Winning Poems for August 2010
Featured Reader & Judge:
First Place:
Predators
by Stephanie Langson
They lurk within the costumes now preferred,
their darkest thoughts on blackened tongues demurred.
Lovely, lonely, winsome, wounded Jew,
they seek to seize you as they please you.
Brazen, bold, and brash blackguards of old, remember well the stories
that were told. Pounding hoofs of thundering, rearing steeds, madmen
riding high on murderous deeds.
Crashing through villages, killing who?
For what unforgivable sin, born a Jew.
Infants left beneath the kitchen table,
all the rest running for the stable.
Those that they killed not, in their hearts they wrought
a terror that could not be forgot.
Mother Russia drove her children's flight.
They walked the winter's night of bitter cold,
carrying the frail, sick, young and old.
Before the breaking of the coming day,
they hid in barns along the frozen way.
At last! They reached the border's guard
and slipped between the wires barbed.
Safe! Behind Rumania's giant door,
they worked and waited six years or more
before the rising of the turning tide
would carry them to far-off freedom's pride.
Anger and fear from violence denied
smolders like slow-burning fire inside.
Threatening winds blow, blast the hidden flame
cindering scapegoats with a blinding blame.
Father, mother, sister, brother
what's the difference from one to the other?
See them lurking in a stranger's eyes.
Don't be taken suddenly by surprise.
The predators are also your own kin
compelled by forces now buried within.
Who will drive Russia out of her children?
Second Place:
Hangin’ By My Knees
by Blake Valin
Seems like we spen' half our life climbin’ trees.
Y'all might reckon I be a fan of b'nanas, but no.
Thing is, evr'y time I hang by my knees
no good come of it.
Fust time I recalls, is my shy brother, Andrew
Marshall, takin’ advantage of my compromisin’ position,
when he come up an' chomp his teef into my back.
Course, I go wailin' straight t’ Ma wif a tattle.
She scold on him sayin' only wilf critters bite,
'n' bitin’ not be civilianized. So she go 'n’ bite
Andrew Marshall, a toof fo’ a toof like in na' Bible.
That end he silence for a change, whilst I do
a secret gloat, 'cuz I knows why he done bit me.
Nex' time I am hangin’ by my knees, dat Andrew
done jump on my tree branch knockin' me clean off.
I hit flat on my back and see confetti floatin'
in speckly colors in front of my eyes 'til I passes out
colder ‘n' a mackerel. When I come roun' faces are
laughin' at me like in a slow motion picture show.
At las' a gust of air come flyin in my mouf.
It is not a jokin' matter, les't it happen to someone else.
Finally, I be hangin' by my knees on Non's monkey bars.
Roun' de garage come a swarm o' wasps so hoppin' mad
you kin hear 'em buzzin' alia way to de nex' county.
Upsidedown I see Non fly off dat swing, her feets
hit da groun' in a beeline (ha ha) for da back do'
wif my brothers right behin', leavin' me fo’ a scarifice.
Ansel Pa plaster me wif bakin1 soda but I swell up
like I got mumps. It be den I quit hangin' by my knees.
Honorable Mention:
TOMORROW
by Victoria Maynard
Let tomorrow have its way, (with me )
Let it push aside the hours spent this day in dolorous reverie of a yesterday
full of a love, long gone from me.
Let tomorrow bring a smile to my face Let it lift the shroud I wear
around my heart, the chains that bind
my soul in coils of misery.
Let tomorrow chase dark thoughts,
secure them from my mind, so when
tomorrow turns into today,
I will once again be free
Honorable
Mention:
Going Away
by Maureen Ford
How can I die and leave my wealth behind,
the money saved, my homes, old books, antiques-
such unfairness - my heart, my soul it piques,
their beauty, worth - by which I was defined?
The time I spent amassing was no grind
adornments for myself, for my physique
allowing me to feel rich and unique -
that I should have to part from them's unkind.
From my life's tethers I must disengage
with fear of thieves I thieved myself of trust
that God provides while wealth did but enslave.
I must divest, donate and set the stage
to exit life prepared to meet august
company on the other side of the grave.
Special Contest: Sestina
Crawling Out From Under
by Cyndee Bowdoin
Life's journey takes me on a walk
Down hallways shrouded in mists of time
Through doorways yawning in the dark
Filled with memories that sigh and whisper.
I wander restless, searching for the sky
While fear makes my nerve-endings sing.
Can someone with no voice yet sing?
Can someone bound in chains yet walk?
My captive spirit yearns for the open sky
While grains of sand mark the passage of time,
Sliding through the hourglass in a whisper
As ghosts reach for me in the dark.
I crave the sunlight on my face, not this dark
Imprisonment. I want to hear voices sing r
Not taunt me with their cruel whisper,
My sadness shadows me as I walk,
Day after day, toward the end of time
While my soul strains toward the sky.
I want to dance under the bright, blue sky.
Lock my past up in a place deep and dark
And just forget it for all time.
I'll give my heart wings and loudly sing
Songs of triumph.
I will not whisper!
Pain can haunt us with its persistent whisper,
It can hide the sun shining in the sky.
It will turn us from the path we would walk,
keep us cowering in the dark,
drown our voices struggling to sing
and bury us with the curse of time,
Change your fate! Change the passage of time!
Fight, scream, yell! Don't whisper!
Your voice is beautiful so sing,
Let it soar up like a bird to the sky.
You alone can choose the light or the dark;
Only you can loose your chains and walk.
When you sing, you can see the sky.
Pain fades with time, becomes a whisper.
Crawl out from the dark, stand up then walk