Coming Out - Mary Hazen-Stearns, MindFire
Flakes of crab meat impersonate
peony petals chopped among
vinegar and beaten eggs.
Flashes of pink meat snuggle
among smooth white mayonnaise.
Freckles of pepper corns
aromatically crushed. A willow leaf
escapes its branch, comes to rest
as a centerpiece to elbow
macaroni and tri-color twist
pasta. It shall be removed
immediately. Guests have begun
to float in, bob and weave among
white islands of triangulated
meat spread sandwiches,
lacy salad greens, vinaigrettes
and oils. Pick and nibble,
nibble and pick. I watch through
curtains, my hair in a wild quarrel,
my blouse not yet pressed.
(Judges comment: The texture of the decorative party, with
its plausible and seductive hors d'oeuvres and its edible guests, is burned
away at the end by the wild stare of the speaker of the poem.)
Last Dance - Padraig O'Morain, Callahan's Saloon
A knot loosening in his brain
has closed the book of expectation.
He shuffles for miles in purple tracksuit bottoms,
mumbles the thing again and again.
What comes out of his mouth defies meaning
what matter now are words already spoken.
The suits have gone to the charity shop
but for one that will do later.
The job was good, they let her keep his car
it sits in the driveway looking big.
He dines on scrambled eggs and meat cut up small,
the same for her, she can't be bothered.
The bedroom-slipper shimmy the nightly dance
she catches him on the street trotting home to mother
and partners him back to the room
the smell of cigarettes and disinfectant.
While she sleeps he shuttles between lock and lock
muttering the thing is, some step to be taken, but what?
(Judges comment: Tracking shots in each two-line stanza capture
the sensation of Alzheimer's with a heartbreaking objectivity of
observed details.)
predestination - andervillier, Blueline
Football game on TV --
in realtime, long
coach-cud-chewing
pauses, then
quick-snap-pass
-- done. . . dust rises . . .
In slow-mo replay
the players, giant,
placid goldfish,
bright orange fabric
undulates
In this slowed-down heaven
the way the lord must see things:
that pass, after all,
interceptible
from the start.
(Judge's comment: An entire theology in one moment of a football game
on TV, play and replay. .)
Honorable Mentions:
Wolves - Hamish MacBeth, Gumball
Red eye of sunrise yet a hidden menace,
Full white the moon and bright the frost as day;
Earth's chest pants slowly, ground-mist exhalations;
Predators are prowling,
Silent high-pitched howling;
They shatter mental crystal
And shiver dreams away.
I'm wakened, drawn towards the ice-thin window,
To witness scenes as spare and still as death.
How bare the hills; how bare the trees and meadows,
Sky's pale-roofed maw, star fangs,
Horizon-hinged it hangs;
Night's curled lip sneers on shadows
Of mountains bared like teeth.
Two bow-waves shear the median of the valley,
Iced hayfield moves as feral muscles glide;
Hoar-frost disturbed by wakes of live torpedoes,
Grey shoulders breach and lope,
Implode and telescope;
They salivate their credos
Of chilled and ruthless pride.
The wolves tear savage furrows down the dreamland,
Their eyes are shined with blood, their mission clear;
Grass swings back shocked to green behind their passage:
Swift train-less tracks impale
The smoky pallid vale,
Paired scars in frost their message,
The wolves, the wolves passed here.
Poetry Submission: A Love Poem Not to a Lover - Barbara St Clair, Writer's Block
How can you ask
what trick trot trail
I came swaggering down
or what blue black TV show
I inhaled as a child?
And then
say you know me as a brother?
Because brother is not
a sex thing
even though unclothed
you showed your dreamy self to me
and asked
if what I saw was all right
and by that I think you meant
the size of your Schwing
Dick
Shish Kabob
Pretzel
Peter
John Thomas
Woody
Old one eye
Hot tamale
Hot potato
Hot dog
Bow and Arrow
Mr. McGilicudy
Top Banana
Hoopla and Hosanna
and I said
"Yes of course. It's just fine."
Because what else would
I say
to a poet brother?
And besides
the size
of your manhood
looked about right to me.
And so I was thinking
about how we are
all so much skin
and touch
and breath
and voice
and five fingers on each hand
with smooth carapace fingernails
and blood that rushes
and trickles
and pools
at so many times
and in so many places.
