North Garden Glassby Leah Hill
June sun squarely illuminates through unimpeded windowpane my view of Bellingham Bay. It’s shimmery like patience: haze before rain, wafting falafel spice melding with gosh and umm mumbling of main stage crowd, ready to mosh at Shakedown while next door we ping pinball, dollar to quarter and quarter to steel, flirtatious unsure bump of bodies Racketing new high scores. Coincidentally planet Mercury flung itself direct once more; in the heady clarity we breathe deep before the long leap off Taylor Dock, still dancing anywhere, day or dark because we like to and we can, forever licking cherry juice from our lips and hands. This life feels like spider plants gushing offspring, same shade of green I fill endless canvases with, magnifying electric blend of blue, speckled gold and love. Leah Hill is the winner of our second quarter 2019 Poem Booth contest. Congratulations Leah!
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There Are Horses in Heavenby Anita K. Boyle
This is a secret you mustn’t repeat: There are horses in heaven. They have been there always. Even while here, they are aware of there. Have you noticed how the horse sleeps upright and ready, and seems to be elsewhere? There are horses in heaven who feast upon the golden sheaves. They come to earth on the darkest nights: the flapping of wings hushed like owls’. They stay with us, as though held in a palm: think of a roughened hand curled around the reins. They sometimes grant us wishes. They relieve us of labor and sorrow. The horse was in heaven before Adam and Eve. When these firsts were evicted from the garden, a horse took them to another. The horse lives in heaven wherever she goes. This is confidential and true. The Words for Thingsby Sarah Brownsberger Life spelled out in bramble blossoms or waves of balsam, the spores of our wonder take name, sluff names much as the snake who while Gilgamesh bathed stole the elixir sluffs his skin, ever new; you know a color as cedar, amber, tea in sunlight, serum; but when your father dies you see that he was a good human being; human, he was. Sarah Brownsberger's poem is an honorable mention in our second quarter of 2019. Congratulations Sarah! Kerouac's Daughterby Diana Swan
Incandescent exteriors. Firefly gods & goddesses illuminating your portable universe. The endless plain. The yet to cover miles widen as the where-you`ve-been dissolves. Battalions of crickets & cicadas escalating to that din-gasping. After the storm that eerie end of the world stillness. All the radio stations blur into one-"the power & the glory of the walrus, the eggman, down in Monterey." Does one really need to be told this is a "scenic" route? What a gift our eyes are. Lightning doing cartwheels. Mountains turn into flatlands back to mountains. Then desert. The velvet greens & golds dancing to the ocean. It is said that North Carolina is the gateway to Atlantis. The open sky will be your blanket. The stars your nightlights as you pass windmills &hay bales. The cattle stare in unison as if choreographed-are they turning their heads at you or the freight train? Various languages of different influences whomever took from who was there before. Your songs WILL give birth to themselves. Welcome to America. Not so bad when everyone everywhere is asleep. Diana Swan's poem is an honorable mention in our second quarter of 2019. Congratulations Diana! Dear Em,I know the world seems overwhelming.
It is. It always has been. It was the first reason we learned to cry. Because of the terrible brightness we did not ask for. I’m not here to say it gets better. You already know how it feels to watch fire consume a mountain while the pinecones blossom and the trees grieve their lost by sprouting anew. It's rained for what feels like forever but a feeling of dryness persists. The world is thirsty, wanting. It's bigger and scarier and tougher than any individual. My heart is still full of that terrible brightness. It hurts to look at, but I stare into it like the sun. by Danny Canham Danny Canham's poem is the winner of our December Poetry Contest. Congratulations Danny! I Want to Believethis is just like that x-files episode you know, the one where Mulder has faith the one where Scully is skeptical? You know, the one where he asks her to do the autopsy, and she asks, "And what are you gonna do?" and he exits on an intriguing one-liner? It's kinda like the one where he almost finds his sister, Or where he sees the phenomena, chases the suspects, discovers clones while Scully waits for toxicology results from the lab back at headquarters and reports to Skinner about the validity of the work. It's clearly like the one where everything blurry is brought into focus by clicking, "ENHANCE" and you can finally identify the perpetrator. It's like the one where they're THIS CLOSE to exposing THE BIGGEST LIE OF ALL and the Cancer Man takes it away. It's exactly like the one where they're partners because of their differences, because they debunk each other's theories while they can't ignore the fact that they're both sexy as hell. Her reports remain inconclusive, and neither will ever have enough proof to give up their investigation. He says the truth is out there and you tell me, "It'll be okay." by Dee Dee Chapman Dee Dee Chapman's poem is an honorable mention in our December Poetry Contest. Congratulations Dee Dee! reflection on a winter’s evethings are quiet on the mountain tonight. cold, some snow. stillness almost without breath. hold that in your bones, words to remember. by Luther Allen Luther Allen's poem is an honorable mention in our December Poetry Contest. Congratulations! BeholderThe horse seems enormous
when you're trying to get back on, and everyone's saying you never fell off in the first place. The pen and the sword get so heavy when the war goes undeclared and the mighty stay home watching Netflix and no one will tell you you're sputtering out. The camera won't add one little ounce in your hands, if the shutter stays untriggered and the subjects wax hypothetical about yoga classes they'll take in the spring. The beholder has nothing to do with beauty and you know it. Show your work on the back for full credit because the hard copy is no copy at all - It's the bruise on the thigh of the story of how you remembered to do what you love. by William Canepa William Canepa is the winner of the 2018 Third Quarter Poem Booth Contest. Congratulations William! Let the Heat Punch You in the Face"Step outside and
let the heat punch you in the face." Open the door. I'm ready for a beating. I will come back ruddy, lines already visible where clothing shaded, exhausted from failed attempts to photosynthesize. For a year, I let Conor's words fester inside my inbox waiting for the day I would challenge them and pull poetic jiujitsu catching the sun's fist and embracing it with the full weight of melanin. Triple digits threatened heat stroke for the under-hydrated as if the air conditioning had me like Skinner's rats pressing the lever for comfort, which is to say I put them off. I radiate heat instead of verbs because I contain suns not refrigerant running through metal coils. The artificial dryness gives me headaches, even my skin forgets to sweat. by Danny Canham "Let the Heat Punch You in the Face" is an honorable mention in the 2018 Third Quarter Poetry Contest. Congratulations Danny! SampleYou leaned out of the window to name the flowers,
glimpse them slouching in borrowed gowns: fireweed hung with cleavers, shoulders frayed. A speedy smear, yet fireweed: the fluff custom-made to pack with goat wool into blankets, come autumn. Autumn's come. But back in early summer you'd time to slowly walk this rose-flame stretch of roadside where fireweed stakes out the break of a burn. See how its lance leaves guard the shadier fern? And that frayed yellow stalk by the ditch-? What's underneath's what no one's buying: taste the green pith come spring, its verge of honey shiver crushed against the tongue: "asperge" they call it, asparagus for scouts or blunderers who'll urge you to stop and sample the near. by Renae Keep "Sample" is an honorable mention in the Third Quarter Poetry Contest 2018. Congratulations Renae! |