4 Honourable Mentions SOAP FLAKES Caroline H. Davidson -- Ladysmith, BC VESTIGES Kate Marshall Flaherty -- Toronto, ON PRAIRIE WINTER SKY Trish Shields -- Courtenay, BC HUSKIES Richard Vallance -- Ottawa, ON .. |
AND THEY’RE OFF
Heart failure takes an early lead
comes up fast on the rail
looks in command rounding the first turn.
Colitis is badly boxed in
but she’s making her move now
running a strong third.
Osteoporosis is losing contact
with the front pack
just doesn’t have the legs today.
Fibromyalgia brushes Cancer
half way down the back stretch
seems unsure of himself.
Delirium is having a bad race
She’s an erratic horse at best
difficult to handicap.
Arrhythmia is flying up the outside
I have never seen a horse’s legs move that fast
How long can he keep it up?
Entering the far turn
It’s Cancer moving up quickly
into second place.
Dementia, edging up all {the} race
pushes past Emphysema
who’s having trouble keeping this fast pace.
Heart Failure drops to her knees
tosses her jockey
something seriously wrong there.
Heading for the clubhouse
It’s Late Onset Diabetes
pushing to the front.
Looking too close to call
Diabetes, Dementia, Cancer
are neck and neck, two lengths ahead of the
others.
At the wire, it’s Cancer ...
It’s Diabetes ... it’s Dementia ...
... it’s a dead heat.
David Hillen
Hamilton, Ontario
Heart failure takes an early lead
comes up fast on the rail
looks in command rounding the first turn.
Colitis is badly boxed in
but she’s making her move now
running a strong third.
Osteoporosis is losing contact
with the front pack
just doesn’t have the legs today.
Fibromyalgia brushes Cancer
half way down the back stretch
seems unsure of himself.
Delirium is having a bad race
She’s an erratic horse at best
difficult to handicap.
Arrhythmia is flying up the outside
I have never seen a horse’s legs move that fast
How long can he keep it up?
Entering the far turn
It’s Cancer moving up quickly
into second place.
Dementia, edging up all {the} race
pushes past Emphysema
who’s having trouble keeping this fast pace.
Heart Failure drops to her knees
tosses her jockey
something seriously wrong there.
Heading for the clubhouse
It’s Late Onset Diabetes
pushing to the front.
Looking too close to call
Diabetes, Dementia, Cancer
are neck and neck, two lengths ahead of the
others.
At the wire, it’s Cancer ...
It’s Diabetes ... it’s Dementia ...
... it’s a dead heat.
David Hillen
Hamilton, Ontario
THE COURTESY OF GULLS
Gulls have no courtesy.
They loiter
loutish on the sand,
a crowd of toughs,
jostling,
shifting foot to foot,
unwilling to move one inch.
Cast on the stranger
insolence,
eye of contempt,
sharp beak,
covetous appetite
at the edge of the sea.
Congregated among detritus of tides
they stare,
a stone’s indifference.
I hear the whet of wings
and sudden flight
into the ark of air
whistling abundant herring shoals alive
to wind,
their clashing screams a bright oratorio,
a wing beat of celestial song,
labels,
mocks any leaden-footed human
gazing helplessly below.
Drops shit
on every poet
intruding on their shore.
Dorothy Trail Spiller
Massett, British Columbia
Gulls have no courtesy.
They loiter
loutish on the sand,
a crowd of toughs,
jostling,
shifting foot to foot,
unwilling to move one inch.
Cast on the stranger
insolence,
eye of contempt,
sharp beak,
covetous appetite
at the edge of the sea.
Congregated among detritus of tides
they stare,
a stone’s indifference.
I hear the whet of wings
and sudden flight
into the ark of air
whistling abundant herring shoals alive
to wind,
their clashing screams a bright oratorio,
a wing beat of celestial song,
labels,
mocks any leaden-footed human
gazing helplessly below.
Drops shit
on every poet
intruding on their shore.
Dorothy Trail Spiller
Massett, British Columbia
YOUR EYES
Screen windows sift
the night sound of
lake-lips watering
stones that gargle
through my pillow’s baffle.
I stir under cotton waves
as loons tune the air in
cottages that crowd
the liquid shadow,
cooling through us.
This bobs with moist eyes
that float through marshes to
breed the lake alive under our
eyes lidded by linen-dreams,
that sieve memories
swamping my childhood:
For as a boy I scooped boggy life,
I squashed in rubber boots that
sucked music from the mud. I stalked
peeping bubbles on green scum
where my hands hooked
thumps drummed into a pail.
The bucket eyes blinked
reptile-thoughts through mine
and the snakes I neck-pinched
swam air in sinusoidal time.
As an interloper, I crunched reeds to
flush the slimy, webbed and scaled
before my wild eyes.
The bucket sang my lullaby
when I saw your peewee
irises
through pixie mist, bloomed
beyond my birth-swamp
like blue puddles whose
blinks leapt my heart’s frog.
But on this night in this cottage I
feel your chill under our cotton
pool where I caress you
as your ponds of love
gel into reptile tears.
Wilfred Higgins
Kingston, Ontario
Screen windows sift
the night sound of
lake-lips watering
stones that gargle
through my pillow’s baffle.
I stir under cotton waves
as loons tune the air in
cottages that crowd
the liquid shadow,
cooling through us.
This bobs with moist eyes
that float through marshes to
breed the lake alive under our
eyes lidded by linen-dreams,
that sieve memories
swamping my childhood:
For as a boy I scooped boggy life,
I squashed in rubber boots that
sucked music from the mud. I stalked
peeping bubbles on green scum
where my hands hooked
thumps drummed into a pail.
