| InterBoard Poetry Competition | |
ABOUT THE MOMENT Steve Phillips (STVEN) Terry Lucas (Bardone1) TRAFFIC Tammy Turner (HeartstarterClone)
I
When remains are memories, when the wrist
tilts in a way, like mourning, or debt unforgiven.
When senses fade into dreams and life evades our screams
time marches on, oblivious.
Repeatedly a bird has bent his singing toward my window
but each time I refuse to listen, for fear of tomorrow and all
it may bring. It feels better to hide among the rows of corn
than to tear green husk away, baring all the juice of life.
It’s about silences between words, their thriving lost on us.
We who persevere, who yearn for more without knowing why,
it’s about endless questions and wherefores.
II
In March you awaken to a sky that beckons with blue hands,
“come my dear, taste the dew-tipped grass, feel the moist
morning wrapped around you like clothing,
feel the unburdened wealth of time,
come walk along with us.”
But in August the weariness returns like crows, black and hard
till every purpose seems infected, soiled and faint. Every wisdom has
run its course to no avail, and eyes resume their empty staring,
imprisoned by the long crooked fences.
Even so, if even once a waking moment chanced to find you
would it not be about that? Would it not suffice that silence
was broken, that a heart had awoken --
that time danced in your arms, and once held you tight?
III
Granite stones oppose the flowing stream
as we cross, our glances touch and in that touch
I sense a moment more sudden, more true,
than any felt before.
A flower wilts in the midday heat, youth is lost in fields of shame,
a rampage battles in a complex age, every doorway opens.
Bells are lilting in a misty trance, and sinners
rise forgiven. Prophetic words are clearly spoken,
“willful hearts were born to be broken.”
Again the faithful bird casts stringent song
upon the bustling now,
bursting with verse, unrestrained,
she yammers on and on,
IV
“Your deserts yearn for summer rain,
my flowers yearn for silence.”
VESTIGE
There were words in the prairie
forbs -- whole sentences
diagrammed in the elms
that began in the grasses
and sedges before them.
But now they are buried
in the centuries,
rising in the occasional
clod of black Iowa dirt, shaken
from the root of a weed
with no name, somehow
missed, morning after morning
by the whole family walking beans.
And the birds
peck at the syllables --
mostly hulls, labials, and stems --
and carry them
to the rocky ground,
even to this path,
heavy with tracks.
Some lucky days
are followed by an evening
breeze that sweeps up the kernels
of sound in the corn
until they catch
in the claws of the trees
arranged in a way
that could almost pass
for a poem.
“Edgecombe County unit 268 to Heritage ED on 340,
I need an MICN or physician to the mic, come back-”
-quick come back quick talk to me talk to me
hurry goddamnit hurry hurry hurry-
“This is Heritage, 268, physician standing by,
go ahead with your traffic”
“10-4, Heritage, we’re en-route to your facility
with an approximately eight year old female-”
-six seven eight who knows there’s no pubes
not even shadow only blood and blue and motherfucker
tach it out come on come on come on-
“-found in a field this AM, bound, gagged, patient does
show evidence of extensive trauma, numerous lacerations
and abrasions to the head and neck and-”
-fields narrow fields of napalm-charred children
limbs like struck matches raped first gutted second
dead but still running running running-
“-upper extremities show defensive wounds with left
shoulder dislocation, lower extremities present bilateral
femur fractures with the left compound in nature and-”
-butts they break legs and skulls with butts because
the sharp cracks make their dicks hard bayonets only
make sibilant sounds machetes go whicka whicka whicka-
“-pelvis is unstable on side-to-side rock, abdomen shows
obvious distention with rigidity, genitals present evidence
of forced penetration with intestinal protrusion and-”
-the smell is wrong no kerosene no fish copper minus
sulphur ozone missing smoke make this fucker smoke
I’m losing pressure DRIVE goddamnit goddamnit-
“-B/P is 70/40 and falling, respirations at 6 per and
shallow, pupils equal but non-reactive and-”
-focus focus focus this ain’t Dragon valley or Tam Ky or
even Phu Bai where Medi-vacs couldn’t fly it’s just
another day another dollar another kid another-
“-I have two 16 gauge lines of LR going at WO rates,
tubation is precluded due to facial trauma however patient
has an oropharyngeal in place and is being bagged with
100% supplemental o2, patient showing junctional brady
on 12 leads and I have administered 5 of morphine and-”
-day in a field, narrow fields of dead men wearing their
gods on their faces but there are no gods is no god only
purple and silver and green and-
“-Heritage be advised we have a 9 minute ETA, prepare
for trauma code, patient is bradying down to unacceptable
levels, CPR begun due to age with one atropine push in
at this time come back-”
-sounds, sounds that lose rhythm and order become wails
become sobs and to cry is to realize and I won’t I won’t I-
“-10-4, 268, we copy your traffic, continue CPR and give
one Epi push, we are awaiting your arrival in room three;
see you in nine, Heritage is clear on 340.”
MORE ABOUT THE IBPC...
Most recent poems entered from About Poetry Forum
Poems entered from About Poetry Forum, 2002
Poems entered from About Poetry Forum, 2001
