercream,
and decorated with candied orange peel from Provence.
One year I made the lemon curd from scratch,
using, you said, every goddamn pan in the house,
and please, for Christ's sake next year buy a jar!
My gift to you would usually be something blue:
that aquamarine stickpin I designed
when you turned 47, your birthstone's
limpid beryl beauty so much like your eyes,
or that Lorenzini shirt, the shade of
a Tuscan sky, with every buttonhole
stitched in a different whimsical colour.
You adored that shirt, and wore it constantly,
the pumice of your two o'clock shadow
abrading its collar to shreds.
Some years a book -- "The King Of Instruments"
still sits on the glass coffee table;
or a recherche CD, or a Novello edition
of a Bach transcription.
Last year I was stupefied with gin
and stayed in bed the whole day,
occasionally listlessly getting up
and picking out the anthem
from the 4th Saint-Saens concerto
with one finger on the dusty Steinway grand,
with truly voluptuous masochism,
crying until the skin around my eyes was raw.
This year, as sober as the mohel at a bris,
(and quite liking the way it feels)
I will go to hear a poet read at Harvard Books,
and eat a caesar salad. I've nearly lost a stone
of what I'd gained -- for a while there some of
your things fit me, and I felt like you.
It wouldn't have surprised me,
if, shaving one day, I found that my eyes were blue,
and my nose smaller and elegantly perfect,
and that my chin had developed a deep round cleft,
sexy, but quite hard to shave.
Oh my love please be assured
that I would most certainly still need you,
and deem it an honour supreme to feed you,
had you awakened this March 22nd,
and turned 64.
Judge Bryan Appleyard’s comments: “I really wanted this to win as I love the way it kind of sneaks its way into poetry. At first you think the lines could be prose, but, on second reading, their gentle, insistent rhythm asserts itself. It was going fine until the line ‘with truly voluptuous masochism’ which is self-consciously ‘poetic’ in the way the rest of the poem is not. And then the ending simply doesn’t work.”
Masked Artwork
by Elizabeth DiBenedetto
Mosaic Musings CONGRATS!
With artist's palette, brush and hues in hand
she decorates the drabness of the day -
thin dabs of sanguine on an ashen land,
soft strokes conceal what she will not betray.
The doctors canvassed charts, discussing test
results; a darkish blot had showed when scanned,
a teardrop shape - and still she paints her best
with artist palette, brush and hues in hand.
She hides discolorations of her life
by touching up the downs, a bit of spray,
then casting shadows with a shaping knife.
She decorates the drabness of the day
to filter out the fading tints of sin
in youthful days. A woman in command,
when strength and courage were immersed within-
thin dabs of sanguine on an ashen land.
Her gallery is now a storage shed
of artwork which will never be displayed -
each dappled bloom now lives among the dead;
soft strokes conceal what she will not betray.
Judge Bryan Appleyard’s comments: “Brilliant use of a tricky form and very refined, silvery language. It doesn’t quite carry me through and there are occasional lapses – ‘A woman in command’ and ‘filter out’ feel wrong. But very fine writing.”
Judge Bryan Appleyard
Bad Weather
by Dale McLain
Wild Poetry Forum
You can grow accustomed to storms.
Every night they shake our sheetrock,
set the bricks trembling. Mortar remembers
it is only sand. Our jaunty roof begs
to be doffed. And I huddle within my frame
with dread and an awful wish that the past proves
its redundancies, that miles away the twister
will drop- not here, not now when I have just
remembered my own name.
When the windows bow like Galileo's glass
I begin to pray to deities yet unnamed,
beseech the clever stars that hide
behind the churning ceiling. I confess
that peace is not my plea. Instead I ask
for more colors and a measure of strength
to face the wind. The red oak fusses
at my window, whines and scratches to come in.
But it holds, this vine-covered house,
stands on its wide flat bottom, a prairie boat
anchored fast in hard white clay and history.
