[Sharon Passmore]

Well, here's Leila's winning entry in the photo challenge. Now it's time to write a poem to go with this image. The poetry segment of the challenge will run until August 15th.




And Tom's winning poem:

The Outpatient Explains His Theory of Genesis


Shadows show
possibilities:
not where
people are,
but will be;

the way
astronomers
inspect
a speck
of space:

they hope
to see
the start
impart
the past;

to chart
a star
expand
from bright
to land.

They'll never
understand:
to make a world
you only need

seed breeze.

Congratulations, Leila and Tom. Thanks for participating everyone.

[Rose Kelleher]

Uncle Dave had an ache in his thinker
so he went to a discount head shrinker.
The next thing you know,
he had a big fro,
but his head was as as wee as his winker.

[ChristyElizabeth]

Dandelions

Sometimes they spring up in unshaded spaces.
Sidewalk and street cracks aren’t viable places.
Sunbeams eventually crank up the heat,
making it hard not to wilt in defeat.
Despite this, sporadic tufts will billow up,
starry white globes beat the odds and grow up.

But green stems are magnets for someone’s bouquet.
They get plucked up. Wished on. Then blown away.


[This message has been edited by ChristyElizabeth (edited July 18, 2004).]

[ChristyElizabeth]

Evy, Ivy, Over

Dandelion slowly growing out of the crack.
Born on the line, betcha' broke some mama's back.
At dewpoint, you steal what you need from the street,
always taking odds against the white-hot heat.
Your children escape, blowing weed through the park,
higher than the pipes on a meadow lark.

Dandelions push around the bench all day,
gettin’ plucked up, wished on, then blown away.

[Roger Slater]

DANDELION HEARTED

Dan the Dandy Dandelion
lived in fear of summer breezes.
"I'll be safe," he often said,
"if no wind blows and no one sneezes."

"And yet I know it cannot last.
The same fate crushes bloom and weed.
Someday God will make a wish
and blow my cranium to seed!"



[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited August 14, 2004).]

[Sandra Rivers]

With pavers beneath his feet,
the sun gently shining,
on the parkbench he dreamed.
In another world his wife and child
danced along the water ways,
feathers floated,
and dandelions were the flower of choice.
May we all dream
such sun drenched dreams.

[Janet Kenny]

I’ve waited bloody hours and still that dame
keeps changing clothes and putting on her face.
Whenever we go out it is the same
performance. I came out to give her space.
Her clothes are on the bed and on the floor--
she says she hasn’t anything to wear.
If she begins to try on any more
I’ll choke the stupid tart, I will, I swear!
It’s long past lunchtime. Oh my aching head!
I’ve got the strangest feeling, sort of light
and woozy. Can’t a hungry bloke get fed
without that rigmarole? I feel I might
pass out or float away, I need a drink.
That sheila’s pushed me to the flaming brink.

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited August 11, 2004).]

[Jerry Glenn Hartwig]

Amputee

The booze and drugs do aught
to ease a phantom pain;
though never seen again,
they're always near in thought.

A quick ditty before I leave for Wyoming...



[This message has been edited by Jerry Glenn Hartwig (edited August 11, 2004).]

[Michael Cantor]

Alien Abduction

Those dark and powerful abduction dreams
I had last month in Roswell went away
back home here in the East. But, just today,
they’ve started up again, and now it seems
like déjà vu all over – first my screams,
and then the aliens appear as gray,
transparent shadows, stand a little way
from me, and point, and POW! – a laser beam’s

swift scalpel drains my mind, inserts a puffy,
fluffy pile of platitudes instead,
so that - where I was wont to snarl and hiss
in critting fits that mixed the snide and stuffy -
banalities now fill my airy head:
I really liked the images in this.




[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited August 12, 2004).]

[nyctom]

The Outpatient Explains His Theory of Genesis

Shadows show
possibilities:
not where
people are,
but will be;

the way
astronomers
inspect
a speck
of space:

they hope
to see
the start
impart
the past;

to chart
a star
expand
from bright
to land.

They'll never
understand:
to make a world
you only need

seed breeze.




[This message has been edited by nyctom (edited August 13, 2004).]