MOVING WORDS HOME

Moving Words
Adult Poetry Competition
Spring, 2006
Winning Poems

Living in Arlington

by Robert L. Giron

Virginia your gardens
are like Monets in May
your lawns like satin in July
your aroma the nectar
of a sweet land.

Five Mile Poem

by Jillisa Hope Milner

We were walking home late.
She started saying a poem –
I mean, just speaking from her belly.
A five-mile poem that came to her
as she said it. To the trees, and sky,
and road, whatever else was out there that night.
We couldn’t remember it the next day.
But that’s how things are.
People, poems, are here, then gone,
just like that.

Sunday Evening

by Mark Tarallo

After sundown, toward night,
the sky an oversaturated
lunar blue, darkening
imperceptibly. Regrets
flicker – in and out – like
the broadcast tower lights
above Fort Reno Park.
Two skinny redheads, in chain
studs and Megadeth T-shirts,
lie hugging in the grass.

Living on a Boat

by Jennifer Gresham

The Earth forgets you: soil buckles beneath your step,
your inner ear lost to a shell lodged in the sand.
You constantly hear music – current stretched taut
as a string, fish gliding like mindless bows.

Then the nights when stars lead you to an empty harbor
and the anchor sleeps deep in mud. Starfish feast on an acre
of oysters. The flukes of whales shine against a full moon.
And you, cupped in Nature’s slippery, silver hand,
each sentence a ripple licking the shore.

Autumn Haiku

by Cheryl L. Crockett

Orange rustling
Skirmish amongst brown squirrels
Over stolen nuts.

From “Wishes for Emory”

by Tod Ibrahim

Follow your course: a spring river high
in the mountains shaped by gravity, hard earth.
Turn your head like a lioness on the Serengeti,
eating off the savannah in spring.
Hike in summer light Parker’s Ridge
to the Saskatchewan Glacier above the Athabasca.
Hear when wind shifts, leaves fall, the way
rain smiles – a stranger’s touch to your back.

MOVING WORDS HOME