| InterBoard Poetry Competition | |
Suzanne Delaney (Pixordia) Brandon M. Baldwin (redd82) J.D. Goetz (jdgscribe)THE LIFELESS LIGHT OF LOVE
I have read Auden and I have lived his words
I have lain my human head
sleepless on your faithless arm
In honour of romance, or
to affirm dimensions
of myself, I have
lost consciousness
in the scent of roses
If I appear to have preserved
a certain goodness
I have deferred my true self
to duty.
I grasp at one true thing
“that nature admits to cruelty”
but does not hide its
beauty
for this failing
Crafting perfect flowers
from paper, I decorate
them with plastic, life-like
butterflies
With wings that will never flutter,
nor will they wither
Yes! Jupiter has moons
that number seventeen and
I will speak of anything
but love.
AMOUR OF THE GUITARIST
She calls with silver string tongue
from across the room, complaisant
to his touch along her mahogany
curves and mother of pearl
inlays. Her neck smooth and inviting,
she sings to him with calculated
tones of disfigured madness. They sway
heavily in mania under the
weighted sounds that drape down,
covering the shoulders of the past,
composing without deed or thought
like a swell incantation
breaking against a lonely hull,
or pirouette with hands in the
air and feet on the night like some
flying thing flapping
wildly toward the moon. She
whispers dreams into his
mind, until he sleeps to forget
where loving her ends and loving
himself begins. He hears her voice
serenade in a swirling abyss
of interstellar black stretching
until the inevitable sun.
TECTONICS
My nose is Mount Everest
My ears are in Liberia, Algeria,
I hear Bosnia when I ride in a Nova
My cheek comes from Mid-Michigan
My chin hangs low for China
My eyes dot Iran, Iraq, Idaho and Iowa
My lips get stuck
In the muck
From a day I spent with my best friend John
We scoured that crud for hours
Searching for crayfish,
Pollywogs, even leeches
Anything that moved
The back of my neck is sore
Maybe if I tilt my head more
I can stop my forehead from shifting northward
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
