| InterBoard Poetry Competition | |
Donna Willis (H@RlZ) REUNION AT PARKER COUNTY GENERAL Terry Lucas (Bardone1) Mustansir DalviIF YOU WERE
If you were a place
you would be my heaven
a vision beyond peace
beyond all everything
If you were a song
you would sound like morning
when the birds start singing
and the day is born
If I were a tree
I would protect you
through all seasons with my outstretched arms
and my big soft leaves
If I were a book
my title would be you and
every time I was picked up
my words would all be new
If you were a thought
you could be on my mind always
because nothing else
compares to you I know
If you were a sound
I would play you back so many times
you would swear that the words come from my soul
If I were your shadow
I would follow you in the sun
and go inside you in the cold
If you were a fragrance
I would sprinkle you behind my ears
so that every time I took a breath
I could smell you from within
If we were to never see
each others’ smiles or touch each others’ skin
I want you to know
I wouldn’t pass up the chance
to do this all over again
Momma, of course, was the first to arrive, always the one
for punctuality, this time she added newsworthy
options--a siren and flashing lights to announce her entrance.
I didn’t get my invitation until after the table was set,
so I was fashionably late, like always--
my hair was a mess--and as we ran up the steps, I saw my excuse
for a three-pack-a-day habit and a size twenty dress
being wheeled into the OR. In the waiting room, the Hostess
Twinkies and Orange Crush broke the ice with our new neighbors,
who held up doorways until the festivities from pagers
lured them outside to light up cell phones and cigarettes.
The next day, more cousins came from out west, carrying paisley
suitcases and noisy paper sacks, with questions about air
bags and crepe suzette. It went on like that for a week,
eating Swedish Fish, sleeping, and watching reruns of Dr. Kildare.
Then it was over--we didn't get together again
until Pop’s trial, three years later, after he got caught
cutting the brake lines on Momma’s new Mercedes--I think
we had potato pancakes.
ELVIS PRESLEY BLVD
There’s a singing fish in Primrose Café
asking if you are lonesome tonight.
Denney, mine host, displays his toys
as he mixes cocktails-collar upturned,
scowl mouth: Honeh, you lied to me.
It’s the off season, but he is glad
of any business, even giggling Goenkors
a third his age, four times his complexion.
The King had his Vegas; he has his
Elvis Presley Blvd, down Sangolda way,
land of Grace in Goa.
Denney wakes to eggs and Tai Chi,
memories of Yorkshire that he discards
like butts from guitar-shaped trays.
He wipes his sagging tattoos: ‘Baby,
Let’s Play House’ and ‘Friedberg 3rd Div.’
with a soapy dishcloth that works better
on his jukebox, which glows as he checks
for scratches on his 45s: they’re
all right, Mama. Tables reflect
menus from truck-stops in Tupelo,
variations on Sun Sessions covers,
facsimiles of first drafts by Lieber & Stoller,
and pictures of Rita,
his Priscilla, who chain smokes
Charminars in the balcao
of the Primrose, considers wall-frames
chronicling her days as a groupie,
that covered the Ages of Rock
from early Smokie to later G&R.
With every exhale she hopes
with unfiltered certainty
that Elvis will leave the building.
MORE ABOUT THE IBPC...
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Poems entered from About Poetry Forum, 2003
Poems entered from About Poetry Forum, 2002
Poems entered from About Poetry Forum, 2001
