Poetry Winners

Poetry – 1st PlaceMonarch by Olivia Cole  the summer the chickens drowned you called me across the withered yardto pray, you said; to worship and confess. but i had seen your starved fingers, the way your knees were so quick to bend.  the butterflies would not land near you, the little blonde girl told me.and i did not forget: amber wings breaking the sun and the shadows sharp triangles on your lips.  they would not land and i could not cross because of it.Poetry – 2nd PlaceLisbon by Rebecca R. Block  We’re living our never have the time lives dreaming Europe, ancient city streets and aqueducts built before Christ.   I’ve been there once, spent a week riding buses with my father; past fields of cork trees half stripped smooth the remaining bark looking fat, foreign against the new skin; past fields of lavender that lasted so long I forgot the color green.   You’ve been there twice, with your girlfriend. You didn’t sit on tour buses listening to your father snoring for hours. You saw England, Belgium, Germany, France but never Portugal.  I’m dreaming of bringing you there re-coloring your thoughts with cork trees and lavender fields so that every time someone opens wine or wears purple you see me.  Poetry – 3rd Placefetish by Caroline Ennis  the smell of blood is in the hall the stairs curl upwards like a housecat’s tail  she sinks between the floorboards and gives in, a littlestacks of books are dusty manacles  they wind around her like hedge gardens, crumbling pages yellowed and whispering.  he is well-versed and quotes as he works. the smell of blood is in the house  spicy and crisp like autumn potpourri. leaves chatter where windows are left open, while  more mound on the walk, waiting.he took her shoes and wears them, sometimes.  in them, his footsteps are teeth on the softening wood floor, soles stretching mouths in the dust. her heels will break, eventually.