Gulf Coast Poets Chapter
Poetry Competitions
2008 Winners
Page updated 1/6/2009
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2007 Winners have been moved to a separate page.
Contest: Home in a Cardboard Box
Winner: Richard Peake
Contest Sponsor: R. J. Clarken
Contemplating Restoration
Children find cardboard boxes tempting toys
whose potent charms enchant both girls and boys.
So, aged and homeless, men and women find
cardboard boxes give warmth and peace of mind
enabling them to face their daily trials,
allowing them to think their lives have style
recalling a time of life much simpler.
Looking at our house gutted to avid
the sodden, moldy walls that Ike destroyed,
I think that a cardboard box can deter
the loss of goods and anguish felt as costs
we must bear as we contemplate our loss.
Furniture, wallboard, and panels tossed out,
our box shows us what we can do without.
© 2008 Richard Peake
Contest: Ancient Things
Winner: Carol Dee Meeks
Contest Sponsor: Richard Peake
Zeus’ Zone
Did nature’s force destroy the sturdy walls
of Zeus’ new home when moved like ships’ raze,
and placed inside a mundane site of hails
where Doric style or temples needed glee?
Did gods form Greece whose statue, sprouts like spire
in gold and dentine stones and precious gems?
His throne of legs wore sphinxes and winged attire
as golden robe and sandals show his stems.
But czars regaled and sought the times of land
‘cause where they lived wore roots—Olympic games.
The wars would stop. The sports of brands were grand.
To win the prize in Zeus’ right hand made names.
His might was vast and why he sat in chairs
and all compare these facts to jaunt like fares.
© 2008 Carol Dee Meeks
Member Contest
Winner: Richard Peake
Goodbye Ike
Wither wind?—gone, hurricane, gone
with water surge; dank dawn leaves on
boulevard life’s wreckage littering
with useless goods, discovers
no more electric lights yet on.
With mosquito bites, we suffer
flotsam, jetsam, toys left in scorn
by our tike, Ike, child no tougher
than nineteen hundred surge waters—
they washed East End to new quarters,
houses built on sand. Don’t build
there. Heed biblical injunctions:
sand houses fall, hurricanes kill
brave doubters without compunction.
Ask Crystal Beach and dead Gilchrist
what the hurricane had to say
when they accepted its wind’s tryst
when little Ike came here to play.
Winds form Africa, blow winds blow—
we watch and fear where you may go.
© 2008 Richard Peake
Contest: Mountains in the Distance
Winner: Von S. Bourland
Contest Sponsor: Mary Ann Goodwin & Richard Peake
North of Capitan
Upended stump on a hillside
statuesque amid wild grasses
cedar trees
sagebrush.
Bark Curls
like taupe,
tangled strands of hair.
Clay silt
clings
to barren roots.
Blood-red Paintbrush blooms
nestle
in the shade
in the crook
of cradled limbs.
Twisted branches
wave
to distant mountain peaks—
a good afternoon salute.
© 2008 Von S. Bourland
Contest: War: Give us our Daily Dead
Winner: Richard Peake
Contest Sponsor: Mary Margaret Carlisle
American Graveyard in Manila
We climb to the cemetery
where traffic sounds seem worlds away
as we enter through iron gates
from the grime of the city’s streets
to a green world with white crosses
set carefully in tended laws.
under leafed trees where small birds sing
songs lost in chimes of carillon
inviting our gaze at war maps
and words describing the battles
that grew the many markers here.
As the chimes cease and silence comes
to match our thoughts’ solemnity,
we honor our too-silent hosts.
I recall newsreels of tired troops
in their retreat tending their wounds
and eating their meager rations,
but films that Hollywood produced
to honor warriors’ valor
have not prepared me for the beauty
and quietness where doves and white-eyes
fly gracefully among the dead
to keep watch on white stone crosses
standing in solemn attention
at readiness for visitors
who gawk and talk, but leave in awe.
