Winning Poems for May 2007
Judge Bryan Appleyard

Refugee sproutings across the Continental
by Mike Keo
MiPo

Brother,

let us find refuge in
unabashed love;

the crescent blade
tucked against your waist
held like an organ for self flight;

my sac of collected mango pits
I planted for redemption but never sprout
fruits in this land of many winters;

let us pawn them all in for;

tears and honey,
hummingbirds and misfortune,
naga and lock gates,

so we may one day burrow our hands so
deep into a furious hive of dashes and discomfort

that we are fortunate enough
to understand what hold

the spirit is not war and calls to home,

but a monsoon of poetry & weeps
that fastens the mouth

sweet like a Mekong vernacular
sticky with the weight of America's

orange blossom.


The Sandwich Hour
by Yoly Calderon
New Cafe

Eyes draw a horizon on mine.
 
There's a hint of sweet tobacco 

breaking away from his aftershave, 

scurrying down the nook of my nose. 

"Mind if I join you?" 

Do I mind? 

I do and don't. 

But how do I explain with one 

hour for bellies to restock? 

"Let's go." 

We head out of the office 

onto a sunlit runner. 

All the while we're touching 

on summer camp for the kids 

and European cruises versus 

cleaning gutters on vacation. 

There's an unoccupied table 

under the pink crown of a redbud 

tree. We sit. I cross my legs. 

Topics are sustained with mid 

drone voices: the dream of being 

invisible; how he almost became 

a vegan; why people marry, 

(I uncross my legs) and divorce. 

It is moments away until 

the hour- One round hour, 

like a corkscrew begins to top the wine. 

I finish my soft drink- let ice chips 

skate down my throat. We get up 

to leave when he reaches over to me, 

but pulls back as if I'm a stove 

whose burners are turned to high. 

"You have an eyelash on your cheek." 

Fig. There's fig in his aftershave. 


In a City Made of Seaweed
by Dave Rowley
Desert Moon Review

Double Sonnenizio on Two Lines by Ilya Kaminsky*

In a city made of seaweed we danced on a rooftop, my hands
were slippery dancers, your body a love-flung shorebreak

arched at the hips. Now a city of sand slips beneath us too, castle
rooftops battered by the tide's foamy tentacles: such trembly aggressors,

such lurchers of reclamation. We scrawl our story in lines
of seaweed cursive. One lover is a dollop of oyster, the other

a mother-of-pearl cradle, we cling tight as the dance-floor shifts.
Such stubbornness flings us through a city of kelp; it's complicated

among the olive pods. Stubborn love is like a leatherjacket, that tough city
swaggerer, or a porcupine fish filled with air--you suck up what the ocean hands

you, whether krill, or squid's black ink. The seabed is a rooftop, our story
made for flight: streaming from our gills in stubborn recklessness

these words of love are little bubbles, dancing, rising on a dare.
Such is the story made of stubbornness and a little air.

*First and last lines are by Ilya Kaminsky. 


It
by Carla Conley
The Critical Poet

"Life begins unless you interrupt it," 
the old man said and what, inside a womb, 
is any kind of isn't? There's no room 
for nothingness, not anything on earth 
is nothing: only tiny, timid, not 
ready yet, but moving. Whether want 
attends it, still it is: it makes no matter 
until the metal sharpens, comes to scatter... 
then, the remnants leave because there is no room 
for lifelessness inside a mother's womb. 
It wasn't: I was disposed to disagree 
but then it was, though maybe it would be 
a cunning seahorse? Next time that we met, 
it had gained a head and stunted limbs and yet 
it maybe wasn't - somehow, I supposed 
I'd love it if it were. They found its nose 
and something pulsing: heart. I started looking 
for missing parts, each little finger crooking; 
each foot unfurling. What a dreadful eye - 
like a raisin, baked - are we sure that it's alive? 
It tested waters just as I would do, 
pushing boundaries - now it was a "you" 
to whom I crooned as it paddled around the place: 
here be monsters.  Soon there was a face - 
        Are we sure that it's alive? When did desire, 
        all by itself, create? When did despair, 
        all by itself, destroy? I tell you never: 
        life/death, plus or minus, the endeavor 
        needs a being. We are sure it is alive 
        but life is a pinpoint, not sure to survive. 
and soon there was a need to hurry out 
of the straitened quarters. Both of us grew stout. 
This small world couldn't hold him, mama's girth 
stretched tight, horizons cracking. This is birth: 
what starts as frail as smoke attains a crown - 
his head, his little body cloaked in down - 
triumphant as a king. His little hand 
finds my fingers finally. 
                        I finally understand.


First Date
by Sally Arango Renata
South Carolina Writer's Workshop

As I turn towards the lake
I feel his glacial blue eyes
sizing me up from behind.

It's not hubris, it's a knowing,
an itch at the back of my brain.

He's not my type.

So why the flounce,
the undulation?

My hips feel the freedom
to be rounder, my legs longer.
I stride aware of how the peach
on my toes contrast
with cerulean sandals.

My body is talking to me
and to him, in a swill
of invisible words
that will never be
mentioned

unless he is the one
to make the first move.


Jaycee Beach
by Millard R Howington
South Carolina Writer's Workshop

If I didn't jog north to the Dania
Beach pier then I'd thread the sand
dunes south to Jaycee Beach. The
dune grass whipped at my legs as
I pushed myself in sprints through
the loose sand, then a veer over to
the wetter stuff near the gentle surf
and those clouds rising up like mighty
white towers guarding the ocean, and
tinged pink for the sunrise. I went
for the coffee from an ancient canteen
truck parked there under the swaying
palms, and the lovely blonde lady
who leaned well over to serve.

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