| InterBoard Poetry Competition | |
Terry Lucas (Bardone1) Mitchell Geller (EDowson) Larry A. Tilander (FIGFARMER)PICTURES OF THE BISTI
How her best friend, Kip, who was her lover
just that one time on the bus trip
their senior year in college, blanket
in the back seat, under four corners
moon, somewhere in New Mexico
between the Bisti Badlands and Angel Peak,
told her—
“When you're drunk, the shutter is wide open,
the F-number is bigger
than the weight of two brains combined,
but there’s no film in the camera
and who’s to say what love is
when captured?”
How she’d seen pictures
of one-armed grooms with torn satin lapels
curled up inside Jerry Falwell
Old Time Gospel Bibles, ripped apart by in-laws
from white taffeta gowns, grand
children floating in the air, holding balls
of white-out between their legs, bodiless
arms lifting them up on ponies, giraffes, leaping
goats, horse-head barber chairs,
sea monsters with double tails—an offering
of saddles and blankets of wood
on a carousel of matched pairs.
How she still drank wild
photons that left no tracks,
still rode the soft blanket
of unopened love.
VILLANELLE FOR AN ENGLISH PROFESSOR
He bores us in a hundred different ways,
This endless cornucopia of quotes,
This master of unparalleled clichés.
With every glib MLA Journal phrase,
(Recalled from furtive fannings through his notes)
He bores us in a hundred different ways.
You catch him off his guard, and he betrays
A local accent – is it Terre Haute’s? –
This master of unparalleled clichés.
And though the erudition he displays
Seems genuine, when he over-emotes
He bores us in a hundred different ways.
For classrooms simply aren’t the same as plays,
Despite the histrionics he promotes,
This master of unparalleled clichés.
He rants and raves, insensate to the daze
That fills the room, the yawn-constricted throats.
He bores us in a hundred different ways,
This master of unparalleled clichés.
THE DROWNING OF DIRTY BILL
Fishing, smiling, whistles, ice axe.
Greasy dirty clothes.
Pocket, dew worms, hook and sinker.
Through the ice it goes.
Wine, some plastic, laughing, sunlight.
Lay out on his back.
Creaks and groans, snap, ice is shifting.
Slips into a crack.
Gasping, flailing, grasping, screaming;
Bubbles, bitter bath.
Numbing, freezing, milky sunlight.
Momentary wrath.
Peaceful, floating, bright light, Mother!
Heaven, dying thrill.
Break up, springtime, fish are feeding.
Good-bye Dirty Bill.
MORE ABOUT THE IBPC...
Most recent poems entered from About Poetry Forum
Poems entered from About Poetry Forum, 2003
Poems entered from About Poetry Forum, 2002
Poems entered from About Poetry Forum, 2001
