The Bee-Bearded Man's Only Son - Jim Zola - Gumball Poetry
This is the day the bee-bearded man's only son is to wed
a girl from a town that knows nothing of bees.
The son himself feels no affection towards the bees,
but out of a sense of decency and heritage
has taken his father's trick one step further,
wearing a suit of bees and a tophat that sets the wedding crowd
to murmur. One fat aunt from Paducah faints,
and the men who know her gather round and bicker
about what should be done, until the question becomes moot
as she opens her eyes and mouths the word "yellow."
The only clothing he wears not made of bees
are his Italian leather shoes because he's afraid
of what he might step on. The day is hot
and locusts hanging in trees make it difficult to hear
what the preacher is saying, something about hard work,
love and honey. No one listens. They are looking
at the bee suit, the way it moves constantly,
yet stays whole. The bride thinks about the coming night,
perfume between the breasts. She wonders if bees
get tangled in his hair. The son counts the moments
until he can shed his winged tuxedo. The bees
think nothing, drone, worker, all dying for the hive.
The father sips whiskey through a straw and considers
his toast - drinks held high to the first sting.
Limits - Chad Shear - Callahan's Saloon
The past returns, puts things beyond my reach
An injury from long ago holds sway
These limits form a wall I seek to breach
Unwilling to accept fate, I beseech
The failed parts of me to work my way
The past returns, puts things beyond my reach
I catalog frustrations, knowing each
New movement is a victory today
These limits form a wall I seek to breach
Each setback saps my will, attempts to leech
The strength to keep returning to the fray
The past returns, puts things beyond my reach
The best of medications slur my speech
And leave my mind a formless lump of clay
These limits form a wall I seek to breach
Mere exercise the tool I use to teach
The nerves and muscles that will not obey
The past returns, puts things beyond my reach
These limits form a wall I seek to breach
When Crazy Horse Tends Bar - Priscilla Barton - Gumball Poetry
Jesus wore moccasins and braided
his hair. I met him at Wounded Knee
where he sat in the dirt crying blood.
Coyote hides behind billboards
on highways built over graves of
warriors who have never died.
The children of Geronimo race
across the moon on the backs of
wild horses while eagle feathers
hang from a cowboy's hat.
Buffalo nickels fall from heavy
skies as the Crown Dancer shuffles
neon feet on mountains that form
words with smoke.
I meet you in a bar where Indians
drink for free. You recite poetry
to beer bottles while crows sit on
the arms of Custer's statue.
You think yourself invisible and
become what you believe. I watch
you fade against the jukebox while
it plays your favorite song.
Honorable Mention:
I sneezed when you kissed me - Silvia Antonia - Callahan's Saloon
and lost the middle line
of a poem I was busily
composing while I gazed
with lyrical intent at your
eyebrows, two busy worms
joined in coition and there were
iambs and enjambments and a wayward
trochee but the moustache you were
growing tickled my fancy and I sneezed
and blew my chance at love true love.
Gaps - Laurel K. Dodge - Gumball Poetry
My teeth, rooted in my gums
like oak trees, permanent,
immovable, have begun to drift
in my mouth, a slow imperceptible
shift, so subtle my dumb tongue
cannot sense the ineffable,
glacial movement.
In five years, the impenetrable
wall of my incisors has divided,
each tooth separated from the other.
Like the wife of Bath, I am an amorous
woman: my gap-toothed grin is proof
enough for Chaucer. My experience
lisps through the naked spaces
between each vulnerable tooth.
What then is the measurement
in millimeters or grief for the gaps
between teeth drifted, wandered from
the root, or the distance between
your silent back and my uncertain
hand, a cool expanse of mattress
gapped between us.
Strangers - Katherine Fusco - Gumball Poetry
Because I do not know you
I dream about your scar
I would like to hold you
and lick that angry mark
ask it why it mars your face
an imperfection
I want to devour it
salty and intoxicating
not knowing you,
I am in love with your scar
it smacks of sex or wine or violence
strawberries or heat or babies.
The scar lies in my bed nights
reflects up at me from sidewalk puddles
sits beside me at dinner
disrupting the meal
and horrifying my companions
When I dress it
if you let me
I will give it huge galumphing boots
and swishy trousers
so I can always hear it coming
Give me an iron in its shape
and I will brand it on my thigh
a secret of my own
to touch and ponder
Wood Work - Judith Greer - Rabbit Hole
I am a sapling in your hands, bent and peeled,
Curved and carved beneath your finger-knife,
Which splits my naked pith down to its core.
I am stripped and plundered, harvested,
The clenched hard buds of breasts and sex,
The open throat and petals of my flowers,
The soft red flesh and juicy swollen heat
Of that sweet fruit which ripened at your touch.
This, my branching body, is sundered to the heart
As you strike your axe into the notch
By which I'm felled.
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