| InterBoard Poetry Competition | |
MEMENTO MORI UNHOLY WORES
Laurel Dodge
(Writer’s Block)
There are keener sorrows than these.
Years from now, they’ll excavate the bowl
—Jane Kenyon
while planting vegetables—potatoes and corn,
staples for a young marriage—and your sorrow
will still be whole, a blue hollow you buried
deep in the earth. Your grief, then as now,
will seem silly and small, and as intangible
as the source of a cat’s purr. Perhaps she’ll hold
up the fanged skull as he digs rows, and examine
the holes as sunlight pours through the sockets.
Perhaps they’ll marvel at the delicate skeleton,
the arch of the back, the diminishing tail still intact.
Perhaps as they wash their hands under the hose,
they’ll feel the weight of their own bones, invisible
luggage, already packed. Perhaps, that is when
they’ll begin to consciously lug it. Perhaps that night
after sex, the young wife will hold her husband’s
skull and think about the soft spot on an infant’s head.
Years from now, deep in the ground, you’ll dream
you’re still writing poems while your cat sleeps on your lap
as heavy as a newborn. The cat will awaken, leap to the floor,
run out the door and never look back, not when the rain
begins to fall, not even when a sparrow warbles.
AnnMarie Eldon
(Writer’s Block)
how to conquer the dilated pupils’ mutineering mountainous exchanges
overcoming one lover’s uncelibated baiting Judas-kiss
remiss of forgiving years forensicked by remorse
and reminiscing nightmares
trysted to sentimentality
torturous territories hearts’ enclaves
secrets acknowledged within a well angered rehearsing spate
olive garden lime grove apple orchard treasure trove
any sort of grotto magic springs
the kissing gate’s go first
a left off the list
the birthing Yangtze’s swirling almost frozenness
the Ganges’ capillary spread as seen from the moon
the reputation’s credibility the crooner’s schmaltz
corset farthingale my dearest yours sincerely
there are many ways to complete
illusion like the vanishing point
in Vermeer’s Music Lesson
Mona Lisa’s peripheral smile shenanigans
Cimabue’s Madonna’s blush dawn’s hush equatorial shadows
the ideal body weight the AIDS survival rate
the Palestinian Gaza
pocked smashed ruins
equating physicality with fear
green light stop light red light district
trenches body bags oft quoted statistics
the clawed coagulated anhydrous bloodied disappeareds
one earring the house key a child’s shoe
a sometimes-so-sorry-senior-moment
soggy cabbage
the erection
’s promise
the save-face
the hot flash the
last dance missed
chance the maiden’s hymen
Busby Berkeleys prancing minions
the cavernous comfort of the black and white TV
the free press the unpoliced election the coroner’s post-resurrective justice
piss in the pants clean sheets the fountain of youth
truth honor the ozone layer fair play equal pay
the way we used to miss other
tomorrow just another day
the apology’s intentional endeavour
heaven’s hell and hell’s decompositional favor
Hutus Tutsis genocide’s unpronounceables
389 tons of conventional explosives
between the touch of a saviour’s promise
and reason’s narrow gate hanging
chads dimpled
ballots
something accountably disgraced
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