| InterBoard Poetry Competition | |
FALLING Dan Cox (Maroon2) STILL TOO THICK TO EAT Guy Kettelhack (GuyBlakeKett) HOME Jacob Jans (boplicity)
Our Santa Claus has never heard of Christ,
Or if he has, just in passing
like Marco Polo or Lake Champlain.
A hollow figurine is he,
and hollow too are we his pilgrims,
kids in tow, the granite monolith of our history
slipping slowly into the sea.
Lean back now, the wind is fierce,
and our boat has lost its rudder.
We must steer it with our weight and cunning,
a near thing in a gale like this
with such a spread of sail
and all our halyards jammed.
I wish to be a missionary
eaten by a cannibal,
and him again, and him again, and him again.
I wish to be my grandfather
sitting at his desk.
Here’s what I think. No! (Split hairs and say it’s
what I feel.) Whatever may be real, today is more
than likely not the day to psych it out. Today all day
I’ll try to make a blooming garden out of doubt,
coax virtue from its rankest nonsenses, until I learn
to love its rancid scents and prickly petals: find
forever (now or never) in the momentary – even
when it feels (or when I think) there is no recourse
but to drink the hemlock from the cup and sup
with the illusory – pretend there’s death. That’s
the kicker in this brew: no way to stop the thinking
and the feeling and the breath: no way to shed
the skin or lose the concentricity of being in eternity;
no way to keep from storming doors and seeking
(yet more!) metaphors – distracting me from home.
I roam from garden to the kitchen, stir the pot, see
what I’ve got. I long for some unprecedented treat
but all I see is oatmeal and it’s still too thick to eat.
when the shell cracks and yolk
fades into the blackened pan,
and flocks of paprika sizzle
in pools of oil popping,
when the melon moon dangles soft
across the silence of your home’s external frame,
glance outside your window
for the final touch of taste –
stop to feel the steady shake
of all the quiet pressed
into the meals you make.
MORE ABOUT THE IBPC...
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Poems entered from About Poetry Forum, 2004
Poems entered from About Poetry Forum, 2003
Poems entered from About Poetry Forum, 2002
Poems entered from About Poetry Forum, 2001