© 2008 Richard Peake
Member Contest
Winner: Richard Peake
Norfolk’s East Main Street, 1948
Seagulls scavenge the harbor at sunset
behind the buildings of East Main Street moving
to night while the waterfront crowd forgets
sunlight and welcomes flashy neon kings.
Sarcastic brilliant candescence displays
beer and burlesque and tattoo parlor signs
playing of the feet of the sailors away
from their ships for night of women and wine.
People hurry, hurry, as car horns shout
and trolleys clang as the street races on
until the mists of muddy morning rout
humanity, whose hopes have proved still born.
© 2008 Richard Peake
Contest: Strong Light Casts Dark Shadows
Winner: Richard Peake
Contest Sponsor: Diana Dettling Buckley
Lighting Up with Flash
A blinding light changes dark to daylight
for brief, very transitory moment—
like battlefields at night lit up by shells
exploding, or lightning flash in night storm.
Photographs taken with a flash bulb
throw brightness on a subject in dim light
but leave the background in dark shadow.
I have a picture taken with photoflash
of me with a ring-tailed lemur wrapped around
my neck at a place called Ifaty
on Madagascar. It is hard to tell
which of us is flashing the widest grin;
we star out from the photo happily
ignoring the deep shadow of background
squalor. The lemur was a pet, not wild,
and did not know the beauty of threes
in which his relative still roamed free.
He dwelled in an unnatural atmosphere
as dark as the shadows in our photo
where he will live as a prized negative.
© 2008 Richard Peake
Member Contest
Winner: Richard Peake
Bound by Time
I
He told her she looked
younger than her published age—
she did not forget;
she can remember
lost of things form long ago—
new things she forgets.
She remembered that
compliment for many days—
mostly she forgets.
II
Deceitful mental
tricks baffle her and others
who will not believe
that age has withered
her ability to hold
new memories fast.
III
Rememb’ring the past,
but enjoying the moment
could bring happiness
if only present
time might be maintained outside
a time-bound context.
© 2008 Richard Peake
Contest: Butterflies or Iris
Winner: Mona Follis
Contest Sponsor: Richard Peake
Cold Snap
Frost sparkles on dead grass,
undulates across roof tops.
A few stubborn leaves still cling
to their mother trees. In the protected
flowerbeds the Mexican milkweed offers
stripped spires to the cold air while a few
elongated leaves hear the base
of the plant, unaffected
by the sudden overnight Norther,
are consumed by the ravenous jaws
of the fat, striped Monarch caterpillar.
Soon, maybe today, he will climb
his last journey to an enunciated eave,
wrap himself in Death’s shroud
and wait for the transformation
to freedom’s flight.
© 2008 Mona Follis
Contest: Giving Something Back
Winner: Jeanette Oestermyer
Contest Sponsors: Richard Peake & Anonymous Poet
The Artist Remembers
What course will I take today
in my search for inspiration
to find subjects bold, some old?
Each one an artist’s dream, a scheme
remnants left to stand alone, tried by time,
chunks of a whole once served a purpose.
Wire fences ahe stood through years
to keep creatures in or out.
Now, in this wintry scene, they stand
in snow piled high on battered posts,
lean from the weight and wind.
Lowly country fences marked boundaries,
a mere part of what was left alone
to look across the white expanse beyond
as it stretches forever. No house, life nil.
Distant gnarled leafless tree bends
in submission to the elements.
Years have left this unique scene of simple
beauty, rare humility, for one artist
to resurrect on canvas.
© 2008 Jeanette Oestermyer
Member Contest
Winner: Richard Peake
I’m Dying to Know
When I have thoughts that I must cease to be
and leave the part I’ve played in time’s fast flow,
where I stand in God’s great plan baffles me.
Life’s grand web will continue when I go
to join other flesh enriching earth.
Trilobites and dinosaurs preceded me,
followed by mice and mammals of great girth
long before my primate forebears forsook trees.
