Poems of Honorable Mention
Back Forty MuseA winter bride
but no newlywed,
she soothes his brow
with hand-hemmed linen,
cabbage leaves she’s iced and saved
for under his hat on summer days.And she sings—
sings him through the dusty rows,
unlaces his boots and draws his bath,
sends him off fresh for Demeter
to admire until crops come in
and hands grown cold,
she stokes the fire, blows warm kisses
across his furrowed frost-gray stubble.© Patricia Wallace Jones
To VirginiaWhen you have gone
the echo of your presence
is a phone
ringing in an empty room.Dust settles on window sills
and miserable rain
embraces the lawn.The outdoor lamplight
wraps itself around
a forgotten plastic chair.The stillness has no peace;
restless, I sit and wait
for your melody to come.A faint whiff of your perfume
lingers,
a vague promise
that you will return
soon.© by Jan Oskar Hansen
Magician's MixtureOne room
Catspaw quiet, moonbeam bright
Possibly some candlelight
A broken clock to measure time
A sometime poet
An occasional rhyme
A lady there with emerald eyes
Whose face would launch
A thousand sighsBlend softly all
Throughout the night
Blend once, again,
'Til morning's pastel lightOf such are fables made
Legends, too
Of such are dreams
Most destined to come trueCopyright © 2001
Gene Dixon
EffortlessI tried to loop a tractor beam
around the moon, tried to seed
the concrete with indigo hydrangeas,
tried to scribe a tender missive
on the paper's razored edge.I gathered yarns of passion, tied
magnificent impossible knots
in fibers frayed to hopelessness;
lifted a thousand stones, pursuing
magic, finding only silverfish
and roly-polys blanched from lack of sun.Then, one morning, easy as the brush
of leaves against my bedroom window,
love built its nest inside my arms.© Fred Longworth
Sonnet
The man would not sleep in his bed.
She had written on the stretched,
clean white sheet a love sonnet
in lipstick.They would have made love on it
when she returned home,
but she never came back.The man discovered the poem the next night.
He slept with the dog on the floor
at the foot of the bed,
both curled, crying.After her funeral he couldn't sleep.
Months fell away from his mind.The dog worried behind him
from room to room.
The phone never rang.One night when he'd forgotten her touch,
he went through the photographs
to remember her smile.
He cleaned and scrubbed the grieving house
like they used to do together.
He showered and shaved,
lit a candle in the bedroom
and naked laid down on the bed.He slept with her verse.
The red words were printed on his body.
The next morning he stood at the mirror
reading new messages from the dead.© 2002 by J.P. Dancing Bear
first published by
Clackamas Literary Review
Belated ValentineThis woman who lies sleeping in my bed
Our wedding pictures hanging in the hall
have aged till they don't look like us at all.
That handsome lad that used to use my name
has slipped somehow and doesn't fit the frame.
That pretty girl matured and grew with grace
accustomed to my customary face
and babied me. For me she scraped, she toiled
to prove again the victor gets the spoiled.
What if she mumbles now so I can't hear
and must repeat each word to make it clear
that I have done another foolish thing
we'll laugh about when it has lost its sting?
She's stayed with me through bad times and through worse
until I've sunk to this--I'm writing verse.
What's moreshe's mothered three, grandmothered nine--
so if she snores, she's still my valentine!
You Are© Tom Padgett
You are the bird of my paradiseThe wind beneath my wings
You are the colors of the rainbow
And all the different shades it brings
The light in my life
The spring in my step
The jewel in my crown
The paint in my palette
You are the river in my dreams
The burning embers in my fire
The whisper through the trees
You're the one my heart desires
You lift my spirits high
Whenever I'm feeling low
Many things you are to me
I just wanted you to know
Sue Tancheff © July 2001
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