FIRST PLACE WINNER: LOUISE KANTRO
When you’re sixteen, a ferry ride’s a date.
It costs so little, there are laughs and fun.
The back and forth, it put you in a state.
You think this night could never be outdone.
The spark is there, there’s future with this guy.
It costs so little, there are laughs and fun.
At end of night, you find you’re feeling shy.
You’re both so young, you know it’s not the time.
The spark is there, there’s future with this guy.
There’s school and work, no time right now to climb.
You waver at the edge, a careful art.
You’re both so young, you know it’s not the time.
You’re friends until the time again to start.
You’ve heard about each other through dear friends.
You waver at the edge, a careful art.
You see it’s right with him your life to spend.
When you’re sixteen, a ferry ride’s a date.
You’ve heard about each other through dear friends.
The back and forth, it put you in a state.
SECOND PLACE WINNER: VALERIE SOPHER
A WOMAN TELLS A STORY
A woman tells a story about a time she couldn’t sleep
and got up in the middle of the night.
After some time, her husband noticed she wasn’t in bed
and got up to find her.
Her story continued but this is the part to remember:
her husband realized she was gone and got up to find her.
He felt her absence and woke up. Imagine someone
feels your absence, defies sleep, gets up to find you.
Imagine someone looking for you, someone
who couldn’t sleep not knowing where you were.
Imagine someone looked, pulled you back
from wherever you were, back to bed, sleep, warmth.
THIRD PLACE WINNER: DAN WILLIAMS
MY CONSTANT WIFE
She was born on my birthday
we went to all the same schools
never jealous patiently she
waited my marriage out
witnessed its inevitable demise
walking in my shadow
she watched my confusions
never criticized when I stumbled
I don’t know when but
gradually I came to feel her
presence with me everywhere
It has been many worlds together
we two have traveled upon this earth
a desirable magma of my hot dreams
or a cool wind like voice calling
to all the broken bones telling
them to rise up knitting themselves
together and walk once more
The day I die
you won’t find her weeping
in a chair at my bedside
concerned for a cold future
returning alone to a lonely house
No this love unfurls beyond
separation the single vibrant leaf
that never drops from the tree
when my eyes have finally closed
it is only so the two of us may continue
our stroll holding hands
sharing wonders and especially
laughing at Kansas
LOVE POETRY - 2023 - HONORABLE MENTIONS
DEBORAH SILVERMAN - ONE DAY AFTER YOUR VISIT
No one planted at the kitchen table.
The air is barren and bland.
Words have vaporized
into cloudy skies.
It looks like rain.
No one talking about gardens,
about sex and poetry and politics,
confiding past and present heartache.
You have told of the flames
that ravaged your mother’s home
when she was very young,
the seawater that took her intended
when his ship sunk in combat.
I now grasp why you must ask
before helping yourself to coffee
or pouring a glass of wine,
why you whisper when profane;
why your mother couldn’t abide
fuss or mess or unpredictability,
raked away dead remnants
of all pain and pining.
You have left fragrant memories
of a loving presence but
the chairs in which we sat hours
just inches apart look strangely
disarranged - sad planters askew,
their dry deficient soil growing nothing.
And here comes my sunny husband
who notices I am all talked out,
perceives a wilted longing,
wonders if I couldn’t find a friend
living closer even knowing that
you are a rare flower - one of a kind.
ELLARAINE LOCKIE - VOICE IN PERFECT PAST TENSE
His voice rode the airwaves across a crowded room like the lyrics
in “Some Enchanted Evening” from South Pacific. Except this was a
California school function for parents. And he was one of the fathers
with a voice as malted-milk smooth as Frank Sinatra’s. His words
So you’re from Montana too washed up on the shore of loneliness
for my home state.
The bond formed a friendship for years before that voice became
my husband’s. A voice that DJ’d radio airwaves and sent women
to dab on perfume before calling in requests. A voice that became
our telephone answering machine messenger, each week shapeshifting
into new entertainment for friends, family, telemarketers
and otherwise strangers.
