October 2011 Winning Poems

Featured Reader & Judge:  John Palozzi


First Place:

Last Minute Memorial
by Donna Westbrook

I could go
empty handed
frozen, though full hearted

I could sit
still among the mourning
just listening
my silence ‘
helping to make the music
be the rest
between the quarter notes
of "fare thee welI"

I could let
my presence alone
be my memorial

but my tears
protest
determined
to sign for me
the mute one

what I want
to say
what I want
to give
what I want
to feel

a public display
of piercing gray grief

unprepared for this
wet betrayal
tissueless

AI surrender to
my own heart
broken
open
for you.


Second Place:


My Father's Basement
by Beth SK Morris

Crouching down in the darkness
under the house, hidden from
the upstairs’ noise, crawl space
illuminated by a single, bare bulb;
like the back of the closet
behind the clothes when the
door’s been locked.

The dampness of decayed leaves,
the smell of warped wood,
barely enough space to sit
on his rotting stool. Glass jars
perched atop the two-by-fours
encircling the stone-wet walls,
their once gleaming
surface now opaque, pitted with
sand and dust-lined up like pill
bottles on the edge of the
drugstore shelf;  methodic,
systematic, each one, in turn,
labeled with the certainty
of black ink:

"one-inch screws, three-inch
wood nails, half-inch bolts
two inch tapping nails, assorted
washers, carpet tacks... "

Votive offerings, all within
reach of their silent creator.

His sanctuary.


Honorable Mention:

Ups and Downs
by R. Baylor

"Stuff and nonsense," muttered Julia.
A warning sounded in my ears,
"Polls in those rags that you peruse,
For the articles, of course.” “Dear,

What untruths have they suggested?” ‘
She prized my gaze up from the page.
"Now,” she spat, "they claim full-breasted
Women have forsworn the day

When we taught men they must look up.
Not I and tell them yet again,
A woman’s more than just a cup
Size. As for you, though not most men,

You’re still a man and eyes will stray.
Should I look down, see you adjust,
And you would live and earn my praise —
These best be those for which you lust."


Honorable Mention:

A Diagnosis
by Maureen Ford

Inflicted with intense irritation
skin screaming to be scratched
sending me to that surgery -

the stun of the sudden certainty
cancer from a complaint
of incessant itch,

hanging in that brutal silence
this bombshell in the shape of fear
it’s force like on a squally shore

my dry mouth savored the salty
tears surrendering
to the sobering shock

the ocher of the cancer hidden -
my suntan absorbing the symptom,
sounds start to resonate

his recited speech, his rehashed script
words selected for solemn
statements with sympathetic tones.

My spirit took over - surprised me
threw over the science of biology
my spirit would survive to stretch itself

beyond belief, to move free
of gravity, of feeling, of panic,
of feelings, of fears through space

to clouds over shifting seas,
my spirit in the wind, on the ice, among
scorching salty grains of sand listening

to the wrestling waves of water
responding to the moon, my spirit atop
a butterfly, winking from inside a dewdrop

bound to right the wrongs I’d done
inspiring living beings to acts
of kindness in reparation, replace
my indifference with care.


Special Contest: Oriental Octet:


At Water’s Edge
by Cyndee Bowdoin

Great crane strolls the shore
Soft breeze ruffles white feathers
On the pond’s surface “
Ducks   are fishing for their meal

The moon has risen, still pale
The sun is fading
Dusk ignites the sky with flame
Turning white to gold