| InterBoard Poetry Competition | |
THE SKY IS FALLING
Jim Tilley
(The Critical Poet)
There is always something falling
from the sky around this island home-
some small, hard acorns
raining from the green clouds
of a liveoak to lie beneath the leaves
of St. Augustine grass, a hail of hickory nuts
scattering across freshly turned soil
to dry under the sun and split their skins,
a palmetto branch breaking free
after a violent storm, its paper blades
slashing the air a final time. Not to be struck
by such endings (and beginnings)
on a stroll through the yard is to lose
one’s connection with the world
whose dome has cracked. Little by little
the coward in us begins to squeak his distress
with would-be gods whose terrors fall
even where the great blue heron
overshadows the stealth bomber
and snowy egrets eclipse the fighter jets
resting at the Air Force base. Across the marsh,
the paper factory spews another million
reams on which to print the news:
One more Blackhawk has plummeted-
atop hot sand another score of men
lie wasted, their skins baking in the sun,
their spirits seeking shade beneath some grass.
CONCERT ON COLUMBIA RIVER GORGE
Eve Anthony Hanninen
(MinisterJoe)
Sixty-thousand hungry shouting
voices split this canyon - see
where shrieks of laughter tumble
haphazardly, like scattering pebbles
fallen drop-offs deep. Hawk
and helicopter pass at angles
in steel sky, both alarmed by human bodies
waggling stumpy branches,
lofting butane stars that wink
at the winds skirling dim twilight.
The music rounds and swells
in balloons of sound, reverses
neatly in the Gorge's mouth;
consummate bubblegum blower that sucks
back its own art.
WITH BUSTER KEATON AND HIERONYMUS BOSCH IN MY HEAD
Jim Zola
(The Melic Review RoundTable)
Sky drizzles cars
With headlights on
The street is a painting
Of a black and white movie
My lover calls on my cell
To tell me she’s holding
Herself hostage
Tapping the butter knife on the counter
As proof
This morning I take my car into the body shop
A vicious mutt strains at a chain
The sign on the window says
Deliver all packages to the tattoo shop next-door
A man with a wrench the size of the moon
Smears grease on the one spot of his face
Still white
We’ll take care of you he smiles
Meanwhile the streets threaten to mute
Back into cliché
I frown myself happy
Afraid to look up
Where a naked nun rides a fish across the horizon
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