Honorable Mentions

Throwing Snowballs at Cars
 

From our little redoubt
up on the hill
we lobbed our redoubtable
arsenal of white
handcrafted ordnance
one by one over the hedges
and listened
for the gratifying
thunk
on the roofs and hoods of the passing
innocents
who mostly just kept trundling dumbly along
through the purely
perfect-for-packing
driven snow. But one time
an innocent in a beat-up pickup
stopped. And stayed there. Idling. Fuming.
We froze. Our fingers and toes
twitching. Our hearts racing. Our noses
running. Finally he drove off, but he doubled
back around, and routed our little
redoubt. And there's no doubt
he would have beaten the shit out of us
if he caught any of us—
but we dispersed
like a burst snowball ourselves,
and melted into the neighborhood
like so many scared shitless
snowflakes, no two of us exactly
repentant.

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Progress Is A Seminal Shade​

 

Between colours     and     lackluster
Laughter held in place     with animated glue
Between dim     and     funny things

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My daughter's sculpted paper butterfly
A suspended helicopter without helium

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Billows in her fast     blooming sky.
She grins     and     grinds away in innocent happiness
Like a fatal bee     swimming in the comb

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While the day ochred on to night
I laugh away at the promise with awe

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Of the chandelier at the roots     of reflections
I listen to what I see     in the big, bright light
Behind the giggles     and     the piggy tails

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Little engineering giant
Winging through the firmament

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Wait for when your shadow     grows taller
With all the knuckles     on the door
Wherefrom the nuts     wriggle lose.

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Crippled Cranefly’s Esperance

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Comparable to losing sleep,
a heaviness, anchor weight;
becoming one, reprieve.

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Of feather and bone,
or cellulose;
becoming host.

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Intermingled belonging,
shoulders brushing
leaves, intertwined.

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To strive to bloom.
A touch of growth,
a chasm to consume.

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Slight provision,
leeching joint energy,
consumption for production.

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Vivid as a crack,
sprawling spider web;
propagating fracture.

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On cohabitation depend
fungi and orchid,
on beginning’s end.

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Dependence departing,
photosynthetic trinkets,
journey renewed.

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Sifting through roots and leaves,
a vine to rise;
crawling upward, toward light.

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Weathered stem, burn reddish-brown,
dull efflorescence
of muted yellow to amethyst.

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Sustaining roles to survive,
to lead or to follow;
overwhelming nourishment, imbibed.

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Aching image, little light,
pedestal justified;
Sacrifice provides.

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Shedding pieces, extended hand,
distant, fading circumstance;
Crippled Cranefly’s esperance.