Category Archives: Great Poems Online

David Kato Prize for Poems About GLBT Rights: Spring 2012 Winners

This spring, I once again sponsored a themed contest as part of the Alabama State Poetry Society’s biannual awards. The David Kato Prize gives awards of $50, $30, and $20 for poems about GLBT human rights. (See my prior post about the Fall 2011 winners.) David Kato was a Ugandan gay activist who was murdered last year because of his human rights work. The ASPS and the Spring 2012 winners have kindly permitted me to publish their poems below. (UPDATED June 2: Third Prize winner added.)

First Prize

Coming Out
by Emily Grimes-Henderson

She came out of her closet
Left her husband
Lost her kids
And in the light of day
Recovered her true self
Says she knew when she was six
She was different
Nearly lost herself trying to fit
The world’s prescription
Said it was like looking through the
Wrong end of a pair of binoculars
You just can’t see a damn thing
Or find your way.
Now she lives with fear,
Frightened of reprisals at work.
Her supervisor telling her
“You’re the man!”
Wondering if soon she’ll join others
At the underpass
Punished for not fulfilling
The ‘mission’ of the
Company.
Punished for living
The truth of her life.

****

Second Prize

Fayettenams of the World
by Lynn Veach Sadler

Fayetteville, home of Fort Bragg.
They still call it Fayettenam.
Even today, when the Mayor
wants to put up a monument
to the vets of ‘The War in Vietnam’!
Hell, he also wanted to, not long back,
create a ‘Sister City’ with Vietnam.
We put the kybosh on that.
That’s a ‘sister’ thing, all right.
But he’s sure a persistent fool.
Now he wants Fayettenam’s Peace Conclave
to be represented on the committee
dealing with the ‘recognition issue.’
That’s ours–the way we vets
will be recognized.
The Peace Conclave is
Quakers and females and such.
I can tell the fool one thing–
there’s a lot of talk going around
that Fayettenam will burn
if he invites Fonda.
We’ll take a lesbian before that dame!
Wanna know somethin’ else?
Clooney. Pretty boy Clooney.
Our Boy George.
Well, he’s never been married, you know.
Always out there somewhere in the world
stirrin’ things up.
He needs to fight for the rights
of the right kind of people.
Maybe the next time
they put him in jail–
where he belongs, him and his causes
and his pretty self–
he’ll come out with less flesh
where flesh really matters for a man.
They’ll carve off a part
that will make his flesh
match his so-called spirit,
gay spirit, I mean.
You can’t be safe anywhere anymore.
They’ve just come out
with that Army padre in Afghanistan
masquerading as a man
who has now turned female.
Of maybe it was the other way around.
That’s the problem with that he-she mess.
You can’t keep them straight.
I’d kill my kids before I let
them do all that kind of switchin’.
I bet old Sonny Bono’s spinnin’ in his grave
over that so-called daughter of his.
Some chastity Sweet Chaz has!
I always thought Cher was weird.
She’s bound to be
at the bottom of the family screw-up.
Screw-wrong maybe I should say!
I just don’t know
what the world’s comin’ to!”

****
Third Prize

Coming Out
by Janet Johnson Anderson

I have come down
From the hillsides,
Poor as air,
With nothing left to sell
But my courage.

What cannot be used
Or carried,
Has been left behind,
Insignificant
For this territory ahead.

How many I have buried
Shallowly,
In this rocky country.
Emotions, whose intolerable slowness
Caused me to stumble and fall,
Whose presence
Did not wake me in time.
Oh, nothing destroys the character
Like pure conjecture,
Years of uncertainty in these woods,
The agility of surrender,
Has confused me,
But no longer.
I am no longer waning,
Transcending morning,
Illumined in the shade
Of Heaven’s confidence,
I come singing
Humanity’s evanescent song.

****
Honorable Mention

David’s Blood
by Ramey Channell

they know we are harmless
yet danger stalks us
fear and hypocrisy
feed on our breath
messages of hate
signed with our blood
and the world is unbuilt
with each mindless death
and we become scapegoats
in this absence of light

they know life is fragile
ascending on frail wings
love so easily shattered
while conscience is sleeping
enveloping darkness
obscures hope and justice
and the world is unbuilt
and wings are broken
and losses confirmed
and they know we are harmless

Gemini Magazine Is My Happy Place


My poem “Depression Is My Happy Place” was published today in Gemini Magazine, one of my favorite online journals, as an Honorable Mention winner in their 2012 poetry contest. You may enjoy it (or you may not) below. Also don’t miss the 2nd Prize poem by my friend Gerardo Mena, “A Nursing Home Boxer to a High School Volunteer”. Tony Mena is not only a talented poet; he’s a decorated Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran and a musician. Check out his website.