I told you
you were beautiful.
And you answered me
with your feet spread square
shoulder length apart
and the tips of your
black alpaca
handmade boots
facing straight ahead
and your arms hanging
steady
but at the ready by your sides
your chin tipped
up just a bit to the right-
set for a fight
or an assignation
with the green
hearted trees
and the blue
knuckled sky
and the
tar stinking California cedar
beating out their universal
pulse
Life
Life
Life
despite all of our
attempts to tame it.
And you looked right
at me
pretending to be
blinded by my
sunlight
and you said
"You know
you're talking to ugly,"
and I said,
"I don't think so."
We exchanged gifts
your words
for mine
your words for pine
because that is what
I must be doing
pining for my long lost
poet brother
my liter mate
or close
born miles and days
and years apart
and who cares about dates
or states
when you're talking family.
And then
in my dream I
kissed you
on your shoulder
touched my lips to your skin
soft as a boy's
just before he steps
up to the plate
and starts swinging
those base hits
and homers
and batting in those runners
and maybe that is why
you were there lying naked
your flag
at half mast
or less
at best.
And when you asked me
did I approve?
I guess you
were really begging me to say
"You are my magician."
The little black curls
of hair
around your groin
the soft pink nipples
on your chest
your legs
with their tan
that went up to here
and stopped at
the boundary of your
now invisible
but still so present
shorts
the white shawl
of pale skin
around your shoulders
the fragrant brown of your arms
and the rosy redness
of your neck
the ark of your
flagship
Adam's apple,
So definitive
an instrument
for such
a powerful
speaking.
And I said
Yes
Yes
Yes
I love you.
And then I kissed
you
in my dream.
Note To Occupant in The Hall of the Mountain King
- Natalka, Writer's Block
Accompanied by the chorus from Greig's Peer Gynt "The Hall of the Mountain
King"
I want my mother back, the mother I never had
and the child I never was, wants one minute facing you.
Enough time for momentous ending.
To see your eyes, relief in your eyes,
and suck what makes me moan
out of your irises.
Or are you all gland?
Between pineal and thyroid is there anything
besides seafoam packing delicate alphabet?
Do you have eyes at all?
And you may ditto me the same.
Is she a cask of precious hazelnuts or Montelado?
You may ask. Permission to answer withheld.
Time won't grant me this request, nor will you,
fabled unicorn, tripping in your mask of whale bone,
through the Halls of the Mountain King,
give me comfort of looking into and closing
your porcelain and pinioned eyes.
I would pawn the hope of love, with no chance of redemption,
I would leave the garden and enter desert in an instant,
if you would stand face to face with me
and give me the solace of taking it personally.
Close, in my presence, this swinging excuse for a door,
window on the soul, spray of styrofoam, china cup, etc.
All else is small pense.
Little thoughts and chewing gum
stuck to desks in childhood
in my old school Immaculate Heart
on Flora Avenue.
Captures
- andervillier, Gandy Creek
From then on I glimpsed her
in temporary nests,
through the faux-Irish
barroom darkness,
her and her friends'
faces out of Caravaggio;
at the corner of a long
street in Carolina dusk
catching a light,
small orange glimmer;
scooting through the
Y pool like a guppy,
distorted underwater,
here-and-there;
once, chasing a speck
of dandelion drift
down 9th Street
quite slowly --
its sunglistened tips --
cupping her hands around
what can't be touched
or else the game's over.
William - JAS Carter, MindFire
for GG
I played hide and seek
in the dip of his grave, the shade
of his marker; and shoved aside hollyhocks
to splay, hot and still,
with my face in the grass shroud
of William.
He died on my birthday
and was buried by May,
beneath the chill thistles
where I lay with green fingertips
dug in, knees drawn up,
ready to quail-burst from cover
if my brother should find me.
Still William's grave sank with no furor
into a subtler foxhole,
hiding my green t-shirt
and too-bony ribcage
from the stutter stop, laughter,
my brother's breaths gasping
but the flies only found me,
crept sideways on Bill's angels,
to hide in the crevices
or tickle the curve of my back
where my shirt rode up, showing
a freckle like a thumbtack
in my spine.
Top of Page -
IBPC Poetry -
Occasional Poetry
Poetry Page -
Callahan's Saloon
