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Second Place
Third Place
Honorable Mentions
Matt Beatty
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This morning I rode home through falling leaves and fluttering snow, with crimson forearms and a drunkard's cheeks. The clouds hung in black quilted cotton overhead, dirty and heavy and close. Stormwater stole up from the streets in a haze-- a low-lying steamy fog, a locomotive apparition without an engine-- heated by the still-lit streetlamps in the dim morning twilight. Droplets fell from the trees on my face, and brittle grains of snow, like the white gypsum sands of New Mexico, settled on my bare arms and I slapped at them, stung them with wet palmprints. But high overhead, far above me in the west, a small clearing lay open in the sapphire sky, and a star shone down on that sleeping city (where industry often outshines everything): Sirius, star-king of the night, muzzle of the great dog. And on his right I saw his master, an unmistakable shape, those stars I knew by name: Orion, the shaman, the peaceful warrior, man of the mountains and of animals, kin of Enkidu. That celestial figure, an arrangement so familiar to my love. The name we had discussed, that I had thought of as a boy, that we had agreed upon-- because at home, her belly is swollen like those hanging clouds, filled and ready to burst, to release. And the small boy within-- he is at once ours, growing, fantastic, mythological, and yet still one and the same with that watcher in the sky. |
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Karen Stone
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I want my mermaid self. I want to return to the chilly salty skin. Feel my heart drift down to the deep places where it need only beat every year or so - And be safe, Float free, In solitude, In reflection, Listening to waves roar on beaches immeasurably distant. Myself to sit, Sea-facing, Skin a luminous lamp for those who know where to look, And how to see. To comb out my hair with driftwood. Scatter green stars from my eyes. I want that vastness in my gaze, And the deep murmuring in my ears. Strangeness - In my own skin, So that loved and friend look on me with the sudden fear of not knowing. Quite right. They do not know even the smallest thing. In my mermaid self, the distance between knowing and not is infinite, And impossible to chart. And in my mermaid self, My poor, warm, beating, feeling heart can rest. Remote and unafraid. A mermaid heart. |
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Deborah Gilchrist
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Brilliant finery bends in stark contrast against the pewter sky Mourners swaying in rhythm bow their heads to greet sorrow's damp chill With such swiftness, summer's passing... in her wake, orphaned sunflowers weep |
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Audette Sophia
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The busy bees are gathering the nectar Melting the gold nuggets into honey Sweet silk in the throat Singing prism source drops At the tip of my tongue And raining down in rhythmic dispensations Like moon phases Lessons find crystalline completion on pages Thats why sages are poets And birth love maps For ages of souls to follow To those sweetest of places... The Alchemists strived to turn lead to gold Transmutation of elements Assisted transformation To partake and participate in the laws of Creation Boil substance to essence Distillation... Branches are fed by the root The seed contains the blueprint of the tree And the love of soil and sun creates the fruit The fruit of me is this poetry That wild muse that inspires me The slippery one that sings & skips & laughs And winks at me Between her giggles she drops great secrets Gives gems that dissolve as soon as you try to keep it Yet also stay and caress in unexplainable ways Sometimes I yield to these irrational plays And follow shimmering threads through the dreary of days Let my soul be pulled Even as my mind strays Into fantastic fantasy planes Painting rainbow realms on top of the bleak greys This is the transmutation of poison We touch in the stretching imagination Reciprocal story spell progression Emancipation within expression This is the bees making honey Out of all the nectar theyre carrying This is the humans making beauty Out of all the blessings and the suffering This is where compost feeds blossoms And wings free seeds to travel Maps curled deep within Begin to unravel... And the pressure makes the diamond And the fire makes the heat This is the bridge we build between The bitter and the sweet The head and the feet The forest and the street The clearing in the open space Where contradictions meet And friction fuels the wisdom At paradoxes peak So, Whatever you do Dear, Dont forget to seek The beauty That speaks through This intelligently irrational And ever divine Fire Of Alchemy In You |
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Mark Moss
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