Depression Is My Happy Place

that lake waits anytime
for me to slip
under its threaded green hush
i don’t need summer or parking
to arrive
where my hurtling family
is already one less

depression is easy to get to
even on holidays
the standards are lower than church
or kindergarten
you can run with scissors there
but you probably won’t bother

it’s my tight light box
where i turn back the sun
to a pale hum

i don’t need fattening pills
or fermented dizzy bottles
i can spin it on my own
straw into lead
because a lead house
never blows down or burns

side effects of depression may include
eating more or less
than people in magazines
sleeping more or less
by yourself
sudden loss of interest
in what your mother thinks

it’s my soft dust pillow
under the boxspring where grandma money
refuses the bankers’ conjurations
of brown fields into winking green numbers
racing round the globe
like a tornado-spun house

it’s my black screen
i won’t trade

there may be a cost-saving generic
alternative to depression
ask your doctor about marriage
smiling often and wearing a good suit
may cause people to leave you alone
did you know that your natural skin tone
adds a layer of protection at no extra charge
(some restrictions may apply)

depression is not recommended
for unattractive women

Poem by Freddy Niagara Fonseca: “Books”

Freddy Niagara Fonseca is the editor of the anthology This Enduring Gift: A Flowering of Fairfield Poetry, featuring work by 76 talented poets who all happen to live in Fairfield, Iowa. He’s given me permission to share this lovely poem of his from the anthology. It puts into words why I feel such delight and magical connection when I find a well-thumbed book in a thrift store bin. E-books have many advantages, but they can’t do that.


BOOKS

Sometimes, when I think of the vast
wisdom ever contained in books—

countless scriptures of all creeds; scrolls in
indecipherable languages; tomes of science;

the great Library of Alexandria destroyed by
fire centuries ago, priceless knowledge gone;

thousands of books burned by the Third Reich;
books still held secret at the Vatican;

hieroglyphs in Egypt and whatever Atlantis
must have contributed to the written word;

books simply lost and never retrieved;
others molded, fallen apart, discarded,

and all the many books I’ll never be able to read in a
life-time even if I lived a thousand years;

and when I think of all these while browsing
at garage sales, used bookstores—(o, the good

feel of an old book and the sense of care for
books you surmise some previous owner had;

to see his or her name written on the title page,
sometimes with the date of purchase or gift)—

yes, then I tend to hold a book in my hands a little long
sometimes, deliberating whether I’ll buy,

and I read again what’s on the flap; scan a
few more pages; find a keen phrase here and there;

ponder on the title, the design, the author’s
name, weighing it all in my hand . . . And

page after page of long-forgotten lore, myth, and
adventure slowly take shape and mingle with

my own memory of myth in the back of
my mind, passing through my skin, stealing

into my bones, my heart, holding me spellbound
for a life-time it seems, and somehow beneath

my feet the deeper caves and mysteries of the earth
open wide where I glimpse that which

I cannot name but know that it exists;
and I’m feeling so strangely rooted and connected

to all cultures, beliefs, poetry, romance, peace,
wars, and history . . . and I may take the book home,

maybe not—it doesn’t matter, for as I’m
standing here, simply lost in time for a while,

some power is reclaiming everything I thought
was lost to man one time, and I see the

Great Communicator of it all in all these
many chapters, paragraphs, sentences, words

working their way with a purpose, meaning,
and conviction across so many ages,

and suddenly it seems that everything is all here now,
and really never was gone at all, as long as

books have ever existed, and readers found them,
and as I close the book, walking out to get some fresh air,

there’s all the magic in the air as of old still, and
I can live with that, and be an open book to all.

Poetry by A.C. Clarke: “Woman Made of Glass”


A.C. Clarke’s “Woman Made of Glass” won the 2011 Grey Hen Poetry Competition for women over 60. This contest offers a top prize of 100 pounds and is now accepting submissions through April 30.

I came across this exquisite poem while updating our Winning Writers contest database listings. The author and contest sponsor have kindly given me permission to reprint it here, since it’s no longer available on their website.

Woman Made of Glass

She can’t remember a time
before she knew to be careful.
No-one told her. She knew.

Her mother used to squeeze her hand so tight
she felt it crack. She’s never risked touch since,
spent childhood dodging

the heavy arms of aunts,
washing the smears
of fishmouth kisses from her skin.

