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Out Loud
Poems of the Month
Congratulations to Dick Stahl and
Sheri Grutz! We had another tie!
Their poems "River Maker" and "You Used to Love Me" won the Poem of the Year for
2009!
Read their poems below:
Out Loud Poem of the Year 2009
Dick Stahl
River Maker
The Mississippi is a trickle
compared to the gushing
water when
the glaciers melted 10,000
years ago.
a sign on The Great River
Road
The Mississippi Valley wrote its name
in gorging water after the glaciers
melted, and roaring torrents sliced through
the steep grade southward
for 2,000 miles.
O to stand on the shore of this whooshing rush
of creation, this first
liquid glacier
warmed a few earth degrees moving
like a stampede of charging primordial beasts
eager for the sea.
Even dipping one hand
into this cold, sweeping wash sucked
you down headfirst
into the ferocious current,
the dark undertow.
down to the bedrock, scoured smooth
for a quick drowning.
White caps slapped their own applause
over this vast rapture
of surging water, the great River Maker marking
a swift valley, steep graded,
gouging at will, shorelines pulling wider apart
like one day's long summer horizons.
This is power. This is Nature's spectacular,
and no one standing to feel the bones
rattle, the eyes bulge, the heart leap out
of itself, the feet slide, the imagination send out
millions of current ideas
that only one river could contain,
The Mississippi.
Out Loud Poem
of the Year 2009
You used to love
me
By Sheri Grutz
All this used to be a dance,
all this used to be a field,
where you brought out the best in me
like a patch of flowers,
this winning streak,
and now,
all the people are closed inside buildings inside my
mind,
and they grow nothing but quiet over my developed body
with a locked heart,
they wonder as I wonder, America,
how to tame this wilderness and still grow something
beautiful
in the vacant part of my eyes, that is where you will find your wish.
Poem
of the Month (August 2010)
"Think
Positive, Stay Stupid"
By Jason Cant
Nothing
ever bad will happen to you,
that is
if you have the right mental attitude.
Nothing
will kill you, that cancer
will
just go away, if you choose
to wear
a smile and praise
the
bright sunny day.
Wear
your pink ribbons, wear them with pride,
for
your negativity is bound to be your demise,
and
there are many ways to delude
yourself from the truth, the reality
of your
situation.
And
what is the truth good for?
It only
gets in the way of what
we
really want to be, even though
what we
want to be exists
in some
other reality-- just remember
to
think positive and stay stupid.
Don't
forget that you will never die,
that is
if you assume the proper position.
Don't
bitch, never complain,
for you
want to ride the gravy train.
Just
smile and do what your told
and
everything will be okay,
for you
can just pray your troubles away.
Shut up
and listen to your feudal lords!
They
are rich for a reason-- not because
they
inherited obscene amounts of wealth,
and
swindled taxpayers and pensioners,
but
because they're upbeat and optimistic,
and
they never complain.
You can
be rich,
but
first you gotta stop being a bitch.
You
gotta '86 the negative attitude,
you
gotta parrot happy platitudes.
There
is a way to the top.
Yes, so
your job was exported
to
children in China, so there
are no
jobs in your hometown,
you can
bitch bitch bitch,
for if
you smiled more often
you'd
probably get rich.
Enjoy
this fat corporate sausage,
it fits
snuggly between the buns
of a
sucker, but more importantly,
stop
being such a critical thinker.
Poem
of the Month (July 2010)
"The Rocket"
By
Katheryn
LaFrenz
Poem
of the Month (May 2010)
"Tango"
By John McBride
Crimson to black
lipstick,
hairdo to outdo,
molding
confinement of sheath
with slit down the
side,
we come to this tough
non-kissin' cousin
to the imperial waltz
for which there is no
apology
and no forgiveness.
When they face each
other
they see nothing;
to touch is to
grapple,
and to ignore.
Let other dancing
mime,
here is inflammation
of body and soul,
this smoldering twist
and turn
called "tango"
with all your sex on
the line,
a dance with no chance
for your red hot V's
to combine,
a dance you cannot
turn to or from,
a dance you will dance
to the end.
And there is good
reason.
In Buenos Aires every
Thursday at noon
they demonstrate, the
mothers
of the Disappeared,
but none of the
Disappeared
have ever returned.
Closed is the farrago
of their lives,
they who are led
noiselessly to the
floor
with their scrap of
sex and information,
to face the music,
twist, turn, be
waiting,
who know nothing, hear
nothing, see nothing
but the dark
unanswerable
tango.
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