Some called just to laugh at his latest absurdity: He is on a European tour
collecting antique golf balls, and I’m tattooing acorns
for my latest art project. Or perhaps: He is in the backyard
capturing crickets for our chameleons, and I'm in Montana
adopting my twenty-seventh horse.
People who call now hear his last message: He will forever be
hang gliding in Hungary, and I will be collecting arrowheads in Arizona.
I sometimes call home just to hear it. Some others do the same.
But one caller finds annoyance in the voice of a dead man. Another
finds offense. Perhaps they also find fault in classic songs sung
by Frank Sinatra and rewatches of From Here to Eternity. Or maybe they
just can’t reconcile how a man so much loved and with such a gift
for humor could kill himself.
Ellaraine Lockie
JUANITA MARTIN - LOVE HAIKU
Naked in the deep
As the water moved in and
Out of our silence
TERESA VAN WOY - ODE TO JOYE
You entered our lives in 1974,
and I really don't think you knew exactly what was in store.
A house full of children of different ages and size,
a wee little tidbit to go along with your prize.
The price of a man whom you loved for so long,
A man who needed a woman... fierce and strong.
And strong you were, from that very first day.
And strong you stayed, until your 88th birthday.
Suddenly you gained a new daughter and four sons,
which couldn't have been easy for anyone.
The amount of laundry was hard to bear,
but you folded each piece, down to the underwear.
One By One The Children grew,
only to be replaced by not one, but two.
'When will this ever end,' you must've thought.
But a smile on your face was all I ever caught.
9 years later, you got me.
A feisty 16-year-old whose friends called T.
A wild one I was, undisciplined and frightened.
But the mighty woman you were, my reigns, YOU DID tighten.
'I'm taller than you,' you'd so often kid.
'Wanna bet?' I said, so 25 cents we bid.
Back to back, we stood in the mirror,
a quarter inch taller,' you laughed. Couldn't be any clearer.
You trained me and coached me as best as you could.
To become a dignified lady, not one from the hood.
You lent me your jewelry, and sprayed your perfume.
So one day, I too, could find myself a groom.
You intercepted letters that were so mean and cruel.
And made me feel protected, like your precious little jewel.
And from that day forward, our respect grew.
Yours for me and mine for you.
A friendship we had, two little ladies.
A mother and a daughter who met in the '80s.
So this poem is for you, Joye, way up in heaven.
To show our love for you, from me, my sisters, and my brethren.
LOUISE MOISES - BLOCKS, BLUEBERRIES AND MUDDY HANDS
A dozen wooden blocks clatter to the floor,
he’s knocked them down for the tenth time,
maybe more. Together, we rebuild,
stack, count, balance.
His face glows with anticipation
for the moment of destruction.
Toy bulldozer rams the fragile pyramid.
He jumps up and down, bubbles with laughter.
Bored with blocks, he digs into the toy box
for musical instruments: toots a horn, bangs a drum,
hammers a xylophone. Dance grandma, he says.
I spin around the living room. Faster, he says.
At lunchtime, he refuses to eat.
We put blueberry eyes on slices of pizza,
make monkey faces with bananas and grapes.
He eats everything; asks for a reward.
After lunch, he shows me piles of leaf mold,
home to the biggest fattest worms.
We dig them up, transfer them
to the compost bin, watch them wiggle.
Next he runs in circles, leaps over stumps,
rolls on the sweet smelling grass of summer.
He digs a hole, calls it a construction zone,
fills it with water from the wading pool.
He grins, threatens me with muddy hands.
I run away from him, shake with mock fear.
He jumps to his feet, chases me around
the yard, squealing with delight.
He is faster and more agile than me,
it’s easy to let myself be caught.
He grabs me around the waist,
shouts for all the world to hear..
I love you, Dancing Grandma!
LOVE POETRY WINNERS - 2022
FIRST PLACE WINNER: JOHANNA ELY
Dreaming in the Time of the Pandemic
In my dreams
I’ve stopped searching
for a refuge to protect me
from death,
stopped trying to find
an abandoned house
laced with memories of wisteria
or a dark cave illuminated by candle light,
my silent poems written only
for the petroglyphs.
Now I dream
with my eyes wide open—
memorize the shape of every tree,
the scent of roses bursting open
in the heat of spring,
the way the sunlight
warms my body
as I sit alone, facing west.
