First Place Winner, June 2001 InterBoard Poetry Competition

Poetry

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Poetry

InterBoard Poetry Competition

First Place Winner, June 2001

DRIZZLE
Mitchell Metz
(Melic RoundTable)

I.

Been workin’ ’Bama levees, love,
better’n half my days,
half again more my nights.

Got me gear aplenty -- big rubber
coat, buckets, barrows, sandbags,

spades, nasty little Bobcat
clutch rid through, hipboots,

knotted arms could choke an oak,
love, in their crook

from the dirty work of keepin’ dry.

Muddy river, she
don’t stand half a chance
on a double-bitchdog dare of bustin’ loose
me on watch. Come

some lame storm, love,
sends wives and Preacher Bill
to Revelations bawlin’ deluge, hopin’ heaven,

cobblin’ arks,
I swagger bulwarks like cock

his coop, glare the yellow water back,
forge the banks by force of will.

II.

It’s drizzle done me in. A simple,
wet spring. Months

she sneaked insidious up --
slicked the mud, love, under foot,
rose the river dangerous.

Tonight my waders, sudden logged,
tug me under. Shovel’s gone.
Bobcat’s mudded down.

Wonder how I missed knee deep.

Sirens scream the breach --
my failure, my cropper -- to the sleeping town.
Nothin’ for it now

but swim, love, swim. Love?
Don’t know how.

Judge Harvey Stanbrough’s comment: “The poem is as strong and stoic as the topic and the character. The poet did a great job of using the character’s voice and never slipped out of character. I especially liked the economy of words and that the poet trusted the reader with various colloquialisms rather than explaining everything half to death. The poem also was very well structured -- every line was electric, as was each stanza -- and the poet absolutely nailed the ending.”