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Natasha Gibbs
Honorable Mention in Poetry
An Apology
One day it began to rain
Big black heavy drops from a vast
And dizzying sky.
I felt them fall flat and wet
Upon my white skin
And felt that it would never
Wipe off- not in a million years
Of scrubbing and washing.
I threw up invisible arms to the sky
Like a clean white umbrella
And covered my head just in time
To catch the word “sorry”
Across my arms in a sloppy printed form
And new that all this time
(as “I” fell upon a pointy rock)
I was no person after all
But rather a blank white page
To be slobbered and desecrated upon
With meaningless words.
I sat down in a puddle of
“forgot about” with tears
running down my face
and smacked my hand down hard
in the middle of “you.”
Evening Prayer
And so I pray
To somehow learn to cope someday
With that ever aching flower caught
So that pain sinks away with every
distraught pose
In quiet reverent thought
As the gentle shine of oil stains
In parking lots and service lanes
Reflects the risen crimson rose.
And so I pray
To fall and bend and break
As the clouds shift in colors bright
-Feel that tinge of orange that flows
In humble glowing light.
And as they swiftly fade and pass
My flesh, I know, is merely grass
Yet that I may be the patch that grows.
Sunset on
Bradley Street
I feel the tinges colored
of dying light and fray,
gasping quench of breath
-a risen starry ray
Tilt the gendered diadem
the perfect place of peace
in harnessed quiet light
where hearts will pause and cease
Prose and written hymns
a hundred dying lines
of precious moment patterns
made alive in lonely minds.
Moon River
There is a darkness pool of wonder
That flows in waves of moon delight
The waves I’m under cool the mind
And so the darkness turns to light
I splash the liquid up above
To ponder thoughts of breath and life
And think of older ways I’ve tried
To swim away in quickened flight
Moon shadows hide my peaceful face
In stunted creases and withered halves
I wished and spied the way a-bright
A swimmer, golden in water light
The shadows give to liquid chase
Catching all I have and am
As I view collision, perfect sight
And change the way I think of night.
November
Such a transition as I have seen:
To accost the gate of sudden dreams
-and I remember the boat
That sailed along an Italian coast
And wonder with feeling
In an hour quiet with reflection-
Where shall we find
The old religious spires?
The feelings in my toes are thoughts
Encrypted thoughts of rhythmic pose
And I cannot feign
That the feelings are not light
Trivial even for the month of May
But superfluously dire
In the mist of November gray
And the man in the tattered hat is fishing
Like rain in a jar
I am captivated and content
Waiting for some different
And some more and better
I feel the sand on my feet
And look through the distance
To observe the sparkling roofs
Along the shore of treasures
I know that I am not lost
Because the air is friendly
As the pebbles lie grouped and merry
I think I shall join them
And walk in the coolest breeze
With a scarf much too long
And think in the shortest phrases
Of “Why, yes, of course!” and “I’ll be!”
And so I shall thrive
In the Month of November.
Philosophy and the Fragile
Heart
The world is blazing and I'm sitting by the
fire
on a cotton couch made green by time and
children’s jeers.
The flecks in my eyes grown dim with the
night
will open again and air will come through
rays of light.
I watch the words spin out from Genesis
lips and admire!
They splash down upon an unfinished weaving
rug that hears
(old words full of spite and reckless
aching pressing
from the heart- a fatal crash wrapped up in
blessing.)
The window is cold because of the wind that
blows.
Gently it tells of spite and human death
and fears
as it beats upon the glass. And the debt
is paid
as a Fragile Heart is burning in the fire
the world has made.
I roasted a marshmallow because I was
famished
from all the meanings of life that left
me emptier than years.
Remember that gossiping wind that
knocked on my windows
had darker eyes than night and so it
goes.
I laugh in halting echoes that billow up
towards the roof
in puffs of smoke as I tell the rug through
fringy tears
“The world is at my feet. Come, smell the
ashes.”
I glance towards the window and watch as it
crashes.
I hear the crackle that calls me back
from night to warmth and light “move away,
dear,
from the window with its spidery cracks”
and the sound of breaking glass hurts my
ears. |
