2006 Poetry Contest Winners

Lunar Antipathy

Derek Vollans

Through each age of history
The gentle moon has glared down

Silently disapproving
Watching and witnessing

Struggles of men
Ascent from feral nature

And descent into modernized damnation

I REALLY DON'T UNDERSTAND:  HIROSHIMA NO PIKA

Walter Manderfield

Why sweet potatoes don't taste as good
                         as sweet potato pie.

Why Anna Frank had to die.

Why blue and cloudless skies
                        contain "little boys."

Why seven quiet rivers
                        don't glitter anymore

Why cats and swallows
                        get stiff and hollow.

Why little boys don't become fathers,
                        but instead are piled high.

Why mothers carry the burden on other peoples lies.

Why mothers carry babies, that no longer cry,
                       carry babies deeper - deeper -
                       till neither of them cries,

While fir covered islands drift
                       safely beyond the eye,

And sleeps the only harbor
                       to protect us from the lie.

No grass - no trees - no houses standing by;
just rice bowl and slivered glass,
and lanterns all aglow-
adrift with memories with which to grow old by.

Ghost like images and small weak voices;
silent story images created by,
radiant "little boys"-
in cloudless skies -
throbbing pulse beat "Enola Gay"
permanent image toshi,
to - August 6th 1945. (19 & 45)