Winning Poems: November 2011

Featured Reader & Judge: Beth S.K. Morris


First Place:

The Lilac Years
by Mary Kelly McCormick

We sat on the screen porch
Outside mosquitoes greedy to suck our blood
lilacs hung heavy with sweet smells
the kids fought and screamed
climbed apple trees, hid in blossoms.
Loudly, we wondered where they were.

We giggled and drank our Seagrams
(Whiskey never tasted good without you.)
You made dinner and threatened to pull ears
till tattling stopped. When night
crept across our faces, we lit candles
and talked on through early morning
knowing time would separate us.

Now we walk different paths,
but I remember when our breasts were high
and we were high on life and Seagrams,
when two sisters shared secrets on the screen porch,
the happy intoxication of being together
drunk on the heavy fragrance of lilacs.


Second  Place:


THE SPORTING LIFE
by Charles Scheitler

Some people wear sexuality 
Like a totem pole—
Some people wear sexuality  
Like an old bathrobe
Some people wear sexuality .
Like a bikini on a sun-drenched beach
Gold, bronze, and silver on a nude beach
Some people wear sexuality
Like a bouquet of wild flowers
Modest, subtle, and short lived
Some people wear sexuality
Like blind people
Cutting out all evidence of it
Some people wear sexuality
Like a trumpet in a parade
Like goose-stepping soldiers
And I am relieved
When they have marched away
Some people
Well, inference is a lively sport
But you are my only game in town--


Honorable Mention:


A Psalm of Frustration in a Dark Night
by Donna M. Westbrook 

O my God,
my source, 
hope of my life and eternity,
tell me your name so I may know you. 
Tell me your name so I may know
if I have known you
or if I have only dreamed of knowing.
Are you love - as some say?
or judge - as some say?
or both - as some say - when it pleases you?

Are you mystery?
Always mystery?

Are you lover/seducer
then potter/former of my clay - how many forms?
Are you the piper/playing my reed until it withers?
Are you the wind blowing this fragile feather of a life to and fro?

Are you mystery?
Always mystery?

It is dark in here
and empty
barren and full of noise.
The stone I lay upon
chills me.
Is that you?

You may be love,
but you are not kind.
You may be judge
but you are not obvious.

Your words, delighted
Your scent, enchanted
Your gaze, captured

Drawn and wooed
What now?
What is this place and where are you?

Tell me your name
Are you mystery? Always mystery?


Honorable Mention:


My Father and the Prairie
by Angela Margolis

I dream again
that I walk again,
with that good
and silent man,
around the tiny town
and out to the minute park
on the edge
of the giant prairie
and we disappear again
into the folds
of the widening sky.

I laugh again,
as I walk with him,
at the quiet hum
of the shiny
cottonwoods
that help stop
the wind
that roars again
down from
the rounded
curve of the earth

I awake again
and remember again
that the prairie
is here, in my head
and my gut,
and my dad
is here in
the silent sky
that wrinkles
my soul.
with love.


Special Contest: Minute Poem


Minute Poem
by Blake Valin

Duet

You ripen like a golden peach
too high to reach
aria note
in air, afloat

swaying in crescendo of hue
rhythm in blue
out on your limb
sweet scented hymn

I, a symphony in decay
opus gone gray
wither on stem
sing requiem