The myriad forms of genetic code
show something rich and strange beyond pure chance,
and science unravels Nature’s complex ode,
but folks that don’t fancy gross primate king
fear evolutionary thoughts enchant
science, creating an unholy din.
They grow daft when faced with scientific chants
and DNA. Some wise men claim to know
how the designs of God must surely go;
they’ve seen the plan and curse anyone who can’t,
pride or hubris names the sin their words descant.
To the grim revelry of grave I’ll go
to fulfill my little part. Then I’ll know.
© 2008 Richard Peake
Contest: Barbeque
Winner: RJ Clarken
Contest Sponsor: Oscar Peña
Guess who gets the Credit?
She cooks up potato salad, hot wings, beans
slices the onion, lettuce, tomato and
in advance, buys glow sticks for friends of her teens,
cleans house, buys soda, makes fruit cobbler by hand.
Encourage by beer, he hands out in the sun
with all of the guys. He is having such fun.
Casually, he flips the burgers, as someone toasts,
“For all his hard work! To our host – well done!”
© 2008 RJ Clarken
Contest: Fireworks
Winner: Mona Follis
Contest Sponsor: Oscar Peña
Meteor Watch
In high country where the flat,
plowed earth was overwhelmed
by the sky we lay on our backs
in the soft summer grass
long past midnight
waiting and watching,
wanting to be the first
to spot a falling star,
believing we would be granted
our most fantastic wish.
With our sons we sat
on the house roof,
feet propped at an angle,
reclining into the night,
defining the earth’s rotation
by noted constellations
as we waited for the
expected Leonid shower.
We counted out loud
during the streaming burns,
willing them to last,
awed at their magnificence,
and our own insignificance, the display
more exciting than any
on the Fourth of July.
So quick and sure were they
we appointed our sons
to do the sighting,
we’d already had our wishes,
unaware our time
as a family of four
was burning as fast
as a random chunk of rock
entering an unfamiliar
atmosphere, its path unavoidable.
© 2008 Mona Follis
Contest: Evergreen
Winner: Mary Ann Goodwin
Contest Sponsor: Anonymous Poet
Pecan Years
The two pecan trees wave at me
through the upstairs study window.
Their leaves flitter hunter’s green and chartreuse,
teasing sunlight stealing past cumulus clouds.
Whether they will bear this year, I cannot tell.
Three successive years they have been barren.
But, oh, how fervently they conceived
in that chosen year of fecundity.
Worn and weary form bending and stooping
we left generous gleaning for the squirrels.
They scavenged, sacrificing their show-off play
of tree-limb acrobatics and electric line high-wire acts.
In the following years, the trees gave
no outward sign of exhaustion.
In seeming revenge for their arduous labor,
they simply refused to bear.
Have they had enough of their ill-humored retaliation?
Will they give again?
The squirrels and I want to know.
© 2008 Mary Ann Goodwin
Contest: Wisdom of Friendship
Winner: Carol Dee Meeks
Contest Sponsor: Anonymous Poet
Together we Travel the Same Path
Touched by a mental power,
I recognize your good practical judgment,
your knowledge,
your friendly feelings—
and for forty-four years
I’ve accepted your fine wine.
Some think you disrespect me,
dominate me. Truth is,
we are a couple—
still individuals.
Been friends so long
we think, feel, and say
the same things. thus—
two cups of fine wine.
Lovers, friends
a holy union,
joy shared
grief divided
on the path we travel together.
© 2008 Carol Dee Meeks
Member Contest
Winner: Richard Peake
Needle Point
Some folk seek the peak
of pink, red, and yellow leaves—
they think it seasonal.
Leaf fall depends on
the species these leaves adorn,
and when they sport the green.
Maples, beech and oak,
deciduous, are not green
during winter scenes.
Spruces, firs and pines,
evergreens, display their sheen
throughout the winter.
