Valentines's 2000 Honorable Mentions

Partial to Sundays

On Sunday she wore the apricot dress
Startling in its brevity
I loved her in that dress
I wanted her
But I was too cool to say anything
Too cool to make a move, even the smallest gesture
I was cool, I was now, I was almost post-modern.
I wanted to speak to her
I wanted her to trust me
I wanted to go to her house for Sunday dinner
Watch her father cut the roast.
I wanted to touch her
I wanted her to change my life.
Everyone was so surprised
When she zigzagged out of town
On the back of a motorcycle.
I never thought she would say
Yes.

Diane Hamilton (also second place winner)

His Anxiety
(A response to Her Anxiety by Yeats)

It died last night,
not as hard as I'd expected...
sort of slid off the bed,
like a book from a sleepy hand.
Oh, hell, I knew it was coming
right from the start.
I used to cry about
The Inevitable Loss
even before we'd "consummated."
That was her word.

Please don't tell me,
"I understand, Jack."
You don't understand potatoes.

Used to be a time when
I rubbed her left cheek
and her pants got wet.
Used to be a time
we could feel current
between our skins,
like those long shadows
before an eclipse,
like the rush of owls' wings
before a line storm
hits the pines.

We had no heads then,
just bodies charged,
fingers, hair, and breath.

You know what I mean, Jill.

Robert Clawson (a former honoree)

First Dance

Tonight,
dancing alone in my room,
dark with love's persistent shadows
and heavy with the scent
of solitary pleasure,
I remember how you would never
dance with me.

Yet once upon another time
you held me trembling
in your gentle hand,
soothed me like a frightened bird.
Smiling you searched my eyes,
knew I trembled with blossoming desire.
There was no fear in me
except the fear that you'd grow tired
of my saucer-eyed innocence,
that you'd go away, never again
tease me into sweet dilerium
with your quick,bright tongue.

You never did grow weary
of the many ways I learned to celebrate
the lines and curves of your body,
grown so familiar to me
I could love them as well
if I were blind.

It was a kind of blindness
that made me turn away from you.
It was I who grew not weary,
but ever more curious.
In my impetuous awakening
of the body's many possibilities
I turned to another who's easy smile
quickened the flame between my thighs,
till it consumed whatever I knew
of common sense and good judgement.

I thought I loved him,
not having learned yet the difference
between devotion and desire.
And when I finally realized my mistake,
you were far away, dancing
with someone wiser than me.

But tonight,
dancing alone at 3am,
I recognize your shadow
smiling at me from the corner
of the room,reaching a hand
to pull me close.
I taste your honey breath
as I feel myself gathered
into sweet solid arms.
These 20 years later
you lead me into our very first dance.
I can only close my eyes
and follow.

Beki (a former prize winner)

Love is a Sampler

Aida has opened her heart
her strawberry tongued mouth
boxed in chocolate-cheeked
smooth splendor

Batting a cream-dappled eye-lid
she has set their hearts on fire
with melt-desire urgency,
the caramel of youth

She is covered now by samplers
satin-ribboned boxes
hallmarked sentiments
from rough-hewn hearts
and thick-tongued Valentinos

Bobbie Patrick

Sweet & Nice

The game I love, that brings me cheer,
will be no more til fall gets here.
My mondays are free,my Sundays are free,the superbowl behind-
just in time I have some time, for my Valentine.

She's always patient, sweet and nice
and forgives my one and only vice-
or is it two? Yes, it's two I fear-
but then football isn't football without beer.

I know she knows I love her so,
but I still plan to prove it though,
with a ton of the candy she loves so well,
that blows her diet all to hell.

Valentine's day is a special time,
when no one is embarassed by mushy rhyme,
so I'll write my gal a line or two,
to make up for all I've put her through.

Tomatoes are red, at least when they're ripe,
smoke's usually blue from chimney or pipe,
sugar is sweet and aspertame is too,
but I have found nothing, sweeter than you.

F.J. Mitchell (a former honoree)

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