Annual Poetry Contest
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                                                     2005 Contest   2006 Contest   2007 Contest                                      Contest Guidelines

poetscornerpress.com
Chapbook Poetry Contest
Judge: Joshua McKinney
has awarded our 2008

 First Place Award of $500.00 
to Markie Babbott, Ph.D.
for her chapbook manuscript, "Sus Scrofa"

Poets Corner Press
8049 Thornton Rd.
Stockton CA 95209
poetscornerpress.com


















































































2005 Congratulations to Chapbook Poetry Contest Winner
Svea Barrett
for her manuscript Why I Collect Moose
     judged by Dennis Schmitz 
author of seven books including 
The Truth Squad
by Copper Canyon Press  

First Place Award of $500.00

There has been a wonderful response to our contest
this year with submissions from as far away as Finland, Switzerland and the United Kingdom
as well as every region of the U. S. from Alaska, Oregon and Washington to Massa-
chusetts, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, to Michigan,
Illinois, Florida, Alabama, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona. The poem
publishing credits of the manuscripts are impressive as well, including
some of the best magazines in the country such as Poetry of Chicago
and Prairie Schooner of the University of Nebraska
We look forward to announcing our worthy winner.

                                                                                 Poet's Corner Press                         
8049 Thornton Rd.
Stockton CA 95209
please visit our Press page














































                                 2005 Contest      

                                  Contest Guidelines

poetscornerpress.com
Congratulations to Chapbook Poetry Contest winner
Nancy Wahl
of Sacramento CA
for her manuscript "Proof of Life"
winning a First Place Award of $500.00
and publication

Judged by Julia Connor
Poet Laureate of Sacramento, CA  
Poets Corner Press 
8049 Thornton Rd.
Stockton CA 95209
poetscornerpress.com



























                                                 2005 Contest   2006 Contest
         Contest Guidelines      2008 Contest

poetscornerpress.com
Chapbook Poetry Contest
Judge: Camille Norton
winner of the National Poetry Series Contest
  has judged the First Place Award of $500.00 
to be awarded to
Dion Farquhar winner of the 2007 Chapbook Contest
for her manuscript "Cleaving"

Poets Corner Press
8049 Thornton Rd.
Stockton CA 95209
poetscornerpress.com































Send 2 title pages, one with manuscript title only
another with  name, address and contact information.
Please include e-mail address. Put manuscript title
only in upper right corner of each text page.
Acknowledgements of previously published poems
are highly recommended. Please remember to put ms.
title on Acknowledgements page
and make out reading
fee check to
Poets Corner Press 
8049 Thornton Rd.
Stockton, CA 95209






























10th Annual Poetry Contest Stockton Arts Commission 2007

1st place

BOOKS OF THE BIBLE      by Jeanine Stevens

 

We memorized the sequence: Genesis,

Leviticus, Romans, Acts—each section

awarded a satin ribbon: peach, lemon, spring

green, and last—royal purple for Revelations.

We didn’t know what the prize would be.

Our Sunday School teacher was well meaning.

I trusted her. When I got teased about

the black stain on my pink pinafore

(from plums I wasn’t supposed to eat)

she took me to the drugstore for a chocolate soda.

Two of us won! We rode the bus to the circus, 

the other girl anticipating the chameleon

she would pin on her jacket.  But the clowns

were threadbare, a pale, anemic looking

 “Mr. Sensation,” swung on the high bars,

and the popcorn in a red cellophane cone was over

salted and full of kernels. Later, all I remembered

were dust, famine, locusts, and a small lizard

hanging limp. I lived with the stain all summer.

 

 

 

 











































9th Annual Poetry Contest Stockton Arts Commission 2005

1st Place    by Lisa Falls                                                            2nd place
                                                                                                    3rd place
Moss Landing                                                                             1st Honorable Mention
                                                                                                      2nd Hon. Mention
Dusty, deserted foreground dune mirage                                    3rd Hon. Mention
fools the low cluster of thirsty                                                       
arrangements defining a silent                                                        
trail of undernourished sand/pressuring
yielding to a quick, parched death.