A heavy leaf fall
depends on deciduous
trees that shed at once
when cold nights arrive.
Evergreens shed slowly, free
to form needle duff.
So evergreen trees
don’t thrill those who seek the peak
and flee steady state.
But bright bloom and fruit
come form plants that change color
to display their wares.
What flowered beauty
we would lose if deciduous
trees failed bloom this spring.
© 2008 Richard Peake
Month/Year: June 2008
Contest: Raven’s Wing
Winner: Richard Peake
Contest Sponsor: Ivy Kaminsky
Aerial Acrobats
A guttural call above alerts me
so I look up just in time to see
the diamond tail, the heavy beak, black wings
of the raven acrobatics overhead.
Birds of mystery, tricks, and arcane things
in human lore, harbingers of the dead
flew northern battlefields where warriors bled
before the Valkyries rode down to seize
them to bask in warmth of Valhalla’s light.
But I think longer of wings in the breeze
as raven pairs create acrobatic tease
to show their joy in exuberance of flight.
For safety, they rest on high, rocky cliffs
and test their wings in airy hieroglyphs.
© 2008 Richard Peake
Contest: Compassion/Justice
Winner: Kay Cox
Contest Sponsor: Ivy Kaminsky
Deductible not Met
All I wanted was a postcard, not a drama
I’m in it now, reluctant player
waiting for my turn to pay.
“$362.43,” speaks the pharmacist from behind the counter
Tremors run through the tiny wrinkled body standing in front of me
as she struggles with her wallet in a worn and ancient bag.
“Before I only paid $20.00”
“Deductible not met,” replies a firm authority.
“That can’t be true,” she says.
“Give me back my paper. I’ll take it someplace else.”
“Sorry, can’t do that,” he says.
“It’s in our system now, can’t be removed.”
Filled with empathy and anger
I want to jump up on the counter
scream and holler, call it wrong, wrong, wrong
then pay her crazy bill.
But I don’t.
I don’t have that much money, I need the medicine today,” she says.
“Just give me back my prescription.”
He shakes a no, looks beyond her shrinking form.
“Next, please,”
Her hand falls limply to her side, she turns and walks away.
“Don’t make a scene, don’t interfere,
not much time to stay, really not my business,” I tell myself.
“Hell’s bells,” says the other voice.
“Someone needs to speak, to stand against injustice.”
The tourist self takes over, wrapped in a cloak of guilt.
I walk toward my family waiting in the car
but I never, ever forget this old woman.
© 2008 Kay Cox
Contest: Running on Empty
Winner: Mona Follis
Contest Sponsor: Ivy Kaminsky
Night Light
Yesterday I thought I still had a lot to do.
Energy waning, needle near empty, yet I dreamed on –
artist endeavors, filing away intricate
designs in my mind, like a writer
with an agenda, contracts in the drawer,
or notebooks full of self-indulgent
scribbling. Everything was important
yesterday. I look again at the paper
in my hand. Nothing’s changed;
everything’s changed. The night
is short, I must check my future.
Dreams have disappeared
like the dark. I walk outside to glimpse
the first light of day.
