First Place Winner, October 2005 InterBoard Poetry Competition

Poetry

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Poetry

InterBoard Poetry Competition

First Place Winner, October 2005

LITTLE LOVE TATTOOS
Ray Sweatman
(Salty Dreams)

when we dreamed the same dream at the exact same time
the face of Big Ben cracked and smiled stuffed cuckoos
came unstuck exploded & flew the plank all over Harold Lloyd’s latest prank,
broken only by the fall of all the walls from China to Jerusalem, feathers everywhere, made real
by our authentic preconscious sounds as real as red apples coming down,
made to flee because of their redness, dropping from the perfect sky where you & I
nibble at the common dream of skin shared, peeling away the illusions
that we are somehow separate, building little love tattoos to mark the light
and air and all things above the laws of gravity, (for when the world returns
& oh how it always does, heavy & absurd but never quite absurd enough
to remind us that we are) yours a dancing marionette, mine a string of violet,
yours a Popeyed sailor man, mine a church key of oceanic proportions, opening
waves & waves gathering ’round the mouth, spitting out the seeds don’t doubt
but the dream it is as fluid as the bed wherein we lie as changeling as
the changeling sky growing growing grow! spinning whoa whoa whoa
I thought I heard Tom Jones what’s new pussycat whoa whoa whoa
and you say Land Ho!

heal me cure me heal me of this feverish love spinning up and off the curb
and I say as head turns and flies your now crotchless panties in my eyes:
but darling...we’ve both had the cure and it’s marriage.

Oh love, can’t we be content with this transitory madness come here & stand
on these pheromoneal airs with the wind & clouds & all these angel feathers
swirling ’round: let Harold hang from the weight of ceremonial responsibility
let the staircase burn don’t try to save me take what’s left of this skyscraper
let the stars prance & melt in your microwave as a bum to a harlot turns
your cheeks the sweetest scarlet I love it when you wear my curtains!

kiss me, bite me, make your silly marks, make that chimney sweep
work in the morning.

Judge Frank Wilson’s comments: “I think this is a fine example of matching matter and form, sound and sense, starting with the double (at least) meaning of ‘tattoo’ (an etching on flesh and a rhythmic, repeated drum roll). The run-on lines, the nicely spaced rhymes (‘exact’ and ‘cracked’ are an especially good pair, as are ‘marionette’ and ‘violet’), the occasional silliness (Tom Jones singing ‘What’s New Pussycat,’ Popeye, the famous scene of Harold Lloyd hanging from the clock — a conceit deftly carried through the whole poem), the sheer hyperbole of it — together it all communicates rather wonderfully what it actually feels like to fall in love, the transformational giddiness of it all. The somewhat over-the-top imagery — ‘broken only by the fall of all the walls from China to Jerusalem’ — reminds one of George Barker’s language at its exuberant best, and what a welcome reminder that is. Lots of nice phrases here: ‘a church key of oceanic proportions,’ ‘love spinning up and off the curb.’ In short, bravo!”