She saw a glass frog once, its guts
clustered in its belly like pale grapes,
its small heart pittering:

took to covering herself –
high collars, sleeves to wrists,
thick tights. Like an old maid

said her mother. No boyfriends yet?
the aunts would dig. Afraid of heat
she’d hurry past lovers fused

mouth to mouth in a doorway,
likes cool places still,
country churches on weekday afternoons,

the saints in the windows filtering light
through sightless eyes.
Old glass is her favourite: its pieced

stories jewel-bright, simple, remote
as fairy-tale. Does she notice
how sometimes it bulges towards the base

thick and opaque, as if all these years
it’s been sneaking out of the leaden cames
slipped down, let itself go?

Donal Mahoney: “Ash Wednesday”


A day late (due to travel) but hopefully not a dollar short, I wish my readers a blessed Lent. This season, I am giving up worrying about my friends’ problems. Worrying, of course, is different from praying. I hope to pray more, relying on Jesus’s care for all who are dear to me, and remind myself that it’s not all on my shoulders.

Meanwhile, faithful Reiter’s Block reader Donal Mahoney seems to be thinking along the same lines, with this wistful poem about the difficulty of rescuing a friend from the past. Thanks for sharing.

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday I saw Quinn again,
first time in years, sailing the streets,
weaving through people,
collar up, head cocked,
arms like telephone poles sunk
in the pockets of his overcoat,

the brilliant pennants of his long red hair
waving over the stadium
where years ago he took my handoff,
bucked off guard, found the free field,
and heaved like a bison
into the end zone.

Tonight, when Quinn wove by me muttering,
I should have handed him the ball.
I should have screamed, “Go, Quinn, go!”
He would have stiff-armed the lamppost,
found the free field again,
left all in his wake to gawk

as he hit the end zone
and circled the goal posts,
whooping and laughing,
flinging the ball like a spear
over the cross-bar,
back to Iraq.

****
Visit Donal’s poetry blog here.

Two Poems by Louie Crew


The poet Louie Crew (a/k/a “Quean Lutibelle”) is an Emeritus professor of English at Rutgers University, and a widely published advocate for GLBT Christians in the Episcopal Church. He has kindly permitted me to reprint the two poems below, which were recently featured in issue #99 of Caught in the Net, a poetry newsletter from the UK-based writers’ resource site The Poetry Kit. Thanks also to The Poetry Kit’s Jim Bennett for permission.
Check out Louie’s list of recommended poetry publishers here.

Don’t Hang Up

Don’t hang up,
I’m not a heckler.
I NEED your help
but I can’t tell you my name.
I’m in a phone booth
while mom buys groceries,
so I won’t take long.
I heard your talk show
and I’m scared. Last summer,
when I was just thirteen,
I balled with a guy
I met at the bus station.
Now I’ve got these purple spots
all down my stomach.
I drink five shakes a day
and I have lost fifteen pounds
in just three months!
I’m afraid to go to our doctor
cause he’s my dad.
He’d beat the shit out of me
for liking guys.
Can you tell me somebody else
to call?
Cripes! Here comes mom. Bye!

****

Fay

My one earring stores my powers.
It charms my lover into bed.
Worn aisle-side on buses and trains,
   
it reserves me a double seat
    until all others are filled.
On campus it keeps me off all
   
but the most enlightened committees.
It is 99% foolproof in protecting me
   
from wasting time on racists.
At times it has made otherwise sane folks
   
dangle from dormitory windows to giggle,
   
“Where’s your husband?”
Worn with a cap and gown, it wards off
   
any threat of Respectability.
In class, it assures that students question
   
what I say and not vainly agree
   
because of who said it.
In church, it has made stranger priests
   
spill me a double portion of the Mass….
When I take it off, people take me
   
for any other mortal.

Hermann Hesse: “Stages”


This graceful poem by Hermann Hesse offers permission to let our beliefs evolve as we acquire new experiences and capacities. It feels like a good introduction to the new year, and to a hoped-for series of blog posts about how my understanding of Christianity has changed during my shift from a guilt/forgiveness framework to a trauma/recovery framework for organizing my experiences.

Text courtesy of the Poemhunter website, which unfortunately does not give the translator’s name.

Stages

As every flower fades and as all youth
Departs, so life at every stage,
So every virtue, so our grasp of truth,
Blooms in its day and may not last forever.
Since life may summon us at every age
Be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavor,
Be ready bravely and without remorse
To find new light that old ties cannot give.
In all beginnings dwells a magic force
For guarding us and helping us to live.
Serenely let us move to distant places
And let no sentiments of home detain us.

