Poetry 2008

Winner January Poetry Contest 2008

Sande Anfang

Stealing Photos

I comb through boxes of them, looking for topaz and moonstones.

I don’t know what they look like, but I’ll know them when I spot them.

The colors are faded to a pale autumn umber.

The figures stand out, surreal cutouts, in stop-motion poses.

On the surface they look like a normal family.

Mom’s got a big smile and bouffant hair,

forever champagne blond.

Her gaze is always arresting, split, like a yin-yang:

One side warm and sensuous, the other fearful and icy.

Dad’s face shows seriousness of purpose, combined with a desire to do good.

He is usually saying the brucha over the challah, a cup of Mogen David raised in his left hand.

The daughters are arrayed like a rummy hand,

Several on each side of the matriarch and patriarch.

One has a big, cheesy smile,

Another sports a sadness that emanates from the photo,

Palpable as chimney smoke in the cold autumn night.

The third has a guarded, frightened look.

She knows she must not peel back the photo’s finish

Or she will run screaming into the street.

The fourth, the baby, happily, is too young to understand.

For hours, I dump and sift, sift and dump,

A toddler in my sandbox,

Stopping now and then to add one to the pile

I know I will cram into my bag and take west.

The last night I dreamed the photos blossomed,

Opening like those paper flowers

That sprouted from shells in Chinatown.

Before my eyes,

They arranged themselves like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle

Where I might catch a glimpse into

Our family myth, as we once wrote it.

I feel no remorse in hording them.

I know they’ll never be missed, nor given second thoughts,

Kicked upstairs, as they were, in the pretty frames I chose

With careful intent at the discount store.

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Honorable Mention January Poetry Contest 2008

Chuck Davis

THE LOWLY CHILDREN

The Animal Kingdom -- The Earth’s Lowly Children

Humble when compared to noble Man

Living alone in Nature without the benefit of Medicare

Or pension plan

The worst enemy

Of these humble of birth

Is the asphalt and the concrete

That inherits the Earth

And the sludge and the grime

That drifts in the streams

And the smog that’s so thick

That it muffles the screams

Of the Lowly Children

Time will record the ultimate effects

Of decisions made in abject neglect

Of the creatures in the forest and life in the seas

By men that had eyes yet couldn’t see

That they too were just a part of the scheme

A mere component of God’s magnificent dream

For His children

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Honorable Mention January Poetry Contest 2008

Laura Murren

"Hope"

I long to dive into your soul.

I long to feel your very depth.

Day and night I contrive to hold

Onto the flesh I can never get.

Except

Don't I touch you?

Haven't I felt your reality?

I could swear that I've almost got you

Though you take so much out of me.

A trap of pain

A trick of life

I long to aim

At what can never be mine

My incessant gestures

Are at the rain in the gutter;

My childish conjectures

Are just a fairytale lover.

Wanting what doesn't exist,

Remembering fondly what never was;

I tragically resist

The realities of love.

Instead I turn to you

And without fail you let me down.

All the while you coo

About how soon my heart will be found

But I never see a result,

Your words remain a mere shred of dignity;

Keeping me at bay whilst

Creating a life of enmity.

But still I come to you

Still I love your voice for

Each time your words feel like new

And I have no other choice.

I realize, Hope,

That you'll never be real

Just a fantasy, a hoax

Soft skin I can never feel.

But still I'll find you

And each time I'll float up

Because what else can I do

But bask in your counterfeit love?