In my dreams,
we hold up our hands
and mirror each other,
place palms and fingers together—
promise we’ll never stop touching.
SECOND PLACE WINNER: MIA RUIZ
OUR LOVE IS A VOLCANO (NUESTRO AMOR ES UN VOLCÁN)
For Barbara J
Every night we lie together
I am starlight cascading
across your moon rose landscape
tu cuerpo querida (your body beloved)
the soft rise, as you
welcome me into your dream
I become human in your arms
a woman of long and graying hair, skin
el color de la Tierra misma (the color of earth Herself)
marked by the sun
Her passions, the heat between our limbs
the rivers where we both began
Las Amazonas, the Mississippi
converged within Her vena cava
Her heartbeat between us
the stuff of volcanoes
We have survived
the dizzying sweat and swelter
the tears frozen on our faces
as our hands turned earth and stone
to hold one another
before el fuego (the fire)
that has already consumed us
She scars Her innermost caverns
con nuestros nombres (with our names)
so Her tectonic walls of basalt, igneous rock, obsidian
know to call us
THIRD PRIZE WINNER: VALERIE SOPHER
moon-pull tide
I have no words to tell you
the poets stole them all
the songwriters hid them
in cracks of three-part
harmonies
I tried other languages
but they have poets too
so I am left with this:
there is air and water
and the moon-pull tide of you
LOVE POETRY - 2022 - HONORABLE MENTIONS
a spotted dog - Charlie McCauley
everything the worn out man
wearing a skull cap and fingerless gloves
owned was stuffed in a Safeway shopping cart
except a short-haired ragged dog
on a long leash tied to a thin leafless tree
as the man limped into Starbucks
the dog sat on haunches staring at the door
with an occasional awkward glance
towards me as i sat alone
at an outdoor table sipping an iced green tea
the shaggy old man returned
with a paper cup of water
then struggled back to hustle coffee
while the dog slurped
then sat back on his haunches
to stare at the door
his master returned with a short coffee
sat at the next table
bent over with a grunt to kiss
the dog curled next to his leg
already asleep safe as tomorrow
afterglow - Charlie McCauley
all the laws
are broken
we mingle
our fragrances
meet between our secrets
like lovers coming on
the miracle slowly cools
flesh trembles
a thin sliver of moon
lights your naked body
on the savaged bed
you know now how
to call the darkness
how to shade
our secret desires
the prayers and pledges
have all been said
i am lost
as my eyelids sink
into your hair
there is nothing
behind us
but melting stars
and an eager sun
on the rise
Even in Silence - Cynthia Patton
If I hadn’t relocated
to this land without
guidebook or map,
would not have seen
the way words swim
in shadowed alpine pools,
how intelligence boils
beneath silent surface.
Would never know
the way your face
lights with fierce flame
when supplied with the phrase
your tangled tongue
cannot produce.
Or how you sign
I love you, touching
three fingers to mine
like a kiss.
You taught
it doesn't take speech
to communicate.
Even in silence
there is brilliance.
Taste the bitter struggle
to control uncontrollable body,
muster whatever shreds
of tattered courage remain.
Your finger taps at vacant
letters, pinpoints of light
leading us home.
The words pile up,
stone by heavy stone.
Building a bridge
to a life you deserve.
Building a bridge
to a life you have earned.
Falling - Valerie Sopher
It’s like that,
gravity
it keeps you in your place
won’t let you lose control.
I broke free of gravity
when I was with you
except for the falling part
that stayed the same,
the dream falling feeling
you won’t reach bottom
the stomach flip feeling
that shocks you awake.
Then you take it for granted again,
gravity
your head won’t hit the ceiling
when you get out of bed
you won’t fall up into the sky
when you step out the door.
That’s what it was like with you,
falling up into the sky.
LOVE SONG - ALLEGRA SILBERSTEIN
In some other galaxy
my love will not be shy.
It will ripple out
like persimmon glow in the darkening sky
and I will hold you close
like a remembered poem
and only let you go
when the deep forest calls you.
