Results of the second annual Littoral Press Poetry Prize are in! Gary Young has selected Robert S. Pesich’s poem “An Evening Commute” as the winner. Mr. Pesich will receive 50 copies of a broadside of his poem, designed and printed at Littoral Press. Three honorable mentions were also selected: “The Girl Down the Hall,” by Mark Harrison; “Every American Child,” by Paul Hostovsky; and “All Day I Have Been Afraid,” by Jeff Walt. Scroll down to read all four of these winning poems. Many thanks to all who entered for your fine writing and support. I wish everyone could win …. Next year’s contest will again have a mid-August deadline. Check here and in the summer issue of Poets & Writers Magazine for further details as the date approaches.
An Evening Commute
At home, in my garden, I hear
the giant crushers of the cement factory
begin their nocturnal roar.
A crimson spider, smaller than a dew drop,
casts her towline from a flaming rose
to my face, almost as good as a leaf.
I watch her cross the chasm.
She wanders in my hair.
Her shimmering line billows
holding me briefly to the blossom.
Robert S. Pesich
The Girl Down the Hall
I’m in love with the girl who lives down the hall. We talk about sex
while we jog in the park along a trail that hugs the shore of this pond
shaped like a dumbbell, that’s really two ponds linked by not much of a
creek. She’s no saint. She likes guys. She likes sex. She tells me. Between
breaths. She’s had a lot of. Men. If she gets enough beer in her some lucky.
Bystander will get to take her home. But she doesn’t do one. Night stands.
If she fucks a guy once. She prefers to fuck. Him twice. She’s not easy. She
says. She’s a woman. A chick. Who knows how to get. What good girls
aren’t. Supposed to. Want. Like right. Now she’s doin’ this guy. And it’s
not. Serious but. He’s her sort. Of boyfriend. Wait. She says. While he’s
away she wouldn’t. Feel right. We kissed that. Time I know. But just give
it. Time she says. Wait a few. Weeks. After he gets. Back she’s sure he’ll
get. Bored. And dump her. Then she’d feel. Less bad. You under. Stand.
She tells me. Same time to. Morrow? She wants to know. That was good.
A good run. She decides. I feel. Great how. ’Bout you?
Mark Harrison
Every American Child
will be issued a blues harmonica at birth
and taught to bend the notes because the notes
are for bending. And no American child
will lock his harmonica up in a harmonica case
but will keep it in his pocket all his life
so that any lost, scattered, fallen, foreign thing,
be it lint, pollen, tobacco, sleet or spiders,
may enter through the holes and take up
residence there. And every American child
will know how to inspect his blues harmonica
without assistance or prompts, unscrewing the tiny
bolts with his own fingernail, and without losing
them or the even tinier serrated square nuts,
remove the metal flanges and test each delicate
reed by plucking it with the same fingernail
to see if it rings true. And every American
child will be required to carry his blues harmonica
with him on his person at all times, and to produce
his blues harmonica when asked for identification
with the blues. And every American child will
be expected to learn by heart the history of the blues
because the history of the blues is an American
story, which some American grownups can’t be trusted
to tell, much less sing, to their American children.
Paul Hostovsky
All Day I Have Been Afraid
I heard Mrs. Lee scream Kill me! Kill me!
from inside her house and I did not move.
At noon, all the dogs in the neighborhood
began barking wildly. Was an unbearable truth
told in a pitch only they could hear?
The television said E. coli lurks
in my laundry and kitchen sponge, and toxic
waste has leaked into the drinking water.
A bright disc with many lights hovered
in the afternoon sky above the backyard fence.
A small child came to my door and asked
if I wanted to buy a chance—Yes! More chances!
I said, and took twenty. The sun, my once
cheerful companion, lowers herself
like a woman easing into her sickbed.
The August wind slowly prowls
the rooms. Bats start to swoop nooses
over my head. Now
the sharp moon appears, a bright machete
swung high in the evening sky.
Jeff Walt