16th Annual Poet’s Seat Poetry Contest 2007 Winning Poems

First Place Adult Shawn M. Durrett
Witness

The day’s work is done: the bleeding heart
has been bedded,
the sticks have been burned,
the tools hang quietly from their hooks.
standing at the kitchen sink, washing dirt
from his arms,
he cannot see me

outside his square of yellow
light, among the forsythia
darkening with dusk,
his green lawn unfurling
like the earth’s sheet.
My dog noses in wet grass,
flicks her ears at night
noises spilling from his window:
water rushing through pipes,
Aachild called to supper.
he wipes his arms dry with a dishcloth, sinks
from my view as he turns towards
a woman I cannot see.

I follow the metronome click of the dog’s tail
back to our yellow house. She pulls
At the leash, knowing what waits
for us there.
Desire

is always this simple: her blue
dish of water, two warm hands
in her black fur,
our own squares of  light

Second Place Adult Shari Weldon
Two Minutes on Main Street

I nabbed a great spot
really close to the hairdresser
to get the highlights in my hair re-lit and
passing Starbucks I heard the crone in the wheel chair
covered in anti-war buttons sputter
right in the pierced face of a young guy in leather
I used to be a nothing
and ten yards down the woman in the blue bench said
I feel loved and her friend nodded
and said better late than never
and then Main Street tripped me and whispered
you have to bloom where you are planted

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Third Place Adult Sarah Doyle
Deerfield Thinks of 1704
From the tombstones

Silence. Submit
Mindwell. Waitstill.
Prudence. Thankful.
Electa. Mercy.
Such names were cautionary tales
told before the lives were lived,
the lessons of restraint
taught to daughters at birth.

Did they think that
their daughters would save them?
that the names, invoked,
could murmur tham all clean of sin
and make it so it never happened?

Perhaps they thought that
had they been silent                                                    
they would have heard
the hushed rustle of snow
the footsteps less than a whisper
had they been prudent,
They would have stood guard
despite the cold
had they submitted
to the Will of God
Minding well each admonition
waiting, still and trusting:
had they been thankful
for cold and wet and
fear and food gone sour

they could have
hidden themselves
like deer
hovered like trees
breathed soft as fur,
quiet as stars
lain like pine needles
resilient, bending
to the calloused feet
stealing over their bacls
while they lay hoping

that their houses would take themselves apart,
the lumber arrange itself back into trees,
that the fences would fall of their own accord
to rot later in the summer grass, the animals let loose
to roast over some Indian’s fire
But they were loud.
The forests bled with their industry,
their fires glowed red, their roads
clattered with wheels and hooves.
Their Houses stood straight and proud,
a choir singing “Here we are! This is ours!”

And so, they thought- it may be-
had we only minded and waited,
silent, prudent, submissive, thankful,
perhaps God would have shown His Elect
the mercy He always promised us.

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youth, 15 - 18 Sarah Coflan
The Death of  Another Alice

Alice sat and poured her heart out
            Onto the kitchen tiles
She watched with curiosity
            And poked it like a child
“Funny”, she remarked
            To the bird sitting at her side
“I’ve just watched it breathe and move
            But look, now it has died!”

She put it in a little box
            And then into the cellar
“I’ve made a mess of mommy’s floor.
            I suppose I’ll have to tell her!”
Alice was a tidy girl
            And cleaned the mess the best she could
She scrubbed for days and weeks on end
            But, alas it did no good

When mummy came home in april or may
            She did not seem to know
Her daughter’s heart was beneath the floor
            As she often wished were so
“mummy dear” the small girl said
“I cannot quite explain
            How pleased I am that you decided
You would come home again!”

These days mummy is quite content
            Since the death of the steady sound
Alice no longer says a word
            For her heart is underground.

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youth, 15 - 18 Audrey Lewis
The search is far better than the finding

I wrote a poem and it was a good one, but it blew away in the wind.  And I chased it
down the street and across the yard, but it was gone, and all I could do was go home
without it.
And then I got news of incredible poem in the city, so I followed it.
In the city, there were so many poems and so many good ones I had no idea which one
was mine. I followed one and asked it
“Are you my poem? You seem like it?”
And it just looked at me and said
“No, it’s not me you are looking for. But there are so many poems here you can find one
of your own.
If you don’t find your old one there must be another one,a better one waiting for you.”
But I didn’t believe it, and I was walking away when it called out after me
“Everyone’s looking for something.
It’s only once they find it they realize they want something else.”

But I knew I would never have another poem as good as that one, so I went home.
And then I realized that poem was right, and I went searching for another one even
sweeter than the one I lost.

youth, 12 to 14 Christine Bennett
Untitled

It cannot be escaped
Denying desire
Is like
Pulling the trigger
Of a pistol
Aimed at happiness.
It’s always there.
It can be cornered
Into the tiniest
Crevice in the back
Of the mind

You can try
To tell yourself
That your desire
Is utterly impossible,
That there is no chance
Of change or success.
But no mortal,
From cynic ot prophet,
Can completely abscond from it.

A child’s dream
To wake up with wings
And fly high in the clouds.
It’s there

Unsteadily scratching
That last number
from the ticket
Eyes darting up
One more time
To check for a match.
It’s there.

A dog’s eyes,
Staring intently
At a treat.
It’s there.

After horrific news
From a most trusted messenger
It sneaks in to say,
“What if he’s wrong?”

At a funeral,
The longing for the corpse
To flutter open her eyes
Once again.
It’s there.

Hope.

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youth, 12 to 14 Uriah Forest Bulley
The Evil Pink Sky

The boy with the ratty leather coat
gaits across the bridge.
He lifts his head,
And sees the gloomy pink sunrise
a sunrise of magnificent evil:
A pure pink,
That sits heavily overhead.

Past a green house,
past a blue house.
The sky as dark as the sea
beats him down.

He stumbles over the curb.
trying, to escape himself.

Then, the first bright rays of the sun come up
And the blazing rays,
cuts the pink to nothing

The boy with the ratty leather coat turns,
and walks,
back where he came

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