Adult Poetry Winners 2006

Scroll down to see all Adult Poetry winning entries

 

OBJECT, LOST AND FOUND

By Eric Kaplan

 

In keeping with epic and Sapphic tradition,

The Laissez Les Bons Temps Ladies' Salon

Found me washed up on the Gulf, drooling sea foam

They called poetry and desperate for home;

Collected me, the Muses' orphan, of misbegotten hopes

Inspired, wrung from tired hands a few wry tropes,

Fawned and fondled me, talons burnished red-gold and bronze,

Murmured 'More!' and 'Deep!' and 'Bravo!', trilled seductive songs

Of patroness and sorceress, lavished praise upon my verse,

Patted me dry, panting • and dropped me in their purse.

 

A humongous cavernous leathern affair -

All straps and snaps and secrete everywhere

Laid bare in moist crevices and zipper-toothed maws,

Captive specimens, the wayward, the numberless lost

Souls awaiting the embakner; a vast cosmetic ocean

Plied with powders and prescriptions, potions and lotion,

And poets blanched, amrash no more, having braved the plunge

Into limbo, sudden darkness, their amateurity unjudged.

And I who wandered proudly once romantic dreams ephemeral,

Drown amidst their wadded blog, too personal, polemical -

Seaweed bleeding ink.

 

Deliverance may come: beringed and curling fingers delve At times, to my

depth, then linger; she'll pluck herself Some shadowy shape, epicene with

moussed and tousled hair; I hold my breath - heart, mind racing! - do I

dare Speculate on what awaits a fellow foundling fortunate Enough to find

favor still, dare imagine his fate? Perhaps a petrified piece in an airless

etagere -A stricken pose: grim soldier or unctuous courtier, Cheek to

cheek with other curiosities on display, Dust-gathering mythic time away?

 

As for me: who knows by what design, caprice, what luck A man might

find himself free - who gives a... care?! As sure as he is found

someplace, he gets lost elsewhere.

After The Storm

by Diane Miller

 

 And so at last we have reached this place,

This point of resolution by the sea,

Where land and air and water meet,

Infused with fire from the healing sun’s

Bright laughter sprinkled on the swells.

Waves tease in play about our feet.

Where we have walked our footprints fill,

And the beach ahead is yet untouched.

There is only now.

 

We cross the way to ruin where

Bare tree roots, their world upended,

In seeming rage shake gnarled fists skyward.

Never you mind. A Chickadee,

Tiny bird in topmost branch

Sings unconcerned for human loss.

We walk in mud that holds our feet.

Come home, come home, the land is saying.

We will come again.

 

As a wheel turns faster at its rim,

As the equator races more than poles,

As children on a whirligig

Hang tight to keep from flying off,

So centrifuge and distance traveled

Pull away from the center point

Which must not move at all, if we

Could only find it at the heart.

We must look for it.

 

The fury of the wind brought calm.

No wheel was this, no whirligig.

Its speed was closest to the center,

A pivot hushed and broad,

Where stillness lasts a while, gives time

To sense the depth of silent truths

And the nearness of chaotic change.

Our eyes in the eye were opened wider.

We will not forget.

Codependency

Sylvia Lynn

 

Raised alone on an alligator farm,

I'm aware of their alien attitude.

Basking in the sun, they cause me no alarm

As I tend to my chores without gratitude.

They'll slip into the cooling mire and muck,

Self involved, as I hustle their bloody chuck.

 

They're not hostile - just wild eating machines.

I'm the angry one; feed them or they'll eat me.

(I dine alone on dented cans of beans,).

They require too much of my time and energy.

Pressure's on me to get things completed.

Curse my own slowness or be defeated.

 

There's no talking to them, to change their ways.

Wasting my breath on bumpy rhinoceros hide.

If they're thinking behind that bulge-eyed gaze,

It's to get at my meat if I somehow died.

The bills are unpaid, and they keep coming.

The bathroom is slimed from leaky plumbing.

 

I did try once to meet people in town.

I threw them hot-dogs so they'd know me as friend.

They threw them back so fast that I fell down.

So there's no one else on whom I might depend.

Yet the gators keep breeding, increasing my load.

Perhaps I should sleep, dead drunk, in the road.

 

I'll never be a gator. How will it end?

I gotta quit this; but if I do they'll die.

If I open the gates to let them fend,

Missing neighbor's pets will make children cry.

There's got to be help or sanctuary

Somewhere outside of the cemetery.

When Siblings Conspire

By John Crow

Sheepishly, the now placid Gulf Strolls to shore Looking for forgiveness.

Her brown shoes

Are scuffed and smeared

With the stench of death.

I am not ready to Forgive her not ready To forgive

For what she says Katrina Made her do.

Apple Pie & Mom, Apples In The Nam

By John Crow

The range had been registered on

the rice paddy dikes.

Between the tree lines

they caught us.

 

It was a rocket or mortar shell

I'm not sure which

that shredded in a second

the boy in Army green.

 

From the red mud a white arm

curved with gentle grace.

Blooded fingers unfolded slowly

birth bloom of an apple blossom.

 

New Orleans Mardi Gras Parades

By Sylvia Lynn

The floats are decked out to follow a theme

In bright paint o'er mounded paper mache.

Both sides are stuffed like a reveler's dream

With treasures for maskers to throw away.

The spikes in the center hang bags of beads,

While bins of toys and cups line the floor.

Each T-bar is loaded with specialty leads

For enticing frenzies one cannot ignore.

All dressed alike to match the float's tale,

Crew members take their assigned places.

Ranked by importance on the Moon Pie scale,

To the street they all show the same faces.

 

In rippling rows as they try to maintain

Those formations of ancient warriors,

Bands wait for whistles to name the refrain

For pleading crowds - their worthy employers.

The drums can be heard, but baton barely seen

As the reeds get spit, and valve slobber drains.

Treading on beads, around paddies that steam

Taxpayers learn what their kept money trains.

They're screaming for loot too loud to give ear

To well camouflaged three note renditions.

But there in the chaos, back toward the rear

Is tomorrow's hope, the real new musicians.

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