Thank you to our guest judges Lisa Marie Basile (Caper Journal), Bryan Borland (Assaracus), Jessie Carty (Referential Magazine), and Brad Nelson (Eclectic Flash) for their tireless work in reading and ranking the 116 entries in the contest. They are the best and you should check out their publications! Much appreciation and admiration to all the writers who entered and congratulations to the winners who faced fierce competition.
First-Ever vox poetica Poetry Contest! Today’s Words 3rd Runner-up:
What I wish I could say
By Cassie Premo Steele
I watch the clock after we hang up.
Your last words to me were,
I wish you’d go back on medication.
You laughed.
Two minutes pass.
And I think of what I want to say:
When a blue jay bows to me
from the tulip poplar tree
I can breathe.
Nature talks
and I agree.
The pills took that away.
This is not a loss,
maybe,
unless
you’ve heard a bowl of birds sing your name.
After this, you are never the same.
I do not want to sever you, sister,
but we have found
such different ways to be sane.
Inner dialogue rendered in structure and language so as to make it the reader’s own.
Cassie Premo Steele’s most recent poem to appear at vox poetica was A Hungry Wife, part of Contributor Series 5: Dramatis Personae.
Oh, ho, ho! This one is a home run Cassie! It hits the ball right out of the park. In so few words, you’ve captured the essence of what several of my friends and I have spoken of, and of which we have laughed nervously!
I especially loved: “…unless
you’ve heard a bowl of birds sing your name.”
Thank you so much.
We come from the same womb, but grow in our own shadows.
Very powerful.