Horses frolicking center stage as the
birth of hooves pound the firm, porous
sinking, raised floor of the seaa gallop
pokes holes in the frothy tall end of the wave/pitting
the moving, hypnotic sea-puss.

Layered, gray ocean backdrop
colorless, symphonic movement
air-brushed into the active sea wall
of rolling rows replacing themselves.
A salt lick saturates the sandy moss landing
with the soothing, saline tongue of the sea.


















2nd place 2005         
by Howard Lachtman

After the Storm  

Waking from long sleep I turn
like Orpheus in the darkness
to seek your face in flowing hair,
wavelike hair wakening memory
of what washed ashore that morning,

the women covering her raptured stare,
whispering among themselves of love
come to sorry end, shielding my eyes
from tide -ravaged beauty on her bed
of bloated kelp and torn fronds.

The clergyman, hastily summoned,                                  
urged a psalm for her sake though
it was not Sunday and none of us
knew the ancient, comforting text
"They that go down to the sea...."

as if this was some Bedford whaler
run aground. So we left the business
to him and watched the fugitive tide
expose the shoreline like bone
and the sea surrender mysteries, save one....

The sleek, expensive boats found the wind
and pleasure took them elsewhere,
averting their eyes, as they would
had a winged boy plunged from the sky,
cursing the sun that betrayed him.

After the stretcher bearers departed,
I plucked from her wreckage a shell
for remembrance, pressed to my child's ear
only such song as Ophelia sang
of love without compass among lillies and weeds.



















3rd place 2005                      by Joe Tetro
         

POINT HOMEWARD ANGEL

You, copper-skinned angel,
always by my side
in the straps and buckles
of our hand-to-mouth days--our
nearly finished album
"Cold Winds a-Blowin’" 
wailing inside us like
winter storms along the
Klamath--a dream as
battered and bruised on the
rocks of our illusions
as the salmon battling
up the River Klamath
to spawn and die.

You increasingly
wearing down and
slowly going blind--
treating your symptoms with
ever bigger daily hits of
sugar—cravings too long
undiagnosed--desire between
your legs killed by
growing hosts of
flourishing yeast, your
Pentecostal mind
slipping on the black, 
frozen ice of a sucrose
imposed psychosis--fiendish
visions of demonic cats
seducing the wild genius of
your feverish mind.
 
Dark the night I
wrestled your heavy, dry-
mouthed, comatose and
cold-to-touch--but still
breathing--body
into the back of our
minivan, and took you
to L.A. County ER.
 
Nurses came out
and loaded you

on a gurney, 
and pushed you
inside--you in your
pink flowered blouse
on backwards, and your
white shoes unlaced.
Then a sliding curtain
came between us, and
I never saw you again.

You died that night 
like a sick heifer
in a storm after
wind and snow have
closed all the roads.

The next morning in the
parking lot the
nurse hugged me
as if she were my sister, and—
choking back tears--I
drove away.

Driving home,
I recalled the wild pigeons
I once captured and caged,
but soon felt so guilty about it
I soon flung open the cage
and set them free.

Timeless as heat escaping the sun,
they rose straight up as smoke
on a windless day; a
steadfast circling, spiraling, rising
staircase winding  up, and up, and
up...into the wildness of the
heavens--until mere pin points
piercing the blue parchment of
sky, but compass confident as
ancient seamen steered by
stars they pointed homeward,
and quickly vanished
from my sight...and,
recalling that moment, I
knew you'd escaped, knew
you’d been released
from the helpless cage
of your ravaged brain--
to rise up, pierce the
sky, point homeward,
and vanish from my sight. 











 


Notes In The Margin            by Senta Gracia         Honorable Mention

(for Mr. D)        

 

 

A degree in English

made it his job to advise:

 

don’t justify the right margin!

 

right idea, wrong format,

 

and little circled commas

sprinkled

like festive red confetti.

 

But, his credentials in

Matters of the Soul

made it his passion to profess:

 

You commented on the religious

element quite eloquently.

 

What an insightful and enlightening

journey into the nature of evil.

 

Good luck on your academic journey.

 

These rare gems are now tucked away

unforgotten. I cherish each gift,

appreciating their hallowed wisdom.