If you are with me
the stones where we walk know us
they shine in our presence
like mountain redwoods after a spring rain
like the glowing green of grass
returning every year.
Phoebe: for Scarlett - Mary Eichbauer
Because I love you,
and because there is a phoebe
outside my window,
I must turn to watch
the flip and flutter of his shy plumes,
listen to his flittering song—
because he reminds me of you,
your boundless energy,
your sweet innocence,
the way your voice pipes “Mimi,”
your name for me.
And when you take the puzzle of an owl,
when you put the owl’s eyes on your face,
the owl’s wings on your hands,
for a moment
you become bird,
essence of life, of flight—
pure delight.
Shaving My Father - Ed Bearden
I start on the left side of his face.
The left side because I am right
handed. Right handed I suppose,
because he is right handed.
Swabbing the lather is easy. Easy
because it comes in a can.
Easy as I add it to his cheeks and chin,
reminded of all the times he made it
fresh and hot. This only has the color white
to mark the similarity, but in a moment it
covers his whiskers, and like the short stubble
of new mowed alfalfa disappears in snow.
I pull the razor along his cheek
splash water as I rinse the razor
and he is teaching me to work. How
to drive a tractor, know when to stop the
flow of water before it escapes, floods the
neighbor next door. I began on the other side,
for he has turned the other cheek. Turned his
face making it easy to reach with the razor.
The way he always showed me the easy
way to do a thing. How to lift a box with
your legs, how to mix paint or spray
for killing pests like aphids or thrips.
His lips are easy. Just short straight strokes.
Over and over as his mouth becomes his
mouth again. Not like that time in 1949,
the California centennial, when all the
men wore beards, their heads covered with
cowboy hats, had their pictures taken with
horses. I close my hand on the razor and
he is showing me how to make a fist, if
needed, he said. Then it comes in a rush:
how to clean a fish you have caught yourself,
how to dress a pheasant you have killed,
how to prepare green olives in a lye bath.
Snowy - Cecile Earle
Snow flakes, snowy day, snow in droplets drifting
like your name lingering between us as I whisper, “Snowy,”
curled against my pillow on the white eiderdown
like a wind-sculpted drift against the barn,
Or a drifted dune in the tropical sand of Sayulita
Or a swirl blowing across the beaches of the Great Northern Pacific.
My fingers plunge in, twirl the warm, white damp
curling hair as you drift in dreaming with a yelp, a shudder,
a sigh before surrender, one twitch, still.
I whisper again your name, “Snowy,”
press my palm on your ear, linger, squeeze,
twirl its dangle around my finger.
I bend down, lean in, whisper, my breath
caressing your name rolling wet on my tongue,
droplets drifting snowy flakes as you quiver
under my sliding palm down your spine,
your tuning fork to a deep guttural exhalation.
When I whisper your name lingering between us
in droplets drifting, your brown eyes turn, float up
out of your curling against my pillow, and your big wet
black nose quivers, catching air, the world—
before it nuzzles its furry breath drifting into my heart.
I whisper, “I love you,” as your wide eyes glance up to mine,
lids drifting halfway down—you lean in, yawn,
tongue hangs smiling in panting, that carried us floating
down years disappearing, leaving only your chewy bone carcasses
and clumpy white hairy toys under the bed.
Snow flakes, snowy day, snow in droplets drifting
like your name lingering between us as I whisper, “Snowy,”
where nothing now is curled against my pillow on the white eiderdown.
Only your bouncing shadow trails me over the hills, down the beaches,
that, when I turn to speak,
isn’t there.
The Cellist and the Nightingale - Deborah Bachels Schmidt
Beatrice Harrison, 1923
One May evening at Foyle Riding,
she brought her cello into the garden.
The air was balmy on her moist skin,
and the mossy stone bench
still held the last of the day’s heat.
This was the season when nightingales
return to the English woods–
but none had been heard here for years.
As she began the Chant Hindou,
spinning its soulful chromatic lines
into the twilight,
another song rose from the silvered shadows,
the song of a lone nightingale.
Pausing between flurries, the unseen bird
seemed to listen and then respond,
releasing coloratura trills, whistles, and warbles,
often matching her pitch, and sometimes
gravitating to harmony.
