| InterBoard Poetry Competition | |
REGRET
Joseph Carcel
(Atlantic Unbound)
Vim vixens-- remember them?--dance
the Platelet Spin, look sharp
as scissors, cut out
concepts beyond Thomas's doubt.
It starts a simple two step
until frenzy carries them.
I didn't know that bones could
bend that way, she said.
The famished farmer
reads seed packets, envious
of the wind. The ghost
tries to kindle comfort:
We all start
somewhere, in a howl,
a patella’’s jerk,
a doctor's stern look
up the vagina.
Oh, such fancy vestibules,
housing the mystery of repetition.
Floods, not Noah's, flames, not Lot's
but inklings of petals,
soggy either with nurturing rain
or with mortal mnemonic blood,
rising to the sun,
rising red to cry
or spew sons
into Darwin's ghetto.
Pleasure, like a thimble
on a thumb, protects
us from the realization of raw servitude
to the dumb gears that grind tears
to seed, to bread, to vomit
nameless in their forsaking.
A gaunt guitarist
thumbs an anthem.
The ants dance
glottal curves,
grunt like internecine parrots
pecking at the space of heart.
We are wide in the ranging
of masquerading mind.
The dancers think they think
the only news.
But they die lowly, not differently,
to Bach, to Berry as to hip-hop
gutturals, drawers billowing
like flowers, from flowers
dropping petal and seed
…Pressed memory in Bibles!
spastic in their conundrums,
but they see only smoothness
in their eyes' mirrors.
Oh, evil genius of all
Spanish Prisoners
So, heave your
original breaths
that steam even those mirrors
until you can't see yourselves.
This is interdiction
of all but lucky spasm
without mirrors.
This ecology mesmerizes.
Suddenly last summer
is the only wish.
LETTING GO, from DELOS
Debra Lievens
(Atlantic Unbound)
i.
She sings her disappearance
like adieu, gilded,
the era of bells tolling,
the slow fading: film’s white to gray,
credits rolling at the end.
Still, her aria
rings above her shrinking frame,
towers, then contracts --
her claim to solitude expanding;
the anointing of dusk before pitch,
her sanctuary, horizon’s shading light
pointed at the copper underbelly
of silence,
her own parading conversations
…..slipping mute into release.
We listen in, familial edges losing ground --
…..the echoing pledges of allies nearly present.
Rapt, her paling face
slows kindly;
solace scoops out its velvet nest,
its resting place, this scratchy hibernation.
In the tender palm of her chair,
embracing worn letters
with fingers still exquisite,
only the racing squirrels
witness her leisurely departure,
barter at her window,
wise to the dusted sparrows
squabbling over crumbs
and her attention.
She replies to them all,
whistles her giving, her solo,
her melancholy quarter-grin offered
to the invisible applause
of friends,
the laudable mention
of distant recall --
…..while the pull of tide going out
…..renovates her sliding in, castles yielding.
ii.
Ancient islands of the Aegean
pace their seasons,
sliced and pocked by tourists
swarming to hone wonder for themselves:
the breeding of oracles,
one-eyed titans forming,
gods greater than reason.
…..I wander, seeking:
…..the journey’s promise,
…..the trusted hand of my lover
…..drinking my own governmental pleasure;
…..the lanes of collar and neck,
…..thicket of strong limbs
…..steering, tongues caught on breath
…..like cinders in a cry of brick,
…..searing, then curling away --
From the pyre of riddling heat
to the slate blown shimmer of basting rock,
I grieve for the organic.
Everywhere the dead touch,
the honoring of ruins,
…..the melting of lapis,
absence wooing beauty:
the aged coupling, the rain-fed sweet,
the festival, the fast.
In the temple, opulence once wed
the dancing of fruit;
its flowering granted, then passed to the next
with gangling blooms soaring,
…..then losing scent --
the fleeting islet of shoots,
the chanting of sea grass,
this stark plain of barren earth
spent and discoloring,
adjoined to ages
that set their feathering roots
to wet haven, adorned,
moored in amber arcing light.
Ogling my own adventure,
I preen --
the climbing up, avaricious --
O the plenitude! The power
of pinnacle reached!
…..Then the slow and reluctant
…..trailing down, bright regret
clamoring for the jutting ledge,
glimmering in the encroaching pool,
the stammering beach --
The night runner amasses his laurels,
cool in his cloudy crown,
the vital passing the weary --
the going up,
…..the coming down,
the heavy robe of elation.
iii.
Once, she cruised these seas
on a great ship, the time of great ships;
the resolute view of the young.
…..Was this her sacred berth
…..like mine, this filtered place
…..of honeyed dust? Her loving
…..sung in clean bungalows
…..of white and blue, midnight stretches cool
…..under tender foot?
Blistering in my own
red descent from Delos,
I look beyond:
to lands cantilevered --
companionable pillars of sea foam smoke.
I look outward:
rugged hands of coast;
downward:
the delicate lift, seductive shallows.
I listen:
time sifts through the musing
bells of sirens,
the cry of spirits,
the agonizing beauty
of the climb.
The jagged line
of burnished rock clatters
against the azure sky.
Showers peal
their chill resounding duty,
greeting ragged cliff and flats,
…..pounding present from past,
…..the brittle seat of defection.
iv.
Blazing in its heat,
the liquidation of races
cleaves its own shrill metallic shadow,
deadbolt slabs fork and heave,
deliberate steps,
…..the allure of the kill,
…..of razing civilization.
We hum and croon the erection
of grand monument.
We mourn the fall,
…..bronzed images cast relentlessly
…..from grace, dreams sucked from lips --
I circle a thought:
one toe tracing a milky stone
in the dismissive water --
Facing the long path down,
her winnowing song of flesh and bone
braced itself
long after spirit bent, and gave.
Only the lilting of branches
brushed against her window’s glass
aroused a quickening
at the end:
a fluttering recollection of pleasure,
the colors of voyage,
eyes hushed
in the skirmishing of grave whispers,
beating of wings.
v.
Gathered up around her intent,
…..a shuttering shawl, her prayer,
the cruel closing of portals
renders her once glorious ride
a flicker --
…..the passionate press of stippling air
…..against my own stranger’s gaze--
At last, I surrender
to letting go,
the palest epitaph of salt and wind,
reclusive flight, her eloquent choice,
our bridge of sandy sorrow.
I surrender, chasing still
the perfect holding of her trebled voice;
the scattering of rest, slaking of loss;
one pebble,
breaking against the returning tide.
Judge Robert Sward's comment: “Ambitious, readable and exciting poems with intriguing wit, word play, humor, musicality and considerable intelligence.”
About the InterBoard Poetry Competition
Archive of IBPC Winners
2nd Place Winner, April 2001