Sometimes I polish a precious jewel

when it starts to fade,

admiring its shimmering beauty

as I pay heed:

 

You’re a true heroine

who will undoubtedly succeed.












Offering

by Malia Leuck             Honorable Mention

 

I am

warm bones

drying in the sun

the rocks

and crisp air

 

I am still

as still as the mountains

still like the ones

praying over me

 

I am still there

in the marrow

in the air

swirling through the wings

of birds who pick

at my bones

my warm bones

drying in the sun

 

I am still there, but

what do I do?

everything I couldn’t do before

I have shed my outlines

my confines, my edges

are no longer clear

I will spread

 

I am still there, but not

I am everywhere

the rocks

and crisp air

the warm bones

drying in the sun

the bird’s wing

the dawn.










chilled sugar         by Lisa Falls       Honorable Mention

 

day one

 

oversized

semi-frozen strokes of

heavy, sweetened cream

fill the bubble bath valley

rising, incorporating air

to the most exalted elevation.

 

day two

 

nestled, fluffed

egg white sierra’s

shaken jars of soda clouds

above pine studded raw meringue

flavored peaks

of rock chips and chunks.

 

day three

 

saturated pillows

release crystallized, polar

white diamond desserts/spinning flakes

edible flakes, like chilled sugar

float below agitated white strokes

from the mystic brush

 

day four

 

high altitude white

dilated light/beyond white

humbling, billowed

disconnected ceiling

traps transient, vaporized memories

of a chilled sugar winter



 


 

 

 

























































8th Annual Poetry Contest Stockton Arts Commission
2004            

Adult Category          judged by Jack Foley of KPFA fm and the Alsop Review
First
Again Ash Wednesday by David Humphreys
Second
Mountain  by Cynthia Torres
Third
Fire by Noor-Ul-Ain Noor
Honorable Mention
Take Me by Senta Garcia
A Valley Bestiary by Michael Capurso

Student Category
First
Let Freedom Ring by Jennivy Tabbay
Second
It's Another Stormy Night by Jonathan Chow
Third
Can't Speak by Joshua King

Children's Category
First
My Stomach's Mad at Me by Amnest Kaur
Second
One Step of a Dream by Marissa Williams
Third
Gray Wolf by Sierra Dawn Atkins
Honorable mention
We Deserve More by Amnest Kaur





First

  Again Ash Wednesday                       by David  Humphreys  
  (Because I do not hope, desiring this man’s scope;
                       spirit of river, spirit of sea, suffer me not to be separated,
                                              let my cry come unto Thee.)  T.S. Eliot

Out of February rain, day after day, blossoms petal the
black wet street, violets on lawn thick green, the five of us
took a Saturday walk out onto an open tract of fields and orchards

off west Valentyine's Day, view like bronze bells clear to Mt. Diablo.
Just a few days later the paper announced the new development as if
no one had ever seen or heard of Los Angeles or tried driving

through a mad L.A. Thanksgiving. Everyone here lives in deep
sleep denial and floors it from the Pershing Ave. Thornton Rd.
intersection all the way past Paloma and El Camino to Hammer Lane

like quarter mile rubber billowing dragsters, this manifesto of eleven year
old daughters playing soccer in traffic, big city hot rods racing by oblivious
chain link razor wired Embarcadero near Van Ness monster auto show rooms,

everything in the world to do with water wars, empty blood banks
and the bottom line. Services will be held at 6:30 am, noon and 5:30 pm.
You turn away from political tirade, kneel and return to poetry, hands folded,
livid shiny polished skin grown old and slack as star light lain limp and thin on bone.

 
                                          
 


Second

Mountain  by Cynthia Torres

An endless sea of green
Presses against the mountain,
A woman lying on her back
Large brest, and hair
Flowing
Brown

Mexicans picking tomatoes
In the fields, backs bent
Noon day sun
Dripping with sweat
Wet

I remember my Grandma
Rosa, walking here
From Michoacan,
Five trips with twelve
Children

Grandpa working in the mines
Newspaper for shoes,
Cold snow in December
But nowhe is proud
And no longer speaks
Of these
Things.