A creature so wild and free
would die if he were caged,
flying again and again
against the bars, compelled to answer
the bone-deep call of migration.
Yet he seemed drawn
to the gentle discipline of her music,
the scaffolding of phrasing and tonality,
pushing and playing against it
like Bach’s right hand,
a descant to her cantus,
or a jazz flutist riffing
over her dusky melody, while she
moved beyond all consciousness
of her long, rigorous training,
beyond the voices of mentors and critics,
becoming, with the nightingale
what she had always yearned to be,
another singer in the garden.
The Picture - Ed Bearden
She keeps his picture on her desk.
It's the two of them. Each looking
spiffy, he with a bow tie, the only
picture ever taken with a bow tie.
He had played waiter at a church
function she supported. It made her
proud and knew it was for her he
played waiter, not for Christ not
for the church spring tea. She could
tell you exactly when the picture was
taken but it's been awhile... and she
doesn't like to remember it that way,
prefers to think of it as just yesterday,
him doing whatever it was she asked.
LOVE POETRY WINNERS - 2021
Love Poetry recorded Zoom event
FIRST PLACE WINNER: LENORE WEISS
MAGIC PENNY
--FOR MY FATHER
Hours on the beach he spent searching
for pennies, dimes, quarters, for no other reason
than to say, look what I found,
and I could find a pretty penny, too, if I kept my eyes open.
We stood in a cape of clouds. I begged
for him to tell me about his childhood
what his town was like, what his family was like, who his mother
was, I knew nothing except his history
began after he stepped off the boat. Not alive any time before
I'd heard about violets growing in the old country
with petals as large as ears, about a wicked witch
who pushed villagers inside a stone oven and let them burn.
For years, I’ve searched for crumbs in the forest.
Never known anything about those who came before.
There had to be others who walked along the shore
in the ocean’s mist. I knew about
adhesiveness, a word that comes to mind,
something that’s hard to pull off
without feeling. To carry my father’s strength
forward like a penny saved inside my skin.
SECOND PLACE WINNER: DEBORAH SCHMIDT
Cherry Blossoms tanka sequence
The old man sits, calm,
hands resting on the table
before him. His eyes,
wintry and knowing, are still
the eyes of the boy he was,
the kamikaze.
He remembers everything,
the gut-clenching fear
of waiting for his orders,
his hairsbreadth escape from death,
the girl who gave him
the scarf of parachute silk
that she embroidered,
in perfect satin stitches,
with falling cherry blossoms.
THIRD PLACE WINNER : DAVID ANDERSON
Returning to the Ruins: a contrapuntal poem for two voices
Includes phrases found in Caelinn Hogan’s “Life Among the Ruins,”
National Geographic Magazine, 2018 Mar; 233(3):60-67.
tall buildings fallen, toilets and kitchens buried inside
the bride lays her hands on the groom’s shoulders
a grenade launcher sits on a casing-strewn schoolroom floor
his arms on her waist, he dances in the folds of her floor length dress
laundry hangs from a few apartment balconies
their dance is slow, the music an Arabic love song
in not-quite ruined buildings, store fronts wield fresh paint
her bridesmaids circle them, aglow in petticoat netting
one light in one room’s broken chandelier works an hour a day
the strobe light spreads colors across their faces and the floor
first thing mornings, children stand to sing in new classrooms
every day Citadel Square fills with chatter from sellers and barterers
the sky fills and lightens with broken clouds
children return from school on streets between collapsed and still-standing buildings
in the outskirts, returnees shelter in warehouses
daily, people in twos and threes fill all the benches in the public park
and come night, with no water or electricity
mosques are being rebuilt in neighborhoods of rubble and debris
they clamber in their dreams over the tourist attraction
and surveyors from Damascus traverse the city with maps to chart a future
the giant letters that spell out I ♥ ALEPPO
LOVE POETRY - 2021 - HONORABLE MENTIONS
A FLOCK OF MAGPIES - JOHANNA ELY
-for Weaving Girl
When you looked at him
across the Milky Way
it was love at first sight,
no turning back.