Within I slip off my shoes. Tonight is not the night
that I will walk on broken glass and wear the unmistakable
face of disbelief. The thunder's growl begins to lose
step with the lightning. In the attic rafters sigh
and creak like scrawny old men. I lay my head
on the last damp cloud where dreams of whirlwinds
and flying shingles wait. I sleep
like a town wiped off the map.
First Place
Bad Weather
by Dale McLain
Wild Poetry Forum
"A simple idea very well executed. Weather is a perennial subject for poetry. Here it is evoked almost as a conversation - both with the poet and with his house. The house 'remembers' and 'begs' while the poet is driven to introspection and prayer by the storm. Rhymically controlled and very firm in its imagery, this is a satisfying poem." --Bryan Appleyard
The Daughter of Antiochus
by Adam Elgar
Writer's Block
I am no viper, yet I feed
on mother's flesh that did me breed. (Pericles, Prince of Tyre I i 65-6)
No point dividing day
from night since both
are empty. I decline
on sofas and chaises--
longues, hollow with age
and boredom like a skin
shedding its snake.
These days I'm harmless, and my memory
crusts over like my sight. But he's still sharp,
his nose too long, his accent crude, his stink
of the sea. The only one I really wanted.
He saw me as I was, as Daddy made me,
as Daddy had been making me for years.
I heard someone name 'Tyre' the other day.
There were drums and fanfares, so I wondered,
was it him? Had he escaped my father's rage
and come in his nineties to visit me and gloat
with some ex-beauty tottering on his arm?
I must have wished it. A relief from other thoughts.
Even to the most, let's say, adoring fathers
daughters lose their glow, and since I had a sister
Daddy farmed me out once she had reached
the age he liked. Some 'farm' -- this dusty nowhere,
a decrepit king who couldn't till my bed.
Which satisfied Daddy. What was my fertility to him?
The story goes that I was burned up too
when fire bombed from the sky to punish him.
The woman sitting by his side, like him
reduced to charcoal, was my sister. Daddy
taught me flesh is foul. Correction. Showed.
Correction. All the space there might have been
in me for love, hunger, or
tenderness was filled with him.
Poisons are subtle here,
blades fine, plagues frequent.
I forget which nephew's
nephew grabbed the throne
last time the music stopped.
Second Place
The Daughter of Antiochus
by Adam Elgar
Writer's Block
"This is a dramatic monologue, a difficult form that requires restraint - otherwise the tone of voice and the character collapses. Here the tone of well preserved and we get a real sense of the woman's bitterness and disappointment. There are several wonderful effects - 'like a skin/shedding its snake' and I lie the 'ex-beauty tottering on his arm'." --Bryan Appleyard
Jackie
by Kathy Earsman
Mosaic Musings
That little fellow, Jack, can hardly wait
to walk with us to school; he'll soon be five.
Each day he waits alone, "See ya!" he says
and waves, he lifts his brows and tilts his head
in Polynesian style. He's just so sweet!
Jackie little Jackie-down-the-street.
The men are in the river side by side,
their bodies bright with sparkles as they wade
a long slow march, the ripples dance and shine,
and no-one speaks... I watch the shadows grow
until they reach like fingers that would hide
down inside the river by the pipe.
There's an awful cry, the postman stoops
and snatches, boiling up the water where
a child comes swinging out in fountain gouts
that stream in rivers down his little arms
spread out like Jesus' arms upon the cross.
Jackie, little Jackie-down-the-street.
Then suddenly the air is full of sound;
the women on the bridge let out a wail
that's crying on and on and I can see
the shape of it go spreading like a stain,
I see it beating like a wounded gull
flying up the river past the pipe.
Now Jackie's on the claypan by the bank,
his father sucks his mouth and spits a flood.
We stand and watch him press on Jackie's chest
and darkness grows around, we breathe the cold,
but Jackie doesn't breathe, he doesn't move.
Jackie little Jackie-down-the-street.
Doc Tommo's car spins arcing in a skid;
he runs and kneels, he fingers Jackie's throat
and looks into his eyes. "It's way too late,"
the Doctor says, "Give up, it's over Sid,
give up I said ! He's dead! He's bloody dead!"