I remember sleeping
In the noon day sun
Fat cat on the porch,
Paint peeling
Gray

My grandma telling me
Te amo mijo, I love you
Grow up strong and
Always on the stove
The smell of warm beans
And soft tortillas in a
Basket

I look at my own hands now
Soft on the outside and white,
But on the inside is the
Mountain
A woman lying on her back
Large breast, and hair
Flowing
Brown





Third

Fire       by Noor-Ul-Ain Noor

Those nights in my eighth summer
When my plump, juvenile body
Went through the traumaof his filthy touch,
Burn me still, a decade later.
His sinful hands felt my hair,
And then slid downwards.
Those callus, slightly sweaty palms
Were never still.
And that cold fear of his body
Pressed repulsively against my own,
Constricted my throat and hindered my breathing.
How pitifully hard I tried to speak,
To close my unblinking eyes
Staring into the mocking darkness,
And then filling with tears of remorse and fear,
When my voice failed me
By dying somewhere in my throat.
And his hands...
Those relentless, damp, molesting hands,
Kept obeying their contemptible master,
Never breaking their sordid movemen.
Those nights in my eighth summer
Burn me still a decade later.





First Student

Let Freedom Ring      by Jennivy Tabbay    of  Stockton

Let freedom ring
From this song we sing
Heros touch the sky
As they spread their wings
And fly across the sky
Let us say
From this day
Heros pass
But Freedom stays
So we stand united
Leave the bad memories
As we wait for  the future
And see what life  brings
As the the light surrounds us
We fly to reach
our goal
A rainbow is made
When we accomplish
What life  brought
As heros  fight
For our future
We look upon them
As we become them one day
So let them hear our cry
Always and every day







Second Student 04
            It's Another Stormy Night          
by Jonathan Chow       Stockton

It's another stormy night
I sit at my desk with my light
Reading my old book of quotes
Essays, rhymes, and anecdotes
But only you are on my mind
So I sit around biding time
waiting to see you again
Not knowing how you'll feel by then
All I can do is apologize
In between my sorrowful sights
And hope that you can forgive and forget
But all this is a wasted bet
It would be better for you to go
This I unfortunately know
I just got so caught upin my work
That I ended up becoming a jerk
I would like to blame it on stress
And also on the lack of rest
But I know I was in the wrong
And  that is why I wrote ths song
To say that I want you back, my wife
Because you do complete my life
And I would do anything for you
Even if I had to start anew
So take this ugly, stormy night
And help me make the future bright.










Third Student

Can't Speak                                            by   Joshua King

Puzzling trap that I can't escape
Minbd moving at a speeding rate
But I can't speak
Only be spoken to
When I do speak my mouth won't move
I'm trapped only left alonewith my thoughts
Forced to follow the the path of someone I'm not
And I realize that I can't speak unless being spoken to
Because I'm a child
I'm forced to be someone I'm not
Because I'm a child
There's no way around
Becomingwho who I will be
Not who I am now  

























Dear Kay   by  Yee Thao           1st place adult                        2nd place     3rd place   Hon. Mention
                                                                                        & samples: 2nd place student       1st place child
I want to feel 999,999 eyes upon me as I guard your purse while you vacation in the dressing    
room with Ralph Lauren, Victoria and her secrets. I want to cower at your power of logic as
you convince the sun to run around the Earth. I want to mingle with pneumonia while you
frolic in the tropical springs of the showermaster-2000. I want to hear the crying grind of
transmission gears, because you want to learn 5-speed. I want to dream about hunting swans
when you force me to to go to Swan Lake. I want to be your "knight in shining armot", and
defend your honor against merciless arachnids. I want to be a slave for  "the man" for
10 hours a day,  5 days a week, for 12 months---so I can put a down payment on a lump
of coal. I want to hear the whispers, to laugh at sneering jealousy when we tread the runway,
your hand in mine. I do not want to hear you say, "I love you just like a brother."



















