August 2011
Featured Reader: Diana Loy
First Place:
Forever
Yours
by Cyndee Bowdoin
I want to hold onto this moment
forever
Gently cup it in my hands
Like a small, fragile bird
Feel
the beat of it's tremulous heart
Fluttering against the skin of my
palms
Whisper to it, tame it, make it mine
I want to hold onto
this feeling forever
Wrap it around me like a blanket
Made of
thick candy floss
Let it melt, seep down through my pores
Until
it reaches my very bones
Covering them with rich sticky sweetness
I
want to hold onto you forever
Passion’s heat forging us together
Until
we merge into one being, one soul
Breathe you in like cool mist .
Left
behind by a summer storm
Filling my lungs with your essence
I
want to hold onto this love forever
Become its prisoner, trapped by
it
Like a prehistoric fly encased in amber
Cocooned in the warmth
of your smile
Living each day without the knowledge
That some
things aren’t meant to be
Second Place:
CROSSBREATHING
by
Judith DiBisceglia
Feral cats
illuminated by the street
lights
constantly search the empty lot
l sit by the back door
watch
them grow thinner
then disappear
Gypsy winds circle the lot
rippling
each blade
of grass
slow enough to reveal
my every carried
sorrow
overlap
slip away
like every lover i have known
The
field remains
always harboring
the disappearing cats
searching
for the need
crossbreathe,
within the wind
the grass and
the wild cats
Honorable Mention:
THE
LADY OF MY HOUSE
by Raymond Neubert
Looks me in my eyes
as we greet
Knows what I'm thinking
She folds my towels
puts my laundry away
in her patterns
like my
wife did
Gives me looks
when I wad up my clean shirts,
socks
and underwear
and toss them into my color
baskets
She rushes to fold and rearrange them
When I'm in the
other room
brings me my slippers
when I sit
barefooted
as she vacuums
We embrace and kiss when she
leaves
to return to her dying husband
She knows I live
alone
I know she soon will also.
I must tell her
the
love of my life
is another man
Honorable
Mention:
Safety
by Blake Valin
Frightened,
the hydra recoils,
blind, tentacles threatened,
pulls taut,
shrinks, hides.
Attempt at invisibility -
Safety!
I,
too, recoil from fear, from pain,
to the core of my being -
the
smallest me of me
where maybe only God can see.
Special Contest: Dorsimbra
I DON’T
LIKE FORMAL GARDENS
by Patrica Whiting
I don’t like formal
gardens laid with care
According to some geometric plan.
I love
the willows with their unkempt hair
Unbarbered by the shaping tools
of man.
Keep your cultivated zinnias
and geraniums.
Give me goldenrod
and Queen Anne’s lace.
I’m drawn to
Nature’s rippling, tawny fields,
to wildflowers that grow along the
road.
I’m drawn to chicory and dandelions.
I don’t like formal
gardens laid with care.