© 2008 Mona Follis
Contest: Horses on the Ridge
Winner: Ivy Kaminsky
Contest Sponsor: Sol Magazine Projects
Chincoteague Island
Silhouetted at sunset
Wild ponies in the swamp
Stamping, restless, tense
They know we are watching
Unbroken
They aim to keep it that way
Instinct informs their animal brains
that we are danger
Seeking to chase them down
Kill them
Prey on them
Savor their bloody flesh
Instinct rules their conditioned reflexes
To flee, to fight, to rebel
to resist the saddle, the bit, the reins
Yet in time, they will learn what horses have learned
Down through the ages
That we worship them
Their strength, their grace, their beauty
We long to run as swiftly as they do
And we ride them so we can join them in flight
© 2008 Ivy Kaminsky
Month/Year: May 2008
Contest: Support your Local Poets
Winner: Mary Ann Goodwin
Contest Sponsor: Lynne Streeter
Byways
Unearthing a poem disturbs the psyche—
traversing treacherous trails
hacking through underbrush
pitching head first into pits
stumbling on steep mountains
groping fool’s gold
ignoring the mother lode
Scavenging the poem roller-coasts emotions—
shock stalking the unforeseen
frustration following misdirection
self-doubt annotating failures
satisfaction revenging absurdity
awe rewarding revelation
humility embracing survival
Exhibiting the poem acknowledges hope—
expectation extinguishing exasperation
understanding annihilating antagonism
beauty trouncing brutality
perseverance chastising chaos
compassion engendering healing
heart touching heart
© 2008 Mary Ann Goodwin
Contest: Ode to the Housecat
Winner: Denise Amodeo Miller
Contest Sponsor: None
Vittles and Tea
feline creature of habit
russet striped and spotted white
with emotion
social above all
but you say
no cuddling for you
since you are
too confident in your fur
of days knowing warmth and
an incessant rumbling
run to get your snack
treading upon ceramic tiles
in your loving home
only because I entered the room
you think it time to dine
and so I give in
and watch you as you
shake off that sticky morsel
that doesn’t sit quite right on your tongue
we both listen as it falls on the floor
with a tap tap tap
you glance at it with golden eyes
and decide it is now somehow tainted
so just continue within your feastbowls
of vittles and tea
© 2008 Denise Amodeo Miller
Contest: It’s Not the Thought that Counts
Winner: Ivy Kaminsky
Contest Sponsor: Becky Ellisor
Idiotic Idioms
If you give a mouse a cookie, you’ll wind up with a whole lot of baby mice
On the other hand, if you give a dog a cookie, you’ll end up with a friend for life
If you give a cat a cookie, he’ll just look at you like you’re crazy
You can give a cat a bath but your tongue will get awfully furry
Words speak louder than actions
Words can break bones
A sleeping stone gathers much moss
It’s easier to get the hairspray out of the can than to get it back in
If bees made money instead of honey then money might grow on trees
The truth is like shooting skeet, a moving target
One man’s funny is another man’s pain
It only hurts if you can’t laugh at yourself
You are the only person who truly appreciates your sense of humor
© 2008 Ivy Kaminsky
Contest: Singing Your Name
Winner: Mary Ann Goodwin
Contest Sponsor: Adriana and Luis Vázquez
Here - There
Here,
deep inside the innermost, interior part
of primordial life, where human forms constantly dart
and dodge; frantically seeking an anchor to grasp, to hold,
to steady; where cathartic motions, by cold
harsh winds, cease, settle to nothingness
and drop grotesquely in stupefying numbness,
I am.
There,
far away, eons away; galaxies, universes away;
away, away, away, somewhere in a kind of endless day,
sans time, sans limitations, sans uncertainty,
a fully healed being, soul and spirit relieved of pain, hurt, anxiety
pure and loving beyond reproach, beautiful beyond recognition
wise and knowing, smiling at my condition,
you are.
© 2008 Mary Ann Goodwin
Contest: Hold on for One More Day
Winner: Margo Davis
Contest Sponsor: Adriana and Luis Vázquez
Thin Vision
My chin rests in the crook of Mother’s elbow
until she panics, too, mule-kicking the back of my knee,
forcing me to sink into a fetal curl.
With that third, that final
plunge, as big toe reaches sandy bottom and caws rise
above the whoosh and a slap of churning waters,
my sister coaxes, shake free, swim straight to me.
Is my slender sister frightened? Or is laughter
drowned out by pounding eardrums, my wild heart?
My palms —braceleted baby-fat— scoop water,
breaking loose of Mother’s grasp and aim. I gulp
not fluid but rarified air, flip over
onto my back, stretch out long and wide
as if supported, and float-
no, I back stroke
toward light.