Jackie little Jackie-down-the-street.
His father picks him up in his big arms
and holds him close against him wordlessly.
We watch him trudging slowly up the hill
and Jackie's mother follows heavily,
and everything is still now as I sit
down above the river on the pipe
where Jackie fell and hit his head. He sank.
But no-one said a thing. They ran away
because they got a fright. Oh how I wish
we never took him with us after school
to fish, and play the way he did today
half across the river on the pipe.
Third Place
Jackie
by Kathy Earsman
Mosaic Musings
"Normally I'm allergic to this kind of crisis/reportage poetry, but I know this is my failing. In this case, the narrative is well handled and the tension and horror build inexorably. The danger with this kind of subject matter is that it can turn into just a kind of scream. Much more effective is to contain the feeling within the structure of the poem, exactly what the poet achieves here." --Bryan Appleyard
~Honorable Mentions~
Rhythmically Inapposite
by Michael McRandall
Pen Shells
Lana rides a pony in the
cellar
unmindful of the children
who dance circles at the
door --
she wonders if the apathy
is terminal,
or merely, chronic,
but decides it doesn't matter
since the colors fade
regardless of the
song.
Neighbors stand in line to borrow
vapors
which serve to cover shadows
that have melted on the
floor --
plant roses in her window-box
and water them with undiluted
inference,
Then watch through shuttered
windows
as she finger-paints a
mourning on the
sky.
Lana makes an early trip to
vacant --
where every mother Mary
emulates their father's
whore --
and withers at the
elementary portrait that is
drowning in the rearview,
as crack-pipes play
a reverential etude to a
fractured morning
buzz.
Rapunzel at 49 Learns to Dance the Tarantella
by Laurie Byro
Desert Moon Review
Because she was awkward,
the opposite of a spun-sugar baby, a black
widow in his glittering
web, because
she never understood about Dylan
and Baez and how she stood out like the purple eye
in the delicacy of his Queen Anne's Lace
chords, he the pearl shell, the mother
of the luminous lake pearl
and because she thought his book was Tarantella,
never ever understood-
pushed up against it like a train heading
into snowy Hibbing with those Russian wolves
howling outside her window
and she breathing the blast
of coal smoke and exhaling strings
of sweet gas, the floss of cotton candy,
she rubs against his arm like a spotting
cat, noticing the dark whorls of hair, the eight-legged
slip into tyranny.
Her taut, tight controlled body
just the way he likes it, zippered inside
itself, a dance towards his white light, a six pointed
star, not cocaine white or holy but because
he was the teacher and she the pupil
and because she slips inside
his skin, minds the illumination
of his ghost preacher
in and out and in
and out and through his incarnations
and because
her skin has begun to peel, to shed off
into a pile of sawdust
he blows her onto the floor where she becomes
the grit under all the fancy soles.
56 and Sunny
by Mitchell Geller
About Poetry Forum
I concentrated far too much on death,
and somehow missed the violet and the crocus,
and sharp green shoots that sucked the sun like breath.
I concentrated far too much on death;
ignored the rose, or some such shibboleth --
let pure, prismatic joy escape my focus.
I concentrated far too much on death,
and somehow missed the violet and the crocus.
Songs from Stephen King's Knapsack III: Insomnia
by Gary Blankenship
Blue Line
Trees don't sleep, although some sit up in bed
and pretend. They might even nod off
for a cat-nap, but you never catch them
in the depths of REM sleep where dreams come from.
Some undress preferring to spend the long night
nude, nothing between them and the damp fog
but some ragged shreds of moss and lichen.
Others stay clothed as they watch the moon change
from sickle to an old man eye winking.
Come day, they yawn and nests fall from great heights.
Judge Maurya Simon
First Place
His Jacket
by Witt Wittman
SplashHall
Early mornings when the whippoorwills
have hushed their racket,
you stoop in the garden, pulling weeds,
always in your tan jacket,
checkerboarded with cigarette burns,
the pockets slick with grime
from years of nesting collected eggs,
the frayed knitted cuffs
hang like dried tassels on ready corn.
