InterBoard Poetry Competition

A POEM ABOUT NOTHING
      Jim Zola
      (The Writer’s Block)

Nobody dies in this poem, at least not yet.

The capital of begonia is pollen.
The capital of whatever is why not.
The capital of hunger is nuggets.

Jennifer, who works for me,
comes to work flush-faced.
It’s 96 degrees and
she has high blood pressure.
After an hour, her skin is a cloud.
I tell her to go home, relax,
take her medicine.

The capital of tuxedo is holy.
The capital of locust is vibration.
The capital of wax paper is sweet.

I wonder if, by sending Jennifer home,
I might have earned a few extra tokens
towards heaven. Later, I smack
my kid on the back of the head,
not too hard, for doing something or not
doing something. I forget what.
But I figure I’m back to where I started,
heaven-wise.

The capital of myopia is yellow.
The capital of H-bomb is dandruff.
The capital of magpie is silverweed.

I stopped taking my medicine years ago,
for reasons that made sense then. Now
my wife tells me I’m tempting fate.
I am. I carry a feather in my pocket.
I swallow pins. My stomach rattles
when I walk. The feather says nothing.

The capital of Maine is Augusta.
The capital of my name is J.
The capital of this is this.

I have this sickness where I create people
and give them lives. I care about them
more than people I really know. Mrs. K drove
her bug into a streetlight. I write her
a sympathy card. Mr. N has cancer
of the fingernail. Pinky. I can’t sleep
at night. Nobody dies. I repeat this
until the air around each word blossoms.

Judge C.J. Sage’s comments: “‘A Poem About Nothing’ contains those interesting ‘The capital of [] is [].’ My favorites are the first two of the first two instances of those. I also admire the observation of the sad irony in smacking one’s kid on the head after trying to increase one’s good karma by being kind to an employee.”

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