Shinken Shobu   by  S. Clement Anderson        2nd place adult

 The sword
    cuts upward
        catches light
            casts rainbow droplets
                in reflecting arc

                        The sword
                            spirals up
                                draws darkness
                                    arcs down

                                          The kata
                                              is a poem
                                                  the
                                                    swordsman
                                                   the singer

                                               Two singers
                                           two swordsmen
                                       telling
                                   retelling
                                  reshaping

                           To hear the song
                       of the sword
                   here
               in this place
           begins
       the journey



















Burial in the Rain        by  Jim Turner        3rd place  adult

Watched while this deep, untimely hole was dug
and snivelling clouds contrived a maudlin face.
The dead, I trust, don't mind-tucked in that snug;
but numbed, I dare not the the wriest grimace
or thinnest smile to shame this tedious rite;
stand, tearless, soaked in pain for your bones,
distraught by impudence, the chiding slight
of rain streaking cold cheeks of graven stones;
staining heaped-up soil-scant to fill that pit;
with platitude and flesh, melding with ground.
Dull words, my black suit-nothing here seems fit.
The dust I came to bid farewell is drowned.
I'll come alone when sunrise burns this veil,
your red carnation on my white lapel.
















Splint Ring    by John Allen                 2nd place student

her lips were asunder that blue benign
summer like a mire flood drenched under
the sylvan maw toothed and gapped with red fine
fire the setting spawn of dead slumber
walking sleep waking the mare in iron
cast molds a fool shower of light thunder
sharpen fierce the flame spire of Zion
cursed the deaden deaden locks molding roundashen
infringing dead talk sharpto environ
showering Set's ferocious volition



















Three Pictures        by Chloe Schwarz

You jump from tree to tree -
a diamond blur of agility.
You curl on your chair.
You lick your paw.

Limber, black creature
Proudly raises royal head
Prances toward its throne.

Egyptian pyramids,
Mountains brown tall and light -
The day sees this beautiful sight





























High Sierra Camp    by Howard Lachtman

High Sierra Camp 1955

Huddled around the only campfire
in the dark, pathless mountains,
we marveled at the signal fires
of distant atars and competed
to tell stories of aliens.

Beyond these flickering pinpoints,
a smudge of decorative arabesque
betrayed a faintly glowing pinwheel,
nebula carousel turning once every
million years in the cosmic carnival.

Citing the nighttime pageant,
Pudge pointed to the evidence of design,
the hand of some invisible mechanic
shaping the whole of an infinite span
from star dust to unruly boys.

But doubting Skipper asked
why any rational architect
would see fit to scatter stars
carelessly as shaken dice and invest
mankind with notions of malice and murder.

Just how perfect was the human race
or we, its bellicose inheritors?
Wasn't it proof no one was in charge?
"Anyone who thinks like that is going
straight to hell!" Pudge warned him.

With such suspicions, who could sleep?
So, the chaplain came by and assured us
we could ask him anything and prayed
we would all grow to manhood knowing
the blessings of love and nothing of war.

His outstretched hands tamed all
unruly spirits while the log fire
leaped and blazed, surely a sign of favor.
Chastened in our sleeping bags, each silent,
we scanned the night with nameless longing.



























Acupuncture
        1st place finish 2002       See Melanie at Putah Creek
by Melanie Sievers                                                                  It's Harder Farming     2nd  place finish
                                                                                                              Lonely Stone Fields      3rd  place
She rubbed memories like worry beads,                                      Her Spine                       1st  place Student
developing callouses and a reptilian digestion,                            Sericulture                    Honorable Mention
and a bad habit
of looking for the dead among the living.
     "The liver is a tender organ which behaves aggressively,"
     Dr. Lee remarked, placing the last of the needles in her ear.
Closing her eyes, she saw the faces of her sisters.

These faces once brought tender and intense feelings
to the green-eyed sloth in her stomach, feelings that tasted
like wasabi and ginger and soy sauce, like tears.
Then the tears ossified.

Once, her sisters stood barefoot on butcher paper
while their kneeling mother drew outlines of their feet
(as if they were victims) then mailed them
to the crime lab in Viet Nam.

Daddy sent shoes made from these patterns
wrapped in old newsprint, smelling
like the shoemaker's lunch and the bilge-y holds
of ships and incense and jet fuel.
Made of velvet and sequins, they were perfect
shoes for prostitutes.
They were perfect shoes
for chasing euphoria.

