May
15, 2003
-
- K.I.M., Burbank, California -- Tiger
Jazz (displayed below)
- Dona Sturmanis, Peachland, British Columbia
-- First Growth (displayed below)
- Lytton Bell, Sacramento, California,
I’m Schizophrenic and So Am I (displayed
below)
- Rachel Shaw-Couture, Lachine,
Quebec, Inspiration.
- K.I.M., Burbank,
California, the slut (&) The Saviour.
- Sophie Soil, Thornhill, Ontario, Sink
Slowly, Slowly Please . . .
- Penny Thoms,
Tubrid-Kenmare, Co. Kerry, Ireland, Oisin
Macool’s Return.
- Susan Constable,
Nanoose Bay, British Columbia, Too Late.
- Mary Ellen Reid, Langley, British Columbia,
Yesterday’s Tomorrow in
America.
- Stephen K. Roney, Kamloops,
British Columbia, The Dark Tree.
- Carol Larsen, Toronto, Ontario, Once
There Was a Woman.
- Jean Kay, Delta,
British Columbia, Think Gold.
Honourable Mentions: None.
FIRST PLACE POEM
Tiger Jazz
By K.I.M.
Burbank, California
day & night drag life across our lives
in ragged stripes
black & white
jagged rhythms of the tiger
we sing of pain & light & desperation
in syncopation
in brass & ebon wood
without the dark there'd
be no light
without the light the night would stretch forever
but there's beauty the way they lie together
we
sing of zaggin' & jaggin' in & out
of love & doubt
in irregular tempo patter
lovers die in day & jive
in night
panthers are more bold
against the light
jammin' rhythms of the tiger
Copyright
(c) 2004 for the author, all rights reserved.
SECOND PLACE POEM
First Growth
By Dona Sturmanis
Peachland, British Columbia
We are surrounded by third growth spruce,
have been told the virgin lake and original trees
are that way: a muddy trail leads into the bush.
Confident, we stumble through
muck,
up to our knees. All is green, noisy,
this primeval first forest – how God left it.
Compare to silent second, third growth.
The forest floor is strange green
sponge;
every moss island a mattress
beneath the spruce and cedar boughs.
Makes me want to lay you down and make love
like we were original people –
I wonder what it’d be like to live here,
be protected forever.
We find our first old growth tree.
Together we cannot link our hands
when we reach around its trunk
and we look so high we cannot see its top.
Yes, I’m not afraid to be a tree hugger, you say.
It’s like our connection is our history
and it would be a shame to cut it down
cause it’s grown so high and big
and I see you cry like when the cat died.
We push
our way through the woods.
We find there is nothing to say,
surrounded by this ancient green velvet,
till finally we swim through a windswept
ocean of ferns and it blows us like it just gave
us
all the insight we ever needed
and we break over the rise
and find ourselves standing on the shore
of a virgin lake with no canoes, no cabins in
sight,
only the natural reasons
as to why we should be together or not.
Copyright
(c) 2004 for the author, all rights reserved.
THIRD PLACE
POEM
I'm Schizophrenic
and So Am I
By Lytton Bell
Sacramento, California
A strange power is inflating me,
making me desperate with desire
I want to reach right through your chest and
clasp the sacred fire
that animates you and shines out of your eyes
like the stray, unfiltered sunbeams that
pull the souls from all that dies
I want to carve your face into
my muscles and my bones
and make my own Mt. Rushmore
out of self instead of stones
I want to be reckless and fearless
and wild
I want to surrender you to my inner child
I want to unleash every single
self I carry inside
And when I make my choices
I will let my whims decide
I want to unmask you;
I want to possess you
I want to release you;
I want to undress you
I want to unpack your emotional
suitcase
and give you the secret sign to steal home base
I want to live with you in a different garden place
where a bite from the apple
doesn’t bring a fall from grace
I want to pull you up into the center of the storm
Let
me kneel here and
deliver you when
You
from yourself
are born.
Copyright
(c) 2004 for the author, all rights reserved.
