Honorable Mentions, January 2009 InterBoard Poetry Competition

Poetry

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Poetry

InterBoard Poetry Competition

Honorable Mentions, January 2009

TASTE BUDS OF CHILDREN AND MOCK ADULTS *Thane Zander* (Blueline Poetry Forum) We bleed on pavements decorated in childish flowers, discharge our vehemence in toilet bowls swallowing large tracts of shit, shyte, shovel it out and spread onto a garden decorated with summer’s hues, placate the dandelion as it swims aloft on wispy winds, seeking Monarch Butterflies to caress in death throes, excrete your discontentment on the laps of executives when the family savings invested in stocks, tumble like a dryer on spin cycle, the cold cycle reserved for her husbands dying corduroys, the colour sticking to off white socks and travel brochures from a back pocket, ready to fly first class with crumpled shirts and dungarees wearing thin around the butt, years of sitting at a computer and conversing to faceless names, except the ones that lie when they post an avatar of indifference and cheek, swallow the last Rhubarb sandwich on a plate filled with regret and woes leftover like a dying man’s left testicle after an operation to cure the cancer of his family passed down to him, his brother long dead and buried in another garden setting, flowers in pots and agee jars no lid required, the dried arrangement last longer in summer’s sun, We eat curdled milk, drink dipped honey crusties, pass the jam so youngun’s can leave a bloody trail on the white tablecloth, and the ants and bees can leave a tell tale sign of their visit, my wife said she could smell ants, me; I avoid bees like the plague.


TALKING TERROR *Sachi Nag* (The Writer’s Block) On our way to Fundy City in ten inches of snow, a familiar cab driver asked me if I lost anyone in those sixty hours of Mumbai. We couldn’t take our eyes off the Christmas lights, and the carols on the airwaves, so haunting, we were feeling kinship in the gravy of victimhood, when the hardened ice beneath the slush stunned the front tyres, and we skidded rear-ending a parked van and spun over the edge into a pile of snow from last year. Strangers stopped by with shovels and hooks, powering us out. We dusted jackets, shook hands; restarted, slow, almost like roadkill, eyes riveted along the routine way — now as sinuous as a strange white feathered boa — the cabbie’s sure hands shaking at the wheel.