      Dr. Lee sucked the air out of glass cups with lit matches,
      pressed the hot rims to her skin, pulled them off with loud gasps...

Euphoria was harder to catch than the souls of aborted babies,
flying to heaven, ordoves loosed from their cages,
or yellow balloons catching on branches, popping on twigs.

     Oriental cubists painted green and yellow sea-grass on her eyelids
     Public radio played Mozart. Dr. Lee came and went.
     The liver began to respond and behave.
     The cravings subsided.

Two years after treatment, her sister says,
"I never wore those shoes; they hurt."
Standing flat-footed in flip-flops, she laughs.




It's Harder Farming    by  Bridget Hoida    2nd place

I.
In the morning it's tough enough,
6 am and already you're
up to the elbow in a concentrated feed
stirring and mashing with your fists,
attempting to take the chill off the mixture
with your flesh.

When you were younger you didn't understand why
you couldn't use a spoon, large and wooden
like the one for lemonade.
Your father said, "You're the momma cow.
The babies won't eat 'less you use your hand."
Which for you, six years old,
amounted to half your arm,
or at least up to the elbow.
But you liked the fact you were momma of something.
even if it meant getting up before the sun
and sticking your arm into cold meal.

Because of this you swore you'd never eat meat.
Especially not veal, consideringthe conditions:
dim light,  immobile heads,
pens too too small to lie down in,
and you, now nine
still sticking your hand into the mix to fill up a bottle
and then fighting not to loose your grip as the calves sucked.
But your father wouldn't hear of it
and when you tried some, smothered in a white chardonnay,
you found that you liked it.

II.
It's got to be  ten times harder
farming at night
with the flood lights mounted to the tractor
and the dust indistinguishable
from the darkness.

3 am, her her swing shift at Denny's done,
she saw them pulling and tilling
from the unrolled window of her '68 Bug
as she drove home through the darkness
to stash her tips
-----twenty-seven dollars and
sixty-two cents-----
in a jar marked "Paris".
She never knew exactly why,
on the Stroud Stead,
they didn't farm in daylight.
But she asked sometimes, while pouring coffee or
cutting into a slice of coconut cream.

And though none of the land-worn men
specifically said outright,
they didn't challemge the assumption:
the midnight air could quiet the heat.

Even still, at  night it just has to be harder
to emerge from the barn without shielding your eyes,
to ride around on the Deere, in artificial light,
keeping the lines straight by instinct.

III.
She used to drive quickly,
with her lights off
down an eight mile road
with the clutch out,
knowing to shift from the sound of the engine.

She used to time herself,
how fast she could get from house to delta,
substracting seconds on a digital clock
she duct taped to the dash.

She was upset all the time
so she drove often,
not wanting the water once she reached it,
not wanting home when she returned.

When she was driving
she thought her motivation was the speed.
She opted for darkness not out of daring
but because she had no undestanding of physics,
felt the light would detract from the velocity.

The road was rarely driven, unpaved and straight through the fields
She brought a felt pen and while driving
she would scrawl words across her legs.
Bumping into the steering column with her right fist,
left hand on the wheel.

When she reached the levee she got out,
slammed the door and left the car running.
She waded knee-deep into the water,
splashed some on her thighs
and scrubbed on her legs with her palms
until the ink bled.





























Lonely Stone Fields       by David Holman     3rd place

You know about mornings like this,
when you wake and feel fresh, when
you have the need for activity, exercise.
You walk out into the world,
fog drizzles, the moist earth accepts
each step. The sun begins to break
through. Trees step forward; stones, named,
rise in ramdom columns scattered
across a sea of green. Shadows lean

into dirt roads: tangled, haunting.  Dew-laden
branches melt in drips of crystal light. Thighs ache
from the burn of chilled air; faces sting.
Words appear as ghosts that stretch out
to form complete sentences. The sun
comes to rest on your shoulders; warm,
comforing. The sky hums its blue
background sounds. Grass sparkles
with tiny beads of light, each blade
a world unto itself. A gray pigeon
announces the arrival with applause
of wings, clapping incessantly as it flies
into the shaggy head of a palm. Some birds
somewhere bicker over breakfast. And
the sun touches your face. You know
the kind of morning that I'm talking about?