I was afraid if I washed it,
it would fall into shreds
and disappear down the drain,
to find a home with all your
lost dress socks,
(no matter; you never wore
anything but boot socks anyway).
Arms loaded with squash
and knotty tomatoes,
pockets filled with chicken eggs--
never eggplant,
you tossed that jacket on the
same ear of the same kitchen chair
for so many years that it is worn down
and shorter than the others.
I should throw the nasty thing away,
but your ruggedness still clings.
I need to wrap myself in it
like a photographer
under the black drape,
perhaps to capture you
one more spring,
stooping in your garden.
This poem enacts, with deft economy of language and emotional restraint, a morning gardening ritual that becomes an elegiac homage to someone beloved. The description of "his jacket" is tinged with humor and pathos, and it vividly provides insights into the man's character and habits. The last stanza's turn is both surprising and satisfying: the speaker wrestles with an urge to "throw the nasty thing away," but the man's "ruggedness still clings" to the jacket, causing the speaker to want to be "like a photographer," wrapped in "the black drape,/ perhaps to capture you/ one more spring"-- Brilliantly and subtly, the poet enters the void and freezes time, for a bittersweet moment, to savor again the beloved's imagined presence. --Maurya Simon
Second Place
The Man Next Door According to His Pockets
by Adam Elgar
Writer's Block
He's losing faith in us.
We feel him check and re-
check that we have his keys
and wallet, and the talismanic
letter from his daughter,
wherever she may be.
He slouches down the same
streets to the same work,
mistrust a whisper that aspires
to clamour. Which of us
is guilty of the hole
that everything slips through?
Some conjuror has swapped
his life for one where wives'
eyes redden and accuse,
obsessed sons slur and darken,
daughters abandon him
for intolerable lovers.
Our forebears knew his children
when they were little more
than half our height, those soft
fists reaching up to tug out treasures,
his reward to let his pockets
haemorrhage for those he loved.
What a delightful and unlikely dramatic persona this poem creates: its speaker is a man's trouser's pockets, and they are steady witnesses to the familial and personal trials of the "man next door" (an Everyman). The poem's first line--"He's losing faith in us"-- provides its dominant theme of loss, which the poet skillfully develops and enlarges as the poem proceeds. The man has alienated his wives, and lost his "daughters [who] abandon him/ for intolerable lovers," while his sons "slur and darken," suggesting an emotional distancing between them, as well. The poem's ending poignantly evokes an earlier time when the man's children reached up with "soft fists...to tug out treasures" from his pockets--and its final lines ("his reward to let his pockets/ haemorrhage for those he loved") suggest his former pleasure in freely giving his love to them, even as these lines hint back to and underscore his present desolation. --Maurya Simon
Third Place
During an Epileptic Fit, Ida Saxton McKinley
has a Premonition of her Husband's Assassination
by Ellen Kombiyil
Blueline
Just now I have seen it, fluttering,
William's handkerchief, sailing towards my face
to conceal my expression -- (Oh, I know
what I must look like, my rolling eyes, my spit) --
But it couldn't have been -- William has gone
to the Exhibition. The white handkerchief
wasn't his at all; it was rimmed with blue lilies.
Goodbye, it said, a ghost hand waving
from the bow of a ship. That sound!
A horn-blast, a shot from a gun,
an air-organ's fanfare: Bach's concerto
had begun. The moment was eternal,
the handkerchief falling, falling, never
landing, on fire and floating as it fell,
the flap of doves. Be quick! Send word --
he has gone to the Reception. I fear
the President has set sail for the far shore
and we shall find him already fallen.