The Cosmic Spirit seeks not to restrain us
But lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces.
If we accept a home of our own making,
Familiar habit makes for indolence.
We must prepare for parting and leave-taking
Or else remain the slave of permanence.
Even the hour of our death may send
Us speeding on to fresh and newer spaces,
And life may summon us to newer races.
So be it, heart: bid farewell without end.

Cindy Hochman: “Self-Portrait in a Concave Knife”


When the Big C meets the Big D, all you can do is laugh. At least, that’s where poet Cindy Hochman’s survival instinct takes her. Packed with more puns than a Snickers bar has peanuts, her chapbook The Carcinogenic Bride (Thin Air Media Press, 2011) brings energetic wit to bear on those modern monsters, breast cancer and divorce. She kindly shares a sample poem below. To order a copy ($5.00), email Cindy at poet2680@aol.com. Hat tip to Gently Read Literature for bringing this book to my attention.

Self-Portrait in a Concave Knife

Here comes the carcinogenic bride!
Here comes the survivor-in-chief!
Wanna see my balance sheet?
This will be my Checkers Speech!
There goes my stale mate
We once lived in an altared state
He cleaned my slate, I cleaned his plate
Here is love in fission
body in remission, missionary position
Here is my inner elf,
     
my quirky self, my non-existent wealth,
      in sickness and in health
Here are my hickeys, my hearses, my hoopla,
   my histrionics
Here is my whole hierarchy of hernias
Say some Hail Marys and kenahoras
For tumors come and gone.
Here is the lion’s share, my blonde hair, my thin air,
   my health care.
Ass-kisser, go-getter, phone-dodger, night-
  blogger, flip-flopper, vow-breaker
Here is my Chinese fan
Here is my oil can
Here is my Yes We Can!
Here is my bellyflop, my pet rock, my co-op, my
 writer’s block
     my Last Supper
     my Mea Culpa!
Here are my brittle bones, my mortgage loans
My dulcet tones, my low moans
Here is my picket sign, my witty line, my glass of
  wine (or two . . .)
Here is my income tax, my credit max, my panic attacks
Here is what I’ve held in escrow:
     my pens, my posse, my potbelly
     my strokes and daggers
Here is my handle
Here is my spout
     my gamin face, my apocalyptal pout
    
cranky bitch with perfect pitch
Here is my tea rose, my stuffy nose, my broken
  toes,
my spiritual quest, my daily stress, my scarred
  breast
Here’s to my every OY,
My utter JOY
There’s my life through a poetic prism
(or maybe just my narcissism)

Monday Random Song: Jason Bravo, “Isn’t Love Reason Enough?”


My good friend Jason Bravo wrote this beautiful song about being true to yourself. Maybe I’m biased, but I think it could be the next “Born This Way”. No YouTube video yet, but you can stream the MP3 from his website. Purchase Jason’s album Between Head and Heart at CD Baby or on iTunes.

ISN’T LOVE REASON ENOUGH?
(Words and music by Jason Bravo)

Remember that summer when you and I walked on the sand?
We talked about life in a heart to heart that was unplanned.
We climbed on the rocks and we followed them along the shore.
You talked in a way that I never heard you talk before.

And I could hear your words unsaid.
I could feel your pain.

CHORUS:
You’ve been looking for a reason not to hide it all away.
But ISN’T LOVE REASON ENOUGH?
You’ve been looking for a reason to be who you are someday.
But ISN’T LOVE REASON ENOUGH?

There are so many things that I wish you could learn from my past.
So many decisions that I’d change if I could go back.
I’d shake off my fear and my armor and let down my guard.
I wish someone told me life didn’t have to be so hard.

But I can’t live your life for you.
I can’t dream your dream.

CHORUS:
You’ve been looking for a reason not to hide yourself away.
But ISN’T LOVE REASON ENOUGH?
You’ve been looking for a reason to be who you are someday.
But ISN’T LOVE REASON ENOUGH?

The love that dares not speak its name
Is love just the same.

CHORUS:
You’ve been looking for a reason not to hide your heart away.
But ISN’T LOVE REASON ENOUGH?
You’ve been looking for a reason to be who you are someday.
But ISN’T LOVE REASON ENOUGH?

Love, love should be reason enough.