In that moment,
you stopped weaving
your father’s shirts
with threads of silver light,
and your beloved
no longer herded stars
across vast skies
of ancient constellations.
You wanted the boy
whose eyes were amber moons,
made love with him
in soft grasses, light years away—
forgot the passing of time,
the unfinished shirts
that no longer shined,
the stars, who like dull cows,
wandered off into fields of galaxy dust.
Meeting each other only once a year
was the punishment you suffered
for your passionate spark.
Seventh month, seventh day—
in the midnight darkness
you burn with longing,
while a flock of magpies
forms a bridge of wings
over a river of stars.
BRING THE DUST - JEREMY CANTOR
today as I got dressed to take a walk,
you bent to your sad twice-daily task,
taking care of wounds that never heal
you briefly looked as if you might, again,
apologize for crying,
but instead just told me I should hurry up and leave
we’ve raised our children;
I have written poems;
I’ve even written poems our children like
but my prayers for you remain unanswered
you’re no longer strong enough to help me
hold the boundaries keeping back the world,
which, when it has studied our defenses
and is satisfied it knows at last
our weakness better than we know our strength,
will show us, calmly, patiently, its warrant
entitling it to enter where it will,
to blow in through the door we cannot bar,
bringing wind and rain and weeds and rust
then we will only answer, “If you must,”
and perhaps, add softly, “Bring the dust.”
1967 - NANCY HASKETT
We were seniors in high school,
a weekend retreat for honor students,
a camp in Angeles National Forest.
Instead of our studies,
what I remember
is sitting together in front of a stone fireplace
late at night,
just our teacher and the two of us
warmed by the flames;
the next morning
we ran through deep snow together –
the first time you held my hand.
That night,
I was in a top bunkbed,
small window perfectly placed
to stare outside
at the magic of my first snowfall,
too excited to sleep,
enchanted
BUTCHIE - DAN WILLIAMS
He was rain soaked when I
come home from school alone
found this bull terrier pup
on my porch a gift of the storm
He was a wag of bobbed tail
a prince among street fighters
I loved the strength of him
one torn ear worn like a flag
And in holy autumn a smokey wind
the yellow leaves curling down
where father and Butchie and I set
November fires against a cold twilight
The day my father died
Butchie whined and sulked
under the walnut trees
rested his head on his paws
The day I found Butchie broken
under wheels a red rag in a ditch
remembering his love for father
I raged to think love saves nothing
DEPLOYMENT - BY RICHARD STELLA
The house is quiet now,
the busy sounds of day
surrender to the quiet night,
the ticking of the old clock
the gentle sound of you
sleeping
a lonely car in the distance.
I memorize these sounds,
I memorize the lines of
your face,
the gentle rise and fall
of your breasts,
the reflected lights of the
passing car,
the way your hair falls across
your pillow.
I memorize all this because,
I know it will be important later,
on some other faraway night,
when I’m alone on my cot,
the sounds of
Korea or
Vietnam or
Afghanistan
in my ears.
NESTING DOLLS - BY JOAN GOUDREAU
Great-grandmother
grandma
mother
daughter
generational nesting
rests inside each other
until we open the smallest one
and begin again.
I become the mother of my mother,
the daughter of my daughter.
The wheel reverses—
adult shrinks to child
blossom wilts to seed
moth shrivels to chrysalis.
Babushka holds the egg
her granddaughter paints,
both careful not to
break the shell that
holds the life inside.
ODE TO LEONA CANYON - BY LENORE WEISS
I leave my apartment and cross the street
where wild turkeys flaunt a purplish-black sheen,
in a canyon where coyotes can tease off-leash dogs to their oblivion—
former habitat of the Jalquin/Irquin tribe, members of the Ohlone,
once a resort in the Oakland hills where hotel sheets stretched
to dry between redwoods, and men mined a yellow gold, sulfur—
a place surrounded by buckeye trees that light the sky in spring
with candelabras of white blossoms where I have watched sword ferns
duel with horsetails for seniority and lose every time, places
where I have paused to converse with a bay that bends its leaves
across the stream to caress the top of my head, all-knowing;
dog-walkers and their flocks stop along the trail to swap stories
where oaks undulate as if trying to run away from hills that mold them—
Leona Canyon, through every season I have watched you change,
how eucalyptus leaves swirl and create a numbered crunching of years,
the way song sparrows balance on dried stalks of anise, and
how your creek fills with water in winter like a surprised young girl‘s laughter—
but today there are no cars in the parking lot, Northern California’s in flames,
I imagine there's no need to observe proper mask etiquette, climb
to the first, second, and finally reach the third wooden bench, sit
and pray to any god that will listen.