© 2008 Margo Davis
Contest: Member Contest
Winner: Mary Ann Goodwin
Contest Sponsor: None
Xenophobe
This is my
room. My room.
Everything in it belongs to me, matters to me.
No one else is inside. Only me.
The door's locked.
There's only one key. My key.
Do you want in?
Have a good reason.
If I agree, I'll check your credentials.
If you qualify, getting in won't be easy.
You may decide it's not worth the effort.
Will I ever come out, you ask? Doubtful.
If you want in or I want out, I must unlock the door.
And someone must break though all that ice outside.
That's a lot of work. Too much for me.
Unless you're willing to help.
© 2008 Mary Ann Goodwin
Contest: Walking With the Wind
Winner: Rebecca Hatcher Travis
Contest Sponsor: William Turner
Whisper in the Dark
the dead of night
carries her scent
wafting strange dreams
in the rustle of decaying leaves
untamed with her soil laden smells
and the peculiar taste of fear
she rushes quickly through silent streets
a different creature here
this dark wind
strange and changed after nightfall
feel her shift in the lamplight
fade away in unlit places
grow almost calm
then surprise you with a cool brisk chill
around certain corners
hear her whisper in the dark
warning
ever cautious
walking with her
often requires nerve
or a bold display of disregard
© 2008 Rebecca Hatcher Travis
Contest: Ever Yours
Winner: Sandi Stromberg
Contest Sponsor: William Turner
Love, Janis
response to a musical on the life of Janis Joplin
A certain envy invades me
as your life unfolds on the stage.
Not for your companion,
old Southern Comfort, or your home
in heroin. But even in death, you raise
the everlasting question: And had I done
the same? Listened to my inner self
instead of buying conventions: husband
and mortgage, children and job.
A graying chorus belts out “Mercedes Benz”
our voices raucous as yours,
the 60’s pulsing through our veins.
You speak to the twenty-something selves
we left behind as we grew old,
locked in ways you would never choose.
We forget your drive to self-destruct
and think only how it might feel to be
a shooting star across the bright night sky.
© 2008 Sandi Stromberg
Contest: Stand Up, Speak Out
Winner: Debi Fairchild, Pasadena, Texas
Contest Sponsor: Becky Ellisor
Voices
Here I sit
on my little island,
waiting
longing
for somebody.
Anybody, please,
contact me.
Tell me I‘m needed.
The beep sounds,
but the voice doesn’t speak.
I’m so lonely.
“Talk to me.
I need the warmth of your sound.”
But they hang up
once again.
© 2008 Debi Fairchild
Month/Year: February 2008
Contest: Lucky Thirteen
Winner: Katherine Sanger, Dickinson, Texas
Contest Sponsor: Becky Ellisor
dying the day before Valentine’s Day
the facts of the case:
cancer, terminal
hospice, pain management
death rattle, began
since September
we’d been watching and holding our breaths each holiday, hoping
like a Christmas episode of MASH
moving the clock ahead so that the soldier won’t die on Christmas
but now Christmas and New Year’s Day were past
what was left to hang on for?
better to have a holiday that’s untainted
that doesn’t remind us of death
so we waited,
not lucky enough to have Alan Alda at home for caretaking
but lucky enough to not have to equal love and death
as she slipped away in the middle of the night
dying the day before Valentine’s Day
© 2008 Katherine Sanger
Month/Year: February 2008
Contest: Between Myth and Reality
Winner: Ivy Kaminsky, Houston, Texas
Contest Sponsor: Becky Ellisor
Between Myth and Reality
Is a whole lot of why,
Questions, superstition, unexplained phenomena, religion,
Metaphors and even some poetry
The sun marches across the heavens
Someone thinks of a horse drawn chariot
The moon rises in the night time
Someone sees hoe and a beautiful young maiden
A person dies and goes to the afterlife
Someone thinks of a boat trip across a river
Flowers bloom in the spring
Someone thinks of rebirth
Leaves drop from the trees in autumn
Someone thinks of dying
Snow falls from the sky
The gods have dandruff, why not?
