Live Poets Society of NJ
P O Box 8841
Turnersville, NJ 08012
info
WINNERS
12-13
JUST POETRY!!! & the Live Poets Society of NJ...
legitimately good poetry since 1998
no fooling, no kidding, no scamming.
EASTERDAY POETRY AWARD 2012/2013
($500 Scholarship Prize)
The Winner, as selected by our readers, is Alicia Lai the "Best of Issue" winner from the Spring 2013 issue. Anna is from the State College High School in Pennsylvania. Congratulations Alicia!
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“BEST OF ISSUE” WINNER Winter 2013
Apathy?
Beyond the horizon, mills blow faint breeze,...
As barrooms open, easily seeing
It is Saturday, when libations pour.
Depressed rues start, the wind now carries chill,
Memories from a painful yesterday.
Fourscore beards ago, I was a young man,
But as it is, blackbirds grow into crows.
Who can tell but I, the every man who can
Belong to countryside and tavern clans?
For rising, pleading my thoughts to matter,
I fight the rivers of torrential chatter.
Beyond the pubs once frequently seen,
The hospital is a corner for the coroner.
Please take me away, I pray in the crowd,
Among the hypocrites, proud, true, and crazed,
I have no string, the maze I will never
Decrypt the aspects of my sinking ship.
I step so slighted in my house, bearing curse tight.
Oh! The fright, yes, my love might be saved,
Only if the lowlight hearse takes me tonight.
Keegan M. Gormally, IA, Fort Dodge Senior High
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EDITOR'S CHOICE WINNER Winter 2013
Helena
And when my daughter calls my name...
Will I remember the broken nerves
The acrid, metallic notes of veins
Memories of heart-shaped violets bruise
Transversal scars met with indifference
Only a boy with ink-stained eyes to erase
The lyrics of Melpomene’s melancholic melody
Spit out artificial sweetener which conveniently
Crusts over my tongue
Carve out black flesh, bleed acid
Sakura blossoms beneath moon-bleached bones
Coal-smeared webs whisper of reality
And he speaks urgently in the past and present tense
Of selfish loves and stitches
Torn from slit flesh
Will I remember any of it
When she wants to watch glass mason jars catch
What tears from burdened clouds
Simplistic cadence to lull a battered mind
My child borne of sunshine and verse
Francesca Rainosek, TX, Mount Carmel Academy
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EDITOR'S CHOICE WINNER Fall 2012
Maybe You Should Be Getting Back to Juanita
blondes you banged like the sea. latinas you stripped...
of catholicism like clingy undershirts. heads
you stole by the sweet lick of weed on your neck.
teeth in your grin i pop out like pills. your black hair
loose in fingers as i pluck out the grass on sunny days.
or on rainy days which are the same days.
dragged over your shards: girls and green insects.
green like the ends of your teeth after they've squatted
in my drawer during an eclipse of no time.
i sew all your teeth back into your gums. i gather
you and roll you into my lap. i fold you
into separate pieces. i see your arm twitch
in the washrag pile. i kiss your sweet neck, sweet grin.
i tuck you with the birth control. your body, it's empty.
except for the teeth.
Shauna K. Moore, LA, New Orleans Center for Creative Arts
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“BEST OF ISSUE” WINNER Fall 2012
They Dreamed They Were Oysters
Sun, rotating turret, osculates sea. I breathe....
Sand takes on expanse. Gull, swooping hawk—I’m safe,
Cloistered in earth-moat; hell-trench, water-snakes, snapping
Turtles—I’m safe. You know me? Do you know my pearl?
Closing out lightning’s teeth, my shell a steeple.
Have you slept on my stained-glass tongue? Have I given
You everything: nutrients, time, a mother’s love,
A father’s support? Have I shared too much, suffered
To sheathe you? Adorn some minstrel’s daughter’s wrist, then,
Her heavenly neck a bone-net clogged with refuse.
Her wrist is a gate that will not open for you.
You will never enter the body, never sleep
On the tongue or snug inside bone. You dream of bowels?
No one will swallow you. No one will hold you. Joy,
Nobody waits in the dead of night to begin.
Jacob Oet, OH, University School
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Quarterly "Best of Issue" Winners can be found at
www.justpoetry.org/winners_12-13/Fall_12-13
www.justpoetry.org/winners_12-13/winter_12-13
www.justpoetry.org/winners_12-13/spring_12-13
www.justpoetry.org/winners_12-13/summer_12-13
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Live Poets Society of NJ
P O Box 8841
Turnersville, NJ 08012
info