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FIRST PLACE: I. W. Mallet for "Six Epigrams"

SIX EPIGRAMS

[1]  Sausages

TWO SQUIRTS of flavoring
in a mash of hooves and cuticle

Homogenized in a pepper kettle
pressed into links

Ship the hundred-weight frozen
then drop into hot lipids

so that three may be served on the side
along with ‘uneatable’ garnish.

[2]  Bathroom Wall

I’VE twenty times your intellect
And twice your education.
To say I owe you no respect
Is no exaggeration.

I know exactly what you’ll think
A year before you think it.
Give me the poison cup to drink,
And I’ll throw it in your face.

[3]  Roach in a Glue Trap

THOU Renaissance game bird,
     fixed in lime,
thy oily black wings
     shall flex in my rhyme,—

shall soar towards heaven,
     drift in the wind,
thy landing pad ever
     at fingertips’ end.
 
[4]

YOU ARE NOT my supremely excellent lover.

Though your hair is black,
though your body is beautiful like hers,
though you have golden shoulders and purple eyelids,

you are not my supremely excellent lover.

[5]  Hole in a Sock

HOLE IN A SOCK, and just inside:
the fat flat face of my brother’s big toe.
It’s like in Brooklyn:

Big Mama looking out the window and won’t let the kids look.

[6]

AW, GET me outta here.
Get me outta Goonsville,
Ship me outta this shit hole,
     and back to where I belong.

Plant me back in Manhattan.
Manhattan! where the girls
all speak a language full of
      imagery and point . . .

Aw, but get me outta this joint.
Get me outta Goonsville!
Take me back to that island
     where the girls have brown hair.

SECOND PLACE: Piotr Behr for "What Kind of Poem Will I Write Today?"

To view this poem, please download it. You will need Adobe PDF Reader for this.

THIRD PLACE: Eleni Chappen for "Midnight in Sintagma Square, Nafplion, Greece"

MIDNIGHT IN SINTAGMA SQUARE
NAFPLION, GREECE

Life.
The way it's meant to be played.
Young boys, not more than eight years old
who would have long been in bed in America
play soccer football futbol whatever
you want to call it
using as goalposts
two marble statues, as
mundane to them as brick walls.
They weave through the crowd
with a rough and graceful
touch, a
touch only acquired on solid rock.
There they go.
Running.
Running into curious toddlers
who cry and waddle back to their mommies.
Running into waiters and tables of
couples eating elegant dinners
but they just laugh because
they are in love.
Running, ever running
and never the thought of
someday stopping.
A boy, too excited to
tie his cleats
fakes his friend to the
left while he goes
right and
scores.
The other boy slips and
hits the ground, hard.
But rising up, unphased, used to it
he pats his opponent on the back, bravo.
Funny to see such a gesture
from so young a child.
No doubt he's seen his
father do it.
Another boy, climbing to the
top of the statue of Kolokotronis*,
refuses to come down and play
screaming in loud, quick Greek
that he's been fouled.
But after some coaxing
he comes down anyway
because he loves the game
and life too much,
and play
resumes, with more loud
passionate cries, as if this
was all that matters in life
and lucky for them,
it is.
The ball,
possessed, escapes
from the boys' feet, and into the
shin of an old papouli*.
Terrified, the boys
run away.
But the man, unphased, used to it
slowly sways his komboloi*
back and forth
to the rhythm of time.

Ah youth, he says
and drifts on.

*Kolokotronis(Theodoros)- hero of the Greek Revolution of 1821; Papouli- (gr) grandfather/old man; Komboloi- (gr) worry beads