Nothing in our world can be left unaccounted for
Stories spring up to answer the unanswerable
A child asks “why”
A mother tells a tale she learned when she was young
A grown man asks “why”
The king, or the pharaoh or the emperor,
Or the emir must have a response
So he turns to his religious ministers,
Or priests or rabbis or imams
They have all the answers
In their little “black” books
No leader can sit on his or her throne
Of gold and most precious stone
And admit that he, or she, doesn’t know the answer
Like a father spinning a bedtime story,
The kin is the father of the people
The wisest, omniscient
Even the mysteries of the gods are known to him
For unlike all the other creatures of the earth,
Humans are the most curious,
The most curious creatures in the universe
So far
© 2008 Ivy Kaminsky
Month/Year: January 2008
Contest: Bird on a Wire
Contest Sponsor: Lulynne Streeter
Winner: Carol Dee Meeks, Artesia, New Mexico
Wires Slow Their Lives as They Soar
A weather vane plays host to barnyards’ owl
as silvered feathers flash disk-streak caught light
His deafness shuns the squalls on heat-veiled plains;
he oversees the yodel crowded stage.
In hoots, he flaunts his curved-nail protein claws,
conductor like, he keeps his notes in time.
His saucer-shaped eyeballs patrol the miles
and spots a mouse evade a cat’s closed eyes.
An owlet couples mothers’ space on rods
like misers’ pad, the space a skin-tight fit.
They soar to oaks where blossoms hang on lobes
and perch like statues, watch some catnap work.
© 2008 Carol Dee Meeks
Month/Year: January 2008
Contest: River and Streams
Contest Sponsor: Lulynne Streeter
Winner: Ivy Kaminsky, Houston, Texas
To the Ocean
Streams whisper along
barely covering their rock-lined bottoms
beginning and ending with the rains
leaving tiny smooth stones to mark the trail for their return
Rivers claim wide avenues across continents
through farmland, forest, desert
adorning themselves with boas of pine tree and deciduous oak
snaking through valleys where they temporarily
conceal themselves from the heat of the sun
Rivers shape their worlds
taking bits of earth with them wherever they travel
pounding the ground until it moves before them
In Alaska river calls itself "glacier"
ripping through rocky mountains
forever sculpting them remolding them
breaking them down
picking up and pushing great boulders along
on a journey to the final destination --
great watery rendezvous known as "sea"
releasing themselves reuniting with long lost friends
sharing adventures, recounting past exploits,
mixing and mingling
Ocean welcomes them all
happily sucking in their energies united
saving it for a day when she feels feisty
or in the mood for a Caribbean vacation
Maybe even a jaunt to the Texas Gulf Coast
Then she gathers her hair into a whirling homage to Medusa
heads for landfall
seeking people and buildings to play with
Sea is only toying with us she means no harm
she just doesn't know her own strength
© 2008 Ivy Kaminsky
Month/Year: January 2008
Contest: Now
Contest Sponsor: Lulynne Streeter
Winner: Penelope L. McFadin, Clear Lake Shores, Texas
What is Now?
That moment in time which all
perception springs
Where my awareness rides the crest of the wave of experience
After which is forever memory and history
Before only speculation and dream of the possible or...
Physically preordained by the laws of probability
Does Time have structure, shape
Is it molded by our experience
Or Gravity
Does duration have breadth as well as length
Are we floating on a flowing river
Or resting on an ocean
With depth and volume
Is Now a moment unique to myself
Or is it common to all of us
Are we surfing the wave front of Time
With no way off
Am I a fish on my own journey
Or a cork bobbing up and down with the waves
What is Now?
© 2008 Penelope L. McFadin
Link for 2007 Winners' List