This dramatic monologue assumes the voice of Ida McKinley, wife to our 25th President, William McKinley, as she experiences a moment of deja vu, precipitated by an epileptic seizure. Ida's premonition of her husband's assassination is compelling and persuasive because the poet reveals the character's altered consciousness as it amplifies the sensual events Ida's experiencing: a hallucination of a "white handkerchief" saying " Goodbye," heightened aural effects ("A horn-blast, a shot from a gun,/ an air-organ's fanfare"), and the sense that time is slowing to eternalize this horrifying moment. The handkerchief is emblematic of McKinley's death and spiritual deliverance: "the cloth on fire and floating as it fell/ like the flap of doves," and the poem fittingly ends with a denouement that returns Ida to normal consciousness and a call to action, though she knows that "we shall find him already fallen. --Maurya Simon
Honorable Mentions
Insatiable
by Laurel K Dodge
MiPo
The mackerel are as charred and flat
as the tomatoes are red and round.
There is magic in random numbers,
a message in the three dead fish
and the five fruit, ripe and grotesque.
A trinity of skeletons, and an uneven
yield, a harvest that keeps everything
off balance. The green tomato waiting
on the sill will not make a whole.
Even if you put a hand clear through,
you would not believe you'd seen the holy
ghost. Fork and knife suspended above
the heaping plateful of food; your belly
growls, but you cannot move. Later,
you'll remember how the eyes stared
at you like god. How, in the distance,
the apocalypse burned. This is how
Lot's wife felt just before she turned
around. Soles too blistered, too tired
to move the body forward. And a hunger
despite the plenty; an empty stomach,
a bereft vessel. A hole that could not be filled.
Cherry Grove
by Elodie Ackerman
The Writer's Circle
All around the old place,
the dead visit. The
day he opened up the trunk
of that sweetgum tree,
and before we saw the
horseshoe hanging inside,
something brushed against
my face. I heard a nickering
far away, and the smell of oiled
leather and candlewax.
A few days later Lloyd
found an anvil half
inside an oak tree, back
by the old barn. It was ten
feet off the ground, and
the color of storm clouds
when the air smells like metal
and electricity breaks
it right in two. They say
a shipwright lived
there once. I know.
I've heard him hammering.
That was before the rumor
of the slave revolt across
the road. Nineteen men killed,
tortured, all for the sake
of a child's tale. A child
named Obey. No excuses.
The crape myrtle we cleared from
the back forty bled claret-
colored sap, and stuck inside
one old, stubborn knot
was a skeleton key.
The silver lying all around,
tarnished forks and bone-
china plates. Daddy said
she burned that house a'purpose,
took the tram to the train
and left town. Nobody
Ever saw her again.
But to be frank, I don't
believe it.
I saw her walking in the fog
one morning, early. Picking bones,
rearranging bricks,
breaking twigs over and over.
She saw me too.
We've been talking
back and forth, she and I,
between the branches.
Haul
by Brandon
The Maelstrom
The last brown box and bulging plastic bag's
been thrown inside the truck. A vacuum screams
through empty rooms while morning dawns and drags.
The past is bundled up, we'll follow dreams
of wealth and newness in another town,
a neighborhood with winding streets, shade trees
and parks. Escape's the road we're driving down,
scrambling to find those blasted keys
and turn the locks. Before the front door shuts
for good, a glance around the house reveals
familiar ways and that our lives had ruts:
the dingy pathways on the carpet show
high-traffic routes, that we just spin our wheels,
because we're there no matter where we go.
Sparrow
by Bernard Henrie
Writer's Block
6:30. The radio just lighting up. November
in corridors, faint yellow bulbs turning on.
Men take down their trousers, lazy at last;
butter placed on the table, fresh meat cut
on heavy bread, almost eaten.
Utensils burnt underneath with electric heat,
men beside dishes in the sink, women released
from shops asleep on davenports, a soiled potato
in a pail; once vivid folds of hair pinned back.
There are men who look out between the blinds
and darken as the light falls dark, grow still
in rooms that grow quieter still.
Not morning time, not afternoon, time written
down but not addressed, thin painted palm trees
on fields of long faded green, a souvenir cup
holding a tooth brush, a cloth your scent;
lumps of hydrogen stars, clouds of meteor gas
and fumes of futile ascent.
