WITHOUT THE BREEZE

I seen one time the body of a scent,
in curls and threads about the body of the breeze
the name and story of a loaf of bread;
silent caravan of crumb and steam en route
through the dying orange embers of my favorite trees
neither would have been November without the other
and that’s why I think as they blisfullyfully elope
that autumn is nothing without the breeze,
a time without a place, and
just as hollow, unfulfilling
as a crust without the crumb within

when we looked up from the blanket,
which covered the earth and enveloped our backs
the limbs might have well have extended forever
they were our horizontal walls, as they unfurled
in burly brown maple and kept intact
our silent and unmoving, yet sighing and rolling,
horizontal little world

her and the tree,
neither would have been November without the other
the tips of my fingers on their limbs making me sink
through the blanket and into whatever depths mother nature
had us laid upon
and this was not the first time... nor the last that my hands
inherited the momentum of molasses
and she had that glint of brown sugar in her eyes
but under that tree I ground her hips like fresh nutmeg
and had me a slice of cherry pie
three days later I was still licking my lips

a couple years later I saw a photo,
a tree that looked just like ours, though the
limbs unfurled only across maybe half of a lawn
the ground looked a few degrees colder than,
though really quite similar to the one we then laid upon
we were not in the picture, but there was a man
there, within the folds of National Geographic
with a stiffness in his shoulders, and
an empty limpness in his hands
laid, though not horizontally,
with a rope around his neck
I’m pretty sure that he was
well, you know,
a negro

and though I’m sure it didn’t smell
or taste quite the same, to say the least
the autumnal leaves still rolled by, each trailing an
unseen, unanchored, autumnal leash
and through the stillness of the photo I could see
the wind turning and tumbling each leaf, as it
shows each orange slice of autumn for both of its sides
as it does with each autumn leaf that falls from any autumn tree
and that’s why I think as I fold up the leaves of the National Geographic
that autumn is nothing without the breeze

Sam Packard (Ilalex)

WHY I STOPPED BEING GOOD

I turned in all my homework assignments
on time, proper spelling and my name, as demanded,
in the upper left hand corner.
I ironed my daddy’s pants and cleaned up
when mama was sick.
I won the essay contest that the
American Legion advertised in the news, my name
in the upper left hand corner.
When the babies cried, I borrowed sugar and
made them lemonade without the lemons.
I never yelled when Grandma threw her hairbrush at me,
but I helped her can those tomatoes.
In Sunday School, I colored Jesus yellow,
taped the page on the wall, my name
in the upper left hand corner.
When Sharon died at two years old, I left school early
to pick out her dress and coffin.
When Daddy went to jail, I went to work
washing dishes and peeling shrimp.
I wrote my name on all the paychecks, there
in the upper left hand corner.
The teachers gave me extra work for falling asleep
and I always turned it in, margins neat,
on time and ahead, with my name
in the upper left hand corner.
When Jim was shot at work in the store
I went to the morgue and signed the release.
On the bottom line, the very bottom.

Joyce Wakefield

MORE ABOUT THE IBPC...

General information

Archive of winning poems

Most recent poems entered from About Poetry Forum

Poems entered from About Poetry Forum, 2005

Poems entered from About Poetry Forum, 2004

Poems entered from About Poetry Forum, 2003

Poems entered from About Poetry Forum, 2002

Poems entered from About Poetry Forum, 2001