Winners of the Alabama State Poetry Society David Kato Prize for Poems about GLBT Human Rights


The Alabama State Poetry Society offers a twice-yearly contest with a variety of themed prizes sponsored by different individuals and poetry organizations. For the Fall 2011 award series, I sponsored the David Kato Prize for poems about the human rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people. (Prizes: $50, $30, $20, plus HM’s at judge’s discretion.) The award honors a Ugandan gay activist who was murdered this year. With the permission of the authors and the ASPS, I am pleased to publish the winners below.

First Prize:

what more is there to say
by Barry Marks

oh mama mama
oh god mama
how can i not believe
believe you made me what i am
you and papa
god papa what do i say
what do i say when i say who i am
who am i to question you mama
when you say i should not
i should not fit myself into another self
it is not enough that a self is warm
is loving is wanting my self
the self you made the way i am
the way you are
you must be
as i must be
who is anyone to say
to say this does not fit there
or there or where i do not fit
do not fit whose formula
you formed me god mama
god papa should i speak of
god papa on god mama to make
baby god me or was god mama
on top how irreverent how shameful
to think of a god mama god papa
oh my god
mama oh my god
papa if that is so awful
shameful then why should anyone
throw his her mind into my pants
my heart my private self i am
god baby just like they are
just like you are
oh god
mama
oh god
papa
i love you both
i love god
god loves me
what more
is there
to say

****

Second Prize

A Good Holt
by John Foust

I am giving you these words to savor your heartaches.
Am I? I give words to you, salt and pepper, heartaches.

I talk about cold morning and the lift they bring.
The cold splashing of the springs assault icy heartaches.

Standing in the wind waiting for the bus all my life,
It is good to feel warm hands on the vault of heartaches.

Running, all the time running with fare to catch love.
The doors open stepping up, I jolt fares into heartaches.

On the sidewalk, in the coats and swishing, I am alone.
Walking down the street, wrenches bolt tight heartaches.

Row strong in the winter waters of the human stream,
Keep warm, keep a good holt on your hidden heartaches.

****

Third
Prize:

daymares
by Janet Anderson

consider the bliss sitting
absolutely still, your
mind completely numbed.
no free-fall ideas trickling
off into childhood, or tomorrows,
only anonymity.

uneasy to be human, to feel
like an outcast with a brutal
imagination. To beat and beat
yourself against your slab of mind,
the convolution of colors raking
into a long, white, outstretched reach,
the flame groping for the spread
of fire, the floating, diving words
wanting out, freedom
from discrimination, freedom
to be, to clam your own bones
to nest in.

****

First Honorable Mention:

Closet Elegy
by Susan Luther

In the middle of the night I felt the urge.
Got up, and went down the hall. It was not
my house, but — not exactly strange either. I knew
where to find the necessary door. Business finished,
I turned the doorknob back into the room
I had come from. which… wasn’t. Was unfamiliar
hostile darkness — half awake, a blank abyss, nothing
to know who or where I was by, like the time,
staring at Uniform Reality in the reception line
I forgot my own name. No shred of illumination,
adjusted vision. Only black on black
vertigo, the floor capsizing underneath.
Is this how you felt when Alzheimer’s first
augured holes — boarded entrances — into your mind?
How you felt before, under the sentence of your daughter’s
(to you) banish-imperative not-in-my-house bad news? Is this
how she felt you felt have felt feel, others feel, trapped
in telescoping rooms of denial panic incomprehension
difference Open the door Open the door OPEN THE DOOR

****

Second Honorable Mention

the right to be very human
by Catherine Moran

And I say,

being human holds all the glamour
of a rainy picnic on Mars.
We have to fashion our own umbrellas
to hold the elements at bay,
and juggle to keep
the food warm and ready.
All the while we project a certain image
demanded by the social circle.
Those who don’t look like they belong,
are left drifting into puddles
and being soaked by stray drops.

And I say,

everyone has a right to be warm and dry
at the picnic.
Loving and caring for another person
is the most basic human gift
we can bestow on each other.
Sexual orientation
matters little when it comes to kindness.
And when one person
touches
the deep humanity of another with a spirit
of love and concern,
we are being the best creatures we can be.

And I say,

what people wear or
with whom they prefer to spend their time
become such a minor issue.
In a world where humanity can
dish out meanness like a leftover casserole,
any semblance of compassion
is as welcome as fresh thyme.
Being human has its drawbacks.
If we can open the umbrella a little wider,
the picnic can progress
with everyone dry
and plenty to eat.

****

Third Honorable Mention

Prometheus Bound
by Caren Renee Davidson

You met the cold hammer
Cast from Vulcan’s own fury.
You chose to have the fires
Show the sameness
of your face.
You are still Prometheus
the Teacher.