The bucket eyes blinked
reptile-thoughts through mine
and the snakes I neck-pinched
swam air in sinusoidal time.
As an interloper, I crunched reeds to
flush the slimy, webbed and scaled
before my wild eyes.
The bucket sang my lullaby
when I saw your peewee
irises
through pixie mist, bloomed
beyond my birth-swamp
like blue puddles whose
blinks leapt my heart’s frog.
But on this night in this cottage I
feel your chill under our cotton
pool where I caress you
as your ponds of love
gel into reptile tears.
Wilfred Higgins
Kingston, Ontario
Soap Flakes
Snow is falling in fluffy flakes
reminding me of wash day
Mother’s barrel of soap flakes
I scoop my hands
lift a pile
falling, glittering
in light reflected from
open door behind
Mother scolds, ‘Don’t spill’
I squeeze a handful
they crack sharply
against my fingers
raise another scoop and puff
Mother scolds again
today I look up
among these cold flakes
POUFF
Caroline H. Davidson
Ladysmith, BC
Snow is falling in fluffy flakes
reminding me of wash day
Mother’s barrel of soap flakes
I scoop my hands
lift a pile
falling, glittering
in light reflected from
open door behind
Mother scolds, ‘Don’t spill’
I squeeze a handful
they crack sharply
against my fingers
raise another scoop and puff
Mother scolds again
today I look up
among these cold flakes
POUFF
Caroline H. Davidson
Ladysmith, BC
Prairie Winter Sky
the homestead stands silent
a beacon of warmth
in a prairie winter
snow glistens in the moonlight
each new flake hiding
the tough crust that lies in wait
steel trap for the unwary
carefully she picks her way
dark against the granite sky
each footfall a rifle crack
punching through the silence
cold fingers close around pins
as clothing is taken down
leaving only the sheets
brittle in the cold air
as she grasps the unyielding cloth
another crack echoes
across the fields
shattered sheets are laced together
her needle punching holes
through fields of white fabric
linen becomes canvas
shrouds for the unrequited promise of
an Alberta winter sky
Trish Shields
Courtney, British Columbia
the homestead stands silent
a beacon of warmth
in a prairie winter
snow glistens in the moonlight
each new flake hiding
the tough crust that lies in wait
steel trap for the unwary
carefully she picks her way
dark against the granite sky
each footfall a rifle crack
punching through the silence
cold fingers close around pins
as clothing is taken down
leaving only the sheets
brittle in the cold air
as she grasps the unyielding cloth
another crack echoes
across the fields
shattered sheets are laced together
her needle punching holes
through fields of white fabric
linen becomes canvas
shrouds for the unrequited promise of
an Alberta winter sky
Trish Shields
Courtney, British Columbia
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Vestiges
Once I stomped
into the kitchen
and opened the oven door
to discover the source of a diving smell,
only to watch the lunar orb of a soufflé
melt
down
(like the Wicked Witch of the West)
‘I’m
destroyed.!’
I felt as deflated
as the culinary disaster,
and worse --
because moments before
Mom had celebrated
her inaugural success --
first ever lift-off
of the now-Hindsenberg soufflé.
Christmas time can be like this,
sometimes. I delight in the surprise
lightness of heart
in a spontaneous cookie-bake with the kids,
only to wonder
why
after the feast
I feel more heavy and hungry than before.
It has everything to do with expectations
for a sign...
looking up into the clouds
like a crowd
Kate Marshall Flaherty
Toronto, Ontario
Once I stomped
into the kitchen
and opened the oven door
to discover the source of a diving smell,
only to watch the lunar orb of a soufflé
melt
down
(like the Wicked Witch of the West)
‘I’m
destroyed.!’
I felt as deflated
as the culinary disaster,
and worse --
because moments before
Mom had celebrated
her inaugural success --
first ever lift-off
of the now-Hindsenberg soufflé.
Christmas time can be like this,
sometimes. I delight in the surprise
lightness of heart
in a spontaneous cookie-bake with the kids,
only to wonder
why
after the feast
I feel more heavy and hungry than before.
It has everything to do with expectations
for a sign...
looking up into the clouds
like a crowd
Kate Marshall Flaherty
Toronto, Ontario
Huskies, mush!
So now, though we’re smack dab in dead mid-stream,
where snow rolls yowling all around me, blind,
my sled gets wedged in by my husky team,
whose hunger drives them on, one single mind.
My lungs could burst with frost I just gulped in:
nor catching breath, I’m caught, snared stiff in doubt.
The dogs, all in a panic, yelp chagrin,
I grit my teeth, jerk hard the sled and hear
‘Snap!’ Ice caved in? We must break loose, I yell.
I snap the whip; believe we can break clear!
‘We’ve broken out!’ Them huskies run like hell.
Ice breaks on the dogs, all ears. ‘God!’ O shout.
All hell breaks loose. And rapids, flipped out, yawn
behind, as we disappear, good as gone.
Richard Vallance
Ottawa, Ontario
So now, though we’re smack dab in dead mid-stream,
where snow rolls yowling all around me, blind,
my sled gets wedged in by my husky team,
whose hunger drives them on, one single mind.
My lungs could burst with frost I just gulped in:
nor catching breath, I’m caught, snared stiff in doubt.
The dogs, all in a panic, yelp chagrin,
I grit my teeth, jerk hard the sled and hear
‘Snap!’ Ice caved in? We must break loose, I yell.
I snap the whip; believe we can break clear!
‘We’ve broken out!’ Them huskies run like hell.
Ice breaks on the dogs, all ears. ‘God!’ O shout.
All hell breaks loose. And rapids, flipped out, yawn
behind, as we disappear, good as gone.
Richard Vallance
Ottawa, Ontario
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