The kind of morning when, years later,
after autumn has come and gone; after
leaves have fallen, never to rise again;
after you have lost a brother , a father;
after you have traveled miles
through the shadows of grief; after everything
you have ever loved has disappeared
into the dark countries of regret; even after
all this, the sun still touches your face,
wave after beasutiful wave.

























Her Spine                                 by  Jennifer Bamberg     1st place Student

Her spine, now made of metal,
like brilliant shing steps
on a ladder
climbing up her arched back, made perfect
PERFECT
by modern technology.
Now all the pieces fit.

Before, a constant question mark
lingered like a neon sign
underneath her skin.
Now she stands tall,
is finally able to
stand tall
when the boys brush past her
in the hall.

Technology's greatest creation
a canvas of flesh
stretched over old roads of dusty blue veins
running across and over across and over
a creeping vine of metal.

And in the dark
she drags her fingers
up and down
the pure, straight line of her back,
pushing in the wide scar,
making sure not to miss
one single ridge.

But what she can't feel
is the coldness
rising from the core of her
mercury smooth marrow,
like ghosts creeping off a gass lake
at dawn.























                
Sericulture                   by Gary Thomas         Honorable Mention

it is their crude house
that makes your blouse

    each a long thin mystery
    made from base mulberry-

        filament spinneretted to thread,
        caterpilar risen to plain moth-

            leaf to warp and weft,
            moth to waft and lift-

                silk is made tapestry-
                when you wear it, a story

                    unfolding, the raw creatures we are
                    becoming, our own homes we wear

                        as wings, our destination
                        where we started, patient

                            as the finished favbric, eternal
                            as the holy ourobouros  




















S.A.C. Poetry Competition  

1997
1st Place Open Category
Yellow Rain Boots
by David Humphreys

They're way too big
reaching all the way
up to her knees;
bright yellow daffodil boots
and nothing puts a smile
on her four year old face
like clomping around in them,
mud puddles imagined
in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Monday after Easter Sunday
we stopped by the jelly bean factory
on the way to Wolf House,
spring like a green fever
spread out on the hills like butter,
Eucalyptus trees planted for wind breaks
shed their skins and rattle
smelling like a cold windy day,
redwoods standing as tall as Moses,
shade cool as a nave from narthex to chancel,
flanked by silent aisles.

"I love him so much of the jungle
when my mommy takes me there,"
she says when I ask her
if she's ever seen "Magilla Gorilla",
Faye Wray and Jessica Lange
trilling in her happy voice
like down at the bottom of a little bird's nest
of hope chest treasures
so relaxed and secure
my daughter sitting in this ancient lap,
me with all of human history's stone tablets
trying to shake some sense
into the way things are.

2nd Place
Reading At Barnes & Noble
by Daniel Hettsmansperger III

I'm trying to pay attention,
after all that's what they expect
you to pay
but the sound of children toppling
masts & towers
of Dr. Seuse and Mother Goose
distracts like the shattering of Constantinople's walls

I'm goingthrough my poems
searching for what I'll read
"Too racy,
too sexual,
too political".

I find them.
While searching people start
clapping and I clap with them
to a poet whose every word
I've missed.
I take the podium and am struck
by the fact that podium rimes
with plutonium,
and that the coincidence
is meaningless.

I start reading
and from the intercom blasts,
"Victor to the cashwrap, please,
Victor to the cashwrap...!"
What's a cashwrap?
Cashier, cash register, cash on hand,
Johnny Cash, gift wrap,
I know what these are.
Cash wrap?

The hardest thing about reading poems
is that you never know if you're any good,
if what you've written is pleasing to anyone.

Comedians get laughter,
athletes get cheers,
politions
if they don't get booed or shot
know they've said the right thing.

But what do you give to a poet?
A sigh,
a snicker,
a quiet smile;
or the low clap that is familiar
to so many
professional golfers.

