POEMS!

At my undergraduate college, I formed a small writer's group who met weekly. Each week, we had a friendly competition where we all read something and everyone voted at the end and a "winner" for the week was named. And what was the mode of distinction, the laurel branch? A Penguin Books tote bag. The winning poet would walk around all week with the tote until next week where it would be up for grabs again. I do not have the tote and mailing it back and forth between members of my new poetry community would be tricky, but here's how I'd like viewers to respond (if they so choose).

After reading through poems created for this prompt, select a numbered poem (not your own) and cast your vote. Obviously, some of the poets may be recognizable to you; others may not seem familiar at all. And obviously, after the simple addition is performed, someone will win and as all contests conclude, I have a small prize I'll mail to the winner. Votes must be cast by 12/15, allowing the good people of the US postal service ample time to deliver a small gift for a talented poet among talented poets. Thanks for submitting a poem! In the interests of fairness, names shall be withheld.


POEM #1

Jae’s Prompt

I ventured home this weekend, romantically
to Hunt the Mighty Stag
and fight the chilled shards of brevity
And my mother said:
“wear long underwear,” then my father:
“don’t shoot yourself”

I arrived like a weary traveler, having submitted to rain, danced with a twister
And fallen from grace
like little snow flakes;
so I sleep from 7 to 11, lie awake the next quarter day; get ready before six:
Orange toboggan, camou pants, remain calm, I pray,
gun from behind the china cabinet, shells from atop the fridge …

Vanity of vanities. All is vanity –
I mumble in my truck, wondering what I want it to mean this time
And now the strange part:
Walking through the cloudy darkness to the back field.
Experiencing some gothic Faulkner moment – 12 steers run towards me then stop short
Making their point clear -- you don’t belong here.


POEM #2

"Rain and You"

I married you for your stubbornness--
your faithful kind of dry republican love
which doesn't go astray no matter
what wet foolishnes your wife embraces
about war, the rights of dolphins, or hybrid cars.

So when you refused to leave the bleacher
sat the late-night South Dakota rodeo
in a freezing, badlands downpour,
our loyal daughter by your side,
both of you with red checked bandanas
protecting your necks,
surrounded by cowboys and their sweethearts
twanging the National Anthem

I tried to love being soaked for your sake.

And when you refused to leave the ocean
and return to the third-world boat
of the foreign snorkeling expedition
braving insurgent waves, guerrila rain
and strikes of Caribbean lightning,
you in a rubber mask and capitalist flippers
swimming with the global tide
and me frantic, tugging our tiny girl
back to the domestic shore

I tried to love being soaked for your sake.

And when you refused to leave the highway
heading south through the Carolinas
in a rented tire-worn Ford, born-again roads
slickened by tailwinds of a holy hurricane,
revival church signs crashing to the ground,
magnolia limbs snapping and radios warning
of Christ's last coming

I tried to love being soaked for your sake.

So now when it's your turn
to be heartbroken, to cry a full straight rain,
I am foolish enough to stay put and rescue you,
my highway-flying, storm-diving bandana-waving
homeland crusader you, my stubborn wet love.


POEM #3

Grass Clippings

Its summertime in the suburbs
and I’m stuck with this crepe
paper judo heat-wave. The ranch
style homes with their two point
three kids and half of a dog
are mirrors in a clichéd Bond

villains wet dream. I sweat
and sweat like a thousand hole
punches of water beading off
my bed of skin. Where is my
puddle, I must not be the rain clouds
or god. Lilly-white and semi-formal

I own this tux and these scarred
jean shorts. El Nino can only
make this lawn more green –
the predictable sunrise of neighborly
compliments, tithing for this year,
will finally be more than fictional.


POEM #4

Missing the Seasons

The gold expanse of hillside, the brevity

of leaf-fall—these you long for even in Florida,

a dream you had of paradise when the wind

cut the clack of bare branches into my father’s bones

(when the thermometer creeps below zero, still

there are roofs to raise, walls to build—the skeletons

of still-fictional shelter). You say you miss

the seasons, and I think you mean the seasons’ change,

not the winter but the day you feel it coming.

I swear I feel that here, the way fall smells not like

summer, the way the air changes color, the way spring

swells the mild winter with flower-like leaves.

Even so, I know why you miss the familiar rituals.

Mama, I miss quiet mornings in your house

even though I’ve outgrown the bed that was mine.

You miss the seasons the way I miss the Sabbath,

the formal creak of church pews, the rustle of many

good people kneeling to pray, the sweep of fallen leaves.