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Second Place
Third Place
Honorable Mentions
Megan Elaine Davis
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Thank you, rain. Not that you choose to fall. But I thank you as I might thank leaves or I might thank lily pads. Sometimes I walk in water barefoot empty handed, empty headed, only to smell smoke of distant campfires, only to hear whistles of miles off trains in the fog. Sometimes I thank rain because I feel too small for God. |
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Matt Beatty
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There's something outside, tingling and singing in the arctic night air. I am a foreigner in my own town. Something indicates to me that I am elsewhere, alone, someone else perhaps. I crunch across frozen mud to the steps of the video store, then return, toss the rented film on the passenger seat like an old pro. The ground is littered with icy cakes of snow, like abandoned mattresses laid end to end. This place is new, though old, foreign, though familiar. It could be anywhere. I wear brown mittens and the polar skies bite at me. There's a Polaroid in everything: the diffuse glow of red traffic lights-- small red giants reflected off my frosted windshield and through my glasses until a dull glow batters my eyes; the exhaust spouting from the car beside me, idling at that same dying traffic light; the plumes of laundry heat and furnace steam, erupting upwards from ancient ramshackle buildings, spiraling staircases of smoke; the two boys in jumpsuits, beating palms together to keep their fingers alive, standing outside the state liquor store, exhaling clouds of vapor-- Everything is translucent; this strange world a fog, a winter landscape seeded with sparse signs of life. Lights dim and heavy eyelids close all around me, and I traverse rocky black asphalt that smiles up at just me, only me-- it is worth seeing, observing, watching and waiting for. |
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Janet Paszkowski
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Nestled on a pillow-topped bay window bench, she gazes toward the bottom of the hilltop street Autumnal stars yielding to a faint constellation of automobile headlights flickering through the fog Bare legs drawn to bare chest a spiral notebook across her knees she writes with the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations at her side The alarm clock jolts her reverie He plods naked from their bed and glances into the bathroom mirror weaving fingers through dusky hair emerging shaved, showered and spritzed while whistling with his white shirttails poking through unzipped navy trousers while she continues to write . . . The triangular knot of his bright red tie saddles his Adam's apple and looms like a hangman's halter around his neck - the perfect canvas for a quotation to stream like a stock ticker at the bottom of her mind's eye . . . If men can run the world, why can't they stop wearing ties? How intelligent is it to start the day wearing a noose around your neck? |
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Patricia Kennelly
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at Shiva's Indian buffet, where I meet all of my blind dates I don't waste my time with your chatter, of my smoky eyes my feelings are only clear when I talk about the fresh curry leaves and the house-made chai fill my plate with samosas topped with tamarind chutney, more Vindaloo please, it's spicy here the chef has a nice touch with the cardamom and the masala dosas from Bangalore lacey, crisp and hot, overflow with fried onions, curried potatoes and peas it's you that I dream of, your ripeness it's here where I swim with you on Sundays my legs and arms slide through your exotic creamy core while the fresh mango pieces that float by like fair-weather clouds hold me up for the love of decency Shiva, destroyer of bad habits relieve my ache that I may not leap from my seat before the plates are cleared. instead, as she always does, she leads me, leaves me while I alone embrace once again, my true love lives in a bowl of mango custard |
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Sara Kleinebrucke
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In my palm rests a certain shell; Ordinary to most eyes, its curves and sunbleached linen walls Unremarkable. Yet, I sense that you would know, If I placed it in your hand, What a gift from my heart it was, as all I have to offer, A relic that survived the seas embrace for a long and uneasy ride. The palest ribbon of loss That for so long bound our deepest bones Now flutters like a flag of surrender over the dunes; Truly would you cross over to where I stand? My bare feet set at the water's edge, I breathe in salt and memory. Would you close those open miles And reach across the sea To linger next to me For the next few sunlit hours? The seabirds wheel and dive On the watercolor sky, while The restless ocean glitters, mineral and wet, In this sunshine, This transient gift of fleeting gold. . |
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Amy Bardwell
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the scar of crumbling bricks, dangling slabs of wood, pipe, and rebar dirt smoothed rough and uneven over the city's secret doorways into passages into nothing, the pigeons packed tighter than life on ledges so thin they fade at my feet, a single white feather floating haphazardly in a clump of dead autumn leaves when I touch them, they crumble with a brittle snap but the feather remains a camo cowboy passes me without a pause, smelling of cigarettes and stale tortilla chips dressed like that, he must be a hero to someone, even if only to himself when I step inside, the women speaking loudly and pompously of Art suddenly whisper dimmed stagelights: waiting to be filled with sound and substance; for now the room is holding its breath in silence as a single candle wavers between life and death on an abandoned tabletop, tossing the reflection of light onto the windowglass in the reflection, the light is steady two trains crash by at once, their thunder extending much further into the distance than their own length crushing the night with cacaphony everybody on 1st Ave speeds empty tables of romance, candlelit for two and begging for purpose an older couple in leather jackets leave the restaurant to dance a few turns on the sidewalk beneath the streetlamps, the stars, the towering night |
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Kate Chadbourne
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The things we live with make a home for our thoughts, for there is a mind at work in every thing which answers ours. All day we are talking to the chairs, the mugs, the pictures, the dishtowels, the gas-stove, the bookends, the flowers, the lamps. All day these objects arranged in our rooms tell us the news of the world and stories of ourselves. We are like the nautilus who seeks the truth of herself and dreams the shimmering spiral of a house. Or, like a patch of earth that wonders what it might bear and wakes to find violets and starlings alighted in its yard. But not alone do we fashion the intricate whorls; not alone do we feather the earth with daisies. For someone lends us sands and pearls, and some friend sends the bird to sing in our branches. |
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Lisa Carrick Heeg
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The phone is ringing and ringing, harmonic tremors. I should answer it; its you and you will have much to say, to complain, to bemoan. My ear is the open sea into which you spew unceasing all the burning trials of your life, bitter lava. The troubles that cling to you like the stubborn smell of cigarettes seethe in the spiral of my labyrinth, threaten explosion if I cannot subdue the force of your discontent within me, my scorching doom. Quiet, quiet, be quiet for a minute, Mama. Ask me how Im doing and just listen. Still your angry magma to see: I am your calm extrusion, glistening reprieve. I am a green island full of life. |
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