HUNTING OWLS
      Peter Garner
      (The Atlantic Online)

She counts owls not sheep--

night vision picks out every one
she's ever bagged: the great horned

that woke her at three with resolute
hooting, the two saw-whets

one snow-covered November afternoon
only a short tramp through the brush
from each other, the hawk owl

that spent the winter on her street
strafing voles in the stubble out back,
the curious great gray

that flew down to get a better look
after she ducked behind a tree to reload,
a squall of snowies, most picked off
light standards or telephone poles.

She talks to barred owls before a shoot,
exchanging recipes and gossip. One chatted for an hour
after a solar eclipse, not realizing how late it was.
And she dreams of a barn owl,

so rare in these parts. Eventually, she'll pack
the lenses and fly south, but tonight
fantasy will suffice: a heart-shaped face

gleams at her from a sagging hayloft,
waits until she leaves

because the night is long.

I STAY WITH MR. GEORGE
      Warren C. Norwood
      (Poets.org)

I stay with Mr. George.
Been staying here for sixty years today.
Daddy told the preacher I was fifteen,
but I'm seventy-two and Mr. George is eighty.
After my first baby, I didn't want no more.

This evening all four of my girls
with my grandbabies will be here,
and both my sons.
They'll want to take pictures of me
hugging Mr. George in his wheelchair.
They can take what they want.
I ain't hugged him in forty years,
no need to start today.

Been staying here in this same house
all these years tending to him
like my mama told me I had to.
I wipe the oatmeal off his face
and clean him up in the bathroom.
The walls of this old house are so thin
I have to listen to him snore every night,
but I got no place else to stay--
and wouldn't want to stay no place else
'cause I'm used to staying here.

Mr. George don't bother me much anymore.
I sit him in his chair on the porch
and let the afternoon sun warm his cold bones.
Then I feed him and put him to bed
and I sit up and read those stories
my granddaughter brings me every week.
The ones I like the best are where
they kill the mean sumbitches in the end
.
She gets them at the book exchange,
and sometimes when Mr. George can't sleep
I read him the good parts,
and so's he don't lose interest,
I add some good parts myself,
all the details about how the bad ones die,
until he waves his hand.
“That's awful stuff,” he says.
“No more than mean folk deserve,” I answer.
Then I leave him alone to wonder and sleep.

I stayed with Mr. George for sixty years,
best you believe we understand each other.
He'll die one day soon.

The choir at Antioch Baptist Church
will sing hallelujah over his coffin
when Mr. George goes someplace else to stay.
I believe I'll stay right here by myself,
sit on the porch, rock, read my stories,
and say my thanks for the peace and rest.

UPON VISITING SANDBURG'S HOMEPLACE
      Kenneth Ashworth
      (Writer's Block)

There's a turnstile where prize
roses once stood, and for two bucks
I can stand where you stood pissing
after a hard night of black
coffee and endless revision.

Presbetyrians have joined the fence line;
an old umbilicus of Gloria Patri
refrains from summer youth camp.
The lake where you'd dance rainbow
from the tip of a hook before breakfast,
has a sign in knee-deep water:
“Use of Flat Rock Residents Association”

It is all gone-- the heave and strive
of empire, sweaty, stripped to the waist,
ring of hammer on steel, the smell of coke
in the air, rails giving under
the weight of a passing freight--
gone, this brawling land you loved.

They tell me you watched inconsolate
from your veranda, rings of smoke
through pine boughs, Highland Hospital
burn as Zelda Fitzgerald danced
her best in rooms of fire.

The poet's heart in you was overturned,
refusing food or ink for days,
refusing now to leave this place,
these hills, you son of ashes,
you rusty ghost.

About the InterBoard Poetry Competition
Archive of IBPC Winners
Entries representing the About Poetry Forum, April 2002