I have held a mask across my face,
stayed alone longer than I should want,
become fossil bone and broken shell.
Almost partners with the migratory birds
fallen on thermal air and comic suspense.
Hey - congrats Brenda (bbnixon) for your HM placement for Super Nova in August!
A great and fascinating piece!
Bravo!
~Cleo
Lori,
Thank you for the big congrats! I was happily surprised!
Wishing you a wonderful day
:) brenda
Judge Deborah Bogen
First Place
Beached
by Laura Polley
Desert Moon Review
I have put on a dress,
salted at the hemline
where the little waves
tug my ankles and run.
I can see the twitching
of the boardwalk from here.
Seagulls and tourists:
all bark and push.
Wind arranges everything.
A mime shouts opinions
from his personal cage.
I admire his courage.
There is melody in silence.
There's an instinct of trees
nestled sad as a woodlouse
in those boardwalk veins.
I have put on a dress.
I am walking a coastline
between earth and invitation,
where strange heavy birds
carry human sounds away.
This poem takes description to the level of invocation as it creates a serious need in the reader to know the import of "I have put on a dress", a simple phrase now heavy with something we can neither name, nor turn away from. The poet's sure touch when portraying tourist and seagulls as "all bark and push" and the mime as shouting from "his personal cage" lull us into a calm which becomes oddly ominous as the poem closes with "I am walking a coastline/ between earth and invitation//where strange heavy bird/carry human sounds away." --Deborah Bogan
Second Place
Ghazal of the Honed Knife
by Sarah Sloat
Desert Moon Review
Undeceived, the body knows the gloom of her.
Right hand the usher, left hand the groom of her.
The fragrance of seasonings enfolds the house
but flesh stays attuned to the perfume of her.
Chair, sink and tablecloth compose a kitchen.
Knuckles, grip and thumb make a room of her.
Switchblade and jack, bread, bowie and pocket--
Christian names will ease into the loom of her.
Pale is the butter, soft ivory the brie;
but yielding knows how bright is the bloom of her.
Thanks to Agha Shahid Ali, the ghazal has entered American poetry's blood stream and this poem showcases the strength of the form. The poem's description of a knife engages us by providing the simple kitchen tool with a presence that is potent and palpable that can be read straightforwardly or as a metaphor. Both the title and ghazal's traditional focus on lost love incline me to the metaphoric reading, but either way, the poet's ease in handling the ghazal form (especially since it is done with a simple lexicon--no fancy "poetic" words here) is a delight. The last line satisfies our desire for the pleasure of both surprise and recognition. --Deborah Bogen
Third Place
Prohibited Disorder Kids
by Bill Brando
About Poetry Forum
the prohibited disorder kids
slide greasy
down the street
with their Kool-Aid hair and
black leather jangle
past buildings
with beerbreath doorways,
missing teeth,
staggering like old bums
pissing on yesterday's news...
pitter patter patter
"dudn't fuckin' mattah, man,"
the motto when you're beat--
cigarette burn chancres,
banana bruise knuckles
tenderizing vacant meat,
crunching scattered glass stars
under jackboot feet
beneath the switchblade moon--
"the world's a fucking tomb, man..."
see the prohibited disorder kids
tromping rusted punk rock paradisio
corrosive soundtrack fast,
snuffed out slow
with no god but
white noise.
Making street-talk work in poems is an art, and this poet uses fantastic inner sound effects to do that, keeping the slangy phrases from becoming a prosey recitation. Take a look at "pitter patter patter/"didn't fuckin mattah, man,"" with its play on the pitter-patter of little feet, and "beneath the switchblade moon--the world's a fucking tomb, man.." followed closely by "tromping rusted punk rock...". The poem wisely interrupts what could be too much hip-hop sing-song with sections of free verse that call to mind what we've all seen, but not described quite so well, e.g., "the prohibited disorder kids/slide greasy/down the street". --Deborah Bogen
Honorable Mention
Bronx Swans
by Bernard Henrie
The Writer's Block
I have forgotten nothing: A sack lunch
and dried bread for the aging swan;
the underside stained burlap the color
of a Bronx pond; the anonymous traffic
on Canal street, the concrete bench
and park attendant clearing trash.
