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Top
Flying
Over Cheyenne Mountain
by David Ray
1st Place
"The reflection that for the
first time in history the phenomenon of a great
city, like New York, being there in the morning
and not being there in the afternoon could perfectly
well occur."
- James Gould Cozzens
You look down on the mountains snow-capped,
as lovely as when John Muir beheld them,
but you do not know which is hollowed
out
for gnomes to enact their Wagnerian opera,
some cities gone to the boom of kettle
drums,
others to oboes and firestorms, violins so vibrato
that earth will shake as ash overtakes
distant suburbs
and men become writing flesh, no better than
earthworms tormented. It is the hour
we all fear
we will come to, when the maestro's fulfillment
will lie in conducting the final
performance,
so explosive that the audience will be consumed
in the adoration. "So much talent!"
We have said
for years as we paid scripters and set designers
and bit players happy to sing in
the chorus.
Is this climax long planned not wished devoutly-
our first human feat to be seen from
the stars?
Until they fall, all the mountains are holy save
one.
Nuclear
Lullaby
By David Chorlton
Honorable Mention
Go to sleep children, and don't worry
anymore for the people who saw
the flash so bright it changed the world.
Don't think about them running
with fire standing up like hairs
along their spines. Think of the trees
growing back in Hiroshima's ashes.
Sleep well and don't worry
about the plant burning down.
It only happens at Chernobyl.
Not to you. Your sheets
are white and clean. Leave the lamp on
all night if you want to.
Never read in bed. Close your eyes
and drink your milk. Rest assured
that it is pure. If a bad dream
should awaken you, think of the cows.
The cows are happy.
Cows always are. Even those
who raised their heads a moment
when the bomb lit up the sky,
then lowered them and went on chewing.
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Poem
for MJ Polo
by Marina Wilson
Honorable Mention
what I mean to tell you
started in