LOVE POETRY WINNERS - 2019
FIRST PLACE WINNER : BECKY BISHOP WHITE
FLYING START
"Gravity,"
my daughter intoned.
(She was in the fifth grade.)
"It's not just a good idea.
It's the law!"
A dining table scene.
We all laughed together.
I remember.
I remember her Junior year in college.
She flew farther from home than ever before
with a teacher-led group to China and Nepal.
Gravity. Wings taking her aloft.
Wings taking her aloft.
Adulting, she calls it.
(Having a job, paying taxes.)
Her husband fixes us Thanksgiving dinner.
She phones to ask after my health.
Her wings spread, sometimes now
I have gone under their shelter.
Sometimes now,
I remember.
Gravity.
SECOND PLACE WINNER : JOHANNA ELY
SONG IN THE KEY OF SUMMER
How easy
to praise
the beauty of this summer day--
to hum off key,
compose a symphony.
White hydrangeas larger
then whole notes
float about the fence--
the treble clef merely
a cloud placed in the middle
of a morning glory sky.
Noisy crows clang bravado--
roses shudder and sigh
like small red violins.
In the wind,
blue agapanthus shake
their wild tambourine heads.
My heart when I see you
beats a hummingbird's thrum--
plays a tender scarlet melody,
a song that I have sung,
no matter what the season.
THIRD PLACE WINNER : MERRILEE CAVENECIA
MY BELOVED
She reaches out to touch that time,
now twenty years past,
as she sits in the stranger's car
offering guidance to weary travelers
traversing San Francisco's steep, twisty roads.
"From Benicia?" she asks.
"Oh Benicia, my beloved,
he was from Benicia."
Now twenty years gone, she still feels his touch.
Love surrounds her again,
The adventures, the plans.
Together, together
running across the sand,
hand in hand, heart in heart.
Pink sunset covers them,
The purity of young love
dancing in their eyes.
The purity of young love
dancing in their eyes.
The love of a lifetime,
soul to soul,
each moment a jewel.
And they jump in the car
taking her home to San Francisco.
Slippery road or a mind distracted,
shattering glass, tumbling, sliding, slamming.
Fragile bodies grasp to life.
"I lost him," she whispers.
"And my neck broken,
They saved my life.
That famous hospital on the hill.
I am alive."
She looks at the strangers.
"I will take you there.
I will guide you
to that place that saved me,
those twenty years ago
so I may remember him,
my beloved, from Benicia.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
A GEISHA'S LAMENT - JOHANNA ELY
I am the discrete one,
who quietly enters the steaming onsen--
who lets the thin blue and white yakata
fall from her shoulders.
I am the lovely one,
whose body is a perfectly curved shell,
curling silently into itself.
I am the patient one,
who gazes out at the garden,
looking for a shadow moving
across the dark pines.
I am the sad one,
who sees only a deer
grazing in the moonlit meadow grasses.
I am the lonely one,
whose lover is a cruel dream.
In the empty pool
my hands are small fish,
shimmering motionless in the moonlight.
SUNDOWN BREAD AND WINE - JAN DEDERICK
with age, like finest wines, our love improves.
though seven decades in, it's not too late, it seems,
to dip into and taste you, smell you, touch you,
softly like a glove, the softest kid glove;
to feel your shudder as it spirals through your being,
loosing the held, the wail, the keen needing freed,
the pouring back and forth between two vessels,
symbiotic siphons, love's liqueur, ruby port.
and we rise, we rise with love's leaven,
rise into internal, intertwined heaven;
we bake, we bake us in love's oven,
slather new butter, watch, watch, beholden,
as it slithers, every crevice golden,
the mother-lode of lately-come beloved.
