Borders Stores

SHOPPING CART

Mark Strand

MAN AND CAMEL

On the eve of my fortieth birthday
I sat on the porch having a smoke
when out of the blue a man and a camel
happened by. Neither uttered a sound
at first, but as they drifted up the street
and out of town the two of them began to sing.
Yet what they sang is still a mystery to me–
the words were indistinct and the tune
too ornamental to recall. Into the desert
they went and as they went their voices
rose as one above the sifting sound
of windblown sand. The wonder of their singing,
its elusive blend of man and camel, seemed
an ideal image for all uncommon couples.
Was this the night that I had waited for
so long? I wanted to believe it was,
but just as they were vanishing, the man
and camel ceased to sing, and galloped
back to town. They stood before my porch,
staring up at me with beady eyes, and said:
“You ruined it. You ruined it forever.”

Adult Finalists

K.R.C.

GUILT INDUCED RIFF WITH EYEBALLS AND FISH

I sew the mouths of trout closed, mount them
stiffly-finned upon the wall, recall how long it took
to pry the hooks loose. All I know,

ice melts more slowly when it’s cold out.
A hole may house a rabbit, mole, or bear.
An eyelash is an eyelash, is a hair. Not much

to go on. A thread embeds itself in needle’s orb
with pushy fingers, while shaky fingered figures
miss their mark. The light is just the dark

in different order. I border on the balance of success.
A mess unviewed is tidy, dead are spry. A shriek could be
a gleeful guttural or else a menace. A kennel is a kernel

if a typo is at play. What I mean to say, is look
at who is looking. Tattoo your eyeballs’ likeness on your lids.
Blink and make believe the still-gilled fish are half-alive and smiling wildly.

David K.

AN APPLE FOR JOHN CLARE


“He resolved the matter for himself by running away – escaping – in July
1841[... ]in search of ‘home’ and the hope of being reunited with his ‘first wife,’
Mary Joyce. She had died a spinster, in 1838. When his family told him of this,
he did not believe them.” – Geoffrey Summerfield


1.

I should throw away my voice
for him to hear it. Spring’s morning
hymn collects all rain’s dialects.

The apple trees come to blossom.

I should have offered an invitation
to a safer century.

Instead, I said, come, John Clare,
to my father’s farm. Everything there
performs penance, and is forgiven. Here’s
the place where you can rest
in the haymow, a blanket over last
year’s straw, its small remains.

Through measured rains
this spring, apple blossoms
in our orchard cling.
Point to one and come
October it’s yours.

We’ll have these three seasons,
as winter has the dead.


2.

Dine all summer where you want, John.
Onto your plate happy potatoes tumble
with carrots softened in thick stew.
Sliced bread my mother baked last night
I butter so gently no knife scars its open face.
Enjoy July, John. Take these long days
on your dinner plate.   No need to write one thing.


3.

My father downs autumn’s last standing hay.
Third cut this good year. See him ride the open-seat
tractor, looking ahead, looking back at the blades.
From high on the orchard hill, how small he seems,
how silent the mower’s teeth, how subtle the tractor
at half throttle. The months here were ours, but, John, the apple
you chose, when only blossom, hangs dark, black, full
from its short brown stem. I pluck it for you.
Here, winter frosts rough soon. We should be off
by tonight, in search of your first, your best, wife.

Curtis Meyer

SESTINA: FOR MUDDY WATERS

Great emperor of the cattail kingdom:
The gurgling mouth of the Mississippi,
where ocean merges with the flood-banks’ mud;
The brown sediment that’s so black it’s Blues
Where God spat out black cherubs as orphans,
you arose defiant with your guitar

Strumming your fingers across your guitar,
- which, like Gabriel’s horn, fell the kingdom,-
unleashed alligators, crayfish, orphans;
All dark children of the Mississippi;
All monsters that arise from swirls of blues
Ravenous claws and fangs from tides of mud

Thick as molasses, as mojo, as mud, -
As deep as godless sounds from your guitar,
your growl spoke hellfire so red it was Blues
The Devil’s music became your kingdom
Sawgrass bowed along the Mississippi
Blackbirds cawed, “father,” no longer orphans

Spawned as one of Poseidon’s lost orphans:
Half-man/half-catfish, a bastard of mud
and dreams adrift on the Mississippi;
Hellish abomination whose guitar
promptly disrupted the pine tree kingdom
where vast skies above cotton fields knew blues

But you knew best one does not play The Blues;
They must be felt, for we all are orphans
Outcast crayfish: Servants of his kingdom
Arise and dance ye denizens of mud
May your piper’s call be in his guitar
Your tears elevate the Mississippi

Behold waters of the Mississippi:
Sacred as the Nile, to those who know Blues
As Nero’s fiddle, so plays his guitar
Dance, and know you are no longer orphans
Thou art baptized in sweat and southern mud
Let crayfish give glory to their kingdom

Black cherubs’ harmonica and guitar
pour out in silence blood so red it’s Blues
and time forever sings the songs of Mud

Shana W.

SQUARE WORDS

My Chinese tutor chose the name “Fred”
because he said it sounded like “friend.”

He helped me write my words in their
perfect square boxes. He said a way

to remember how to write “sea” is to
remember that it looked like “mother”

and that “mother” was something I already knew,
because “mother” is something we always know.

Even the square lines seem to curve against
the box like a female frame, fluid

like the ocean, like the shifting muscles of
a horse mid-gallop, like the foaming tide.

But Fred says this is only a trick he made
to help himself remember.

Teen Finalists

Maria C.

UNTITLED

Next to the British of course tea time
engulfs ‘til my baby
Comes in a pattern by the clock
Cheerio mate come up for air
Did I show you my crystal duck? Yes,
Mr. C is my friend. The man with half his face
Asymmetrical missing an ear used the yellow
Five and half a tree stroking
Capturing mosaics of France when the sun sleeps
Hundreds of years ago I too drew on
Paris except I hit the keys
More often pitch rotating across the
frequency rhythm glides
With E and D and G and F my voice off
key to my symphony
Contraption. Let’s leave nonchalantly
across the threshold to the
Bodega on the angle poison sleeps in
paper Exhale inhale Fog
Is on your spectacles.
Can I get a light?

Michael H.

IF I WERE A FOOTBALL

If I were a football,
I'd soar through the sky,
Fast and mighty
Like an airplane.

I'd keep my mouth closed
And stretched out long
And wide,
Grabbing my crissed-crossed
Leather laces
Toward the end zone.

My smooth body
Would soar like a jet,
As I get thrown
Waiting on the last "hike"
To grab me and run
Quick and fast

My brown body
Would be stained
By the green grass
To tell people
That all day long

I was
Hiked and thrown
And
I Flew
Through the pure sky.

Mary S.
CLEANING

We’ll all Dress
In black.
And afterwards,
We’ll all come home
To look at Old photo albums.

A wedding, a birthday, a vacation.
And some people
That I never knew.

My Inheritance is huge.
A big untouched house,
With everything Inside
Left as it was Before,
And covered in a cloth of grey.

A big house,
Just waiting for me to go inside.

An obligation, to go inside.
Imagine walking in,
Like a dream.
Everything covered in that grey.

My whole life covered
In that grey.

And an obligation to clean
Everything up.