A woman who visited the shell basin
of our meeting place; a monotone
in the summer afternoon of gaps and sighs;
the azure turn of sky; the park slowed
to the barely visible gesture of the swan;
the brackish waft of wings and khaki feathers;
glazed beak stamped into dower mud
and soured water. The swan left out all night
alone as a man who fears an illness,
a porch light left burning with no one to see.
Honorable Mention
Indian Grass
by Rich Stewart
The Town
Night full of frog-song and stars.
Late summer moon slow to rise.
Indian grass whispers
like bamboo in the lonesome wind ...
The deep midnight wind has a bite,
but baby, I could walk all night,
Lost darlin'. I could walk all night.
Loose gravel by the road,
some creature's little pointed jaw,
fallen dogwood petals
glitter in such light
I could read if I wanted to;
there's nothing that I want to read
nothing that I want to hear
this night.
Just old humaway songs
of lonesome whistle blow
and trucks on a distant highway
and of how
you might have picked me.
Now it's just
white moonlight, flat on this flexed gravel road
and this weight in the crook of my arm
and an empty bedroom a mile behind
waiting for me to return.
If I did it tonight
the old people over the hollow
might stir in their big sagging bed.
Might say, that there was a shotgun.
Might say, there's one old coon gone.
Might roll back into dreams.
If I walked back
far enough into the hills
how long might I lie
left alone?
Not long enough, I guess,
for my bones to rise out clean
and bleach white with the possums and deer.
Honorable Mention
Once Upon a Time
by Eric Linden
Mosaic Musings
A herd of cows with calves in tow
now graze this meadow, where,
not many years ago
the two of us wandered,
looking for elusive four-leafed clover
to bring us luck.
The golden balsamroot of early spring
had burst in bright abandon
like stardust
sprinkled by wee forest folk
who rule the mystic woodlands.
Then later on, roses, wildwood roses
graced our much loved hills
where we would stroll,
enjoying sunshine days
in nature's freedom.
Aspen leaves turned gold,
grasses withered,
autumn winds brought frosty nights,
and rose hips blushed in scarlet.
Along their dusty trails
where once we sought
four-leafed clover,
cows now wander.
Congrats Eric!
(And you thought you weren't VERSED in fv! Ha!)
Well done!
~Cleo :
Congratulations Eric...
You truly deserve this, and with one of your first ventures into FV...Way to go my friend. Judi
Congratulations Judi on your HM!
~Cleo
Congratulations Judi - Congratulations on a Well Deserved Honor
I knew that poem would get acknowledged - It is a very powerful poem!
Hugs, and Good Luck with Future Nominations ...
Liz
I would like to thank everyone who helped with suggestions on this poem.
Posting in a workshop is a very helpful resource to achieving the best version
of our work. It is our poem seen through other's eyes, and that is what we want to
achieve.
Thanks All,
((((hugs))) Judi
There was no November Comp...
FYI
Yipee, Eric!!!! Congrats for your SECOND PLACE!!! I'd read Northland Solstice before, but now it took me ages to find where it was posted...sorry!!!
MM is going up in the ratings thanks to poets like you, and several others whom I believe have joined more recently.
Cheers, Sylvia ***
Congrats, Lindi, for your Honorable Mention for Time gone Cold!!! Love it! And a Swap Quatrain, too!!
You're making Lori's form go global. Fantastic...
Hugs, Sylvia ***
Hi Sylvia,
Thank you so much for the warm wishes! I am so glad that our creator of the Swap Quatrain, Ms. Lori, told me about the Chapbook compilation as I need a bit of a push, these days.
Lori's Swap Quatrain is a fun style of writing and I enjoy the challenge!
Have a great weekend!
Lindi
The long awaited November results are now in - no HM's this month...
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