3rd Place
Pause
by Loretta McKeever

pause with me now
as I bury my father

follow the grandsons
through morning light
as they set him down
near autumn vineyards

wine-heavy the clusters wait
other hands will soon enough
release them into life

with my sisters I carry sunflowers
towards the earth upturned
receive the fragrance
of soil moist and dark

turn now
take my arm
silent generations
sing stories
as we step home

at table under the apricot
share bread with me
save the remnants for the sparrow
and the crow of ebony

pause with me now

1st place Inspirational Category
Bread
by Loretta McKeever

in the desert
forty years passed
as I devoured
book upon book
of prose,
Fulton J. Sheen,
Pearl S. Buck
countless others

soon only
poetry's
brevity
fed me
adequately

my fort-fourth spring
syllables Oriental
subdued my hunger

now only the
verse most full
satisfies -

I AM

2nd Place
Prairie Song
by Vada Overall

Wild daisies, buttercups and crimson
hollyhockssprinled the plain,
flat as a table, the prairie stretched
with miles of buffalo grass
tossing in the wind
like the mane of a wild mustang
Not a hill or a tree,
not an antenna or a roof line
to break the endless horizon.
I was tongue-tied
with joyful awe for what I saw.
All fences fell around me,
Gone was the wall
that kept me small.
Suddenly--I had space
for standing tall.
My heart lifted like a sail
and carried me with it;
I shouted and sang
and raced circles around myself;
The older folks smiled
for I was, after all, a child
full of ambition and emotion.
But I was so much more,
a priestess of one
with wind and sun,
a soul set free
a soul whose eyes
had glimpsed
infinity.
3rd Place Inspirational
I Am A Tree
by Michelle Villalobos

My leaves dance
in variegated light.
They sing like
distant rushing water.
Once fragile, tenuous,
shaded by my elders
I grew
into a home for life:
fruit, shade, shelter,
a thing of beauty,
a monument to the
goodness
of my Creator.
Children bend,
even break my limbs.
Wounds heal to scars,
lovely emblems
of my character.
Winds blow, almost
rip me from my base.
But I remain,
reaching up
through clear night
stretched to the heavens.
I embrace the moving air.

"But I am an olive tree flourishing in the house of God;
I trust in God's unfailing love for ever and ever." Psalm 52:8

2nd Place Student Category
1997 San Joaquin County Arts Council Poetry Competition
The Dance Of The Herons
by Lawrence E. Long

Through folds of grass that
Gather 'round the circle of rock,
With the sky, like tar and stars
Twisting round the autumn moon,
comes the dancing Heron flock.

Dripping down from tops of clouds
Skimming the current of the stream,
Once the soft and soothing grass
That bends beneath their bounding feet
As they dance beneath the nightly beam.

The forest floor is hidden now
By blankets of leaves, brown and red.
Upon low bursts of wind they rise
And spiral into waiting night,
To fall, and find and make their bed.

The Herons acend and back again
On flowers all of a hue the same,
Throwing color all around,
Circling, dancing all as one.
They sing to persuade ancestral flame.

The fire rises from the Earth
Of silver, red and midnight blue.
Slowing vivid, high and wide,
Whipping in the cold night wind,
Bringing both the old and new.

The Herons dance on shades of grass
Around the soaring mystic fire
He is the spirit of the dance.
Wings flutter, keeping time
To music played on magic lyre.

Atop the highest mountain crag
Stands the oldest Heron, He
whose eyes are circled red and gold
Will bring forth the few, those chosen few,
For whom they hold ceremony.

The elder leaps above his seat
And glides through clouds to meet the rest
He stands amidst the feathered flock
And looking on his kin, allows
The blaze to shine upon best.

With raised wings and sorcery
He brings the flame up to it's peak
With glory unmatched and cause unknown,
Seven flames flail from the top
To seven Herons at the beak.

With the chosen brought before their king
They bow their heads with honor proud
From here they know their destiny
As leaders of this magic flock
They dance along on air and ground.

Then silence falls and covers all
Who dance in flowers bright and wild
As the elder lifts his head on high
And brings to him on with call of wing
Another, a young Heron child.

The flock stands still and breezes cease
Blowing through brush and tree and reed
All All is quiet until until the elder walks
Up to the staring child. He points
And proclaims the words, "And he shall lead,"

The child turns and looks at him
With music starting from the lyre
The elder then flies up again,
Just above the dancer'