Second Place Winner, March 2003 InterBoard Poetry Competition

Poetry

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Poetry

InterBoard Poetry Competition

Second Place Winner, March 2003

FLESH, BLOOD AND DIMENSION
Mary Prenosil
(Moontown Cafe)

why you punish me?

Tic tock, goddamn clock -- make it stop.

Flesh, blood and dimension:

absurd restraint, dainty comments flutter
fine tea china constraint
savin’ it all up for sunday

mass relieved 98% of the mafia
black threaded, beaded --
led through the e-zine, bored
yet note that this round is completed.

there’s things the butcher said to mamma
room temp converts circus freaks
to petrified wood.

not standing or sitting ’round rotund proverbs

So this is the life?
So that is your love?

Sew this mouth shut when truth multiplies multitudes ignorance --
first, they come for second tries.

Nah. Nope. bit of brazen clique, ya’ stutter
door jammed up with your foot that kindly felt out
our lips.

Flesh, blood and dimension

*yawns*

Ain’t no good for ya’ here, little girl. Go on -- git
trailers and wagons is comin’
you don’ wanna’ be next

number in line is 42.

fingers gnaw fancy black keys
feign a little interest at the left bank backlash
-- they’ve served the best --
gods dropped to their knees when she knocked
god’s dropped the children
when mamma said ain’t no good goin’ back.

giddyup, git along
spur your stallion

-- sing alone --

Judge Mark Yakich’s comment: “This poem presents an interesting mixture of ‘high’ and ‘low’ diction -- the gits and giddyups and I-says-then-he-says blue collarness, something which many writers try to do and usually overdo. The balance here is nice, especially butted up against alliterative movements, e.g., ‘feign a little interest at the left bank backlash / -- they’ve served the best -- / gods dropped to their knees when she knocked’.”