December
2011 Winning Poems
Donna Westbrook
Featured Reader & Judge
First
Place:
Requiem
by Mary Kelly McComick
The
mourning doves _
are chanting, gathered
in their tree
in coats
of gray.
One of them
must have died
last night.
The
Requiem Mass
drones on and on.
Their chanting
chills the bone
with
gentle calls
that echo
through my skull,
Who died
Who died
Who died
Second Place:
INTROSPECTION
by
Victoria Maynard
Am I so vain I cannot show my face
to
friends of yore, who've known me long and well ?
Such vanity has
locked me in a place
where loneliness an self abasement dwell.
For
on these walls no mirrors have been hung
whose images, grotesque,
might turn me ill
if viewed, compared to that when I was young
not
silver streaked or furrow lined , but still,
a fading glory may
not be so bad
as pining. Empty hours pass too slow
the while I
breathe, and I am not yet dead,
therefore, to end this loneliness
I'll go
and seek where other ugly ducklings dwell
who once
were swans, until their feathers fell.
Honorable
Mention:
PEACEMAKERS
by Charles Scheitler
After
a winter night
I open the front door
Earlier
Wider, and
longer--
In the growing sunshine _
Through the warming winds
The
wind-chimes-
"Bring on the storm"
Entreat the artless wind
chimes--
Calmly, slowly
The wind chimes
Settle
A The
world’s peace--
The spider
Ensnares the wind-chimes
In
silence--
Honorable Mention:
The
Reading
by Blake Valin
Her voice sent soothing words
into
the microphone -
Like a velvet winged moth
dancing around a light.
The
multitude of hungry ears
gobbled up the words
and was sated with
collages
formed on pages of the mind.
His voice sent booming
words
into the microphone -
Like thunder in the night,
a drum
beating in the soul.
The multitude of us
soaked up the poems
read,
and was energized with
free verse, sonnet, rhyme.
Now
the judges must decide.
Special Contest:
Terza Rima Sonnet:
Should Have
by Blake Valin
Expected
he would have lasted longer
But I made him out of paper mache.
Should
have made him out of something stronger.
I should have used a
substance more like clay,
But clay might break and I would be bereft,
Or
kept him wrapped up tight and tucked away.
Probably should have
made him out of stone,
But it's hard and cold and heavy to hold.
I
should have risked the warmth of flesh and bone.
I should have
worn my heart out on my sleeve,
And asked him to stay not dared him
to leave.