Second Place
“Splitting Logs in the Summer”
By Preston Woodruff
It’s sweat that lifts the log onto the block
and stings the red-rimmed eyes that read the grain.
It’s sweat that hoists the maul and swings the arc
that slams a clanging wedge of iron and air
and light into the crackling, groaning wood.
The splintered pieces skitter to the ground —
They’ll get stacked, but first, another log…
The sun that dries the kindling soaks the splitter,
who wipes his face on a bare forearm and grins.
He knows it evens out by winter’s end
Third Place
“New Year”
By Lewis Chambliss
Ragged New Year. Livid New Year.
Coming down the mountainside all bandy-legged and awkward-armed through the briars and thicket.
Rough New Year. Unlivable New Year.
Gone before we know it.
Grasping and grabbing.
Open and closed.
Persevering into the brash light of an uncertain birth.
New Year promise.
Wrung out and parched in the sun-dry air, the desert dry air.
New Year of contention and wonder.
Fiscal cliff; maddening gunshots; violent society; purply clouds, rich with the day’s new sunlight.
Unseen kindness, contradicting the metallic walls of “No”;
Voices in the dark, early morn between friends — gesticulating, holding friction and softness, hushed words massaging each stressed mind, now prepared for warm sleep as the winter wind and cold beat against the glass.
Lone hawk flies, circling high, silently speaking its peaceful message in this ragged New Year.
This livid New Year.
Gone before we know it.
Fighting with swords and spears for meaning, for a reconciliation of darkness and light,
New Year, stalwart in the Artic-sent wind, waiting, expectant, trying, oh so earnestly, to hold hope in this
Confounding and conflicted world.
Honorable Mention
“year end”
By Lenore Coberly
year end
outside my window
bare tree limb etch the fog
my coffee cools fast
berry jam on toast
unmixed with cold butter
morning paper wet
an old ball point pen
inky patterns on paper
my last yellow sheet
Honorable Mention
“False Winter”
By Jeanette Reid
On morning walk
my dog and I,
a storm of tiny flakes swirled
through the sky —
like fairyland.
He raised his head
to sniff the air,
I saw what looked like snowflakes
on his hair
and on my jacket’s
dark green sleeve,
unmelting.
West toward town, an orangey-
red horizon glowed as if last evening’s
sunset lodged itself in going
down.
The world stood on its head.
Sound that seemed the far-
off whistle of a train, became
sharp sirens’ cries.
Beacon Blanket’s shut-down plant
aflame, beaming plumes of fiery
smoke in memory of its name, emitting
flakes of fluff and fuzz across
the vale it fed and warmed
for eighty years.
Arson without reason?
Incendiary blame?
Fallout from conflagrations
that could carry many names.
Aftermath of outrage
in gray snow-flake-floating
ash.
Honorable Mention
“When He Wore Red”
By Michael Osorio
The young mountain boy use to wear red, mostly.
He use to sing old love ballads of sweethearts he loved
Once, long ago. He would let the words cascade off his tongue
Like the spring water, the good, clear liquids of the earth’s enigmatic
Womb. His mouth was a waterfall, the people around him a lake.
The boy dwelled within those hills, those mounds of ancient
Spirits: the ones brought over on the dark Irish ships,
Those Scottish vessels; carved wood, trees of the old land,
The old world now forgotten. Arcane Genesis.
He knew every name of every wildflower, every herb
Every stone and creature who dwelt with him. He was
The good prophet, the mouth of the land. But now he wears
Black mostly. No need for color when the one he loved is gone.
No flesh to feel, no delicate lips to taste and leave honey upon.
No hair to smell in the obsidian night, no eyes to become lost in
When the world is too much. No ambrosial flesh to tie his
Knot in.
The skeletons of trees are the only things who keep his
Company now. They speak to him, and he answers in blood.
His lover was as forbidden to him as sin; taboo as a
Wood mouse falling in love with a corn snake;
The moon who would give itself to the sun — it wouldn’t do,
Not to the society that bore him: a mass of pious Pharisees
Burning their own tongues of rot. It couldn’t be done.
The young man who was now adorned in black, mostly, had
All the joy drained from him as if a pin had pricked his heart,
Letting all his ink fall into the earth, creating despair, composing
The tree of rancor — the orchard of malice. A lover gone is a life
Dead. A stillborn heart now delivered into the red soil.
All color seemed to dim around him like as ever constant evening.
A twilight, a gloom that decayed into his eyes. Two irises once blue,
Two irises now gray. The color bled into oblivion, that sweet distant
Place somewhere in the sky. Or so they say, the kin of old.
What purpose does the moon serve if there’s no one to love in its light?
It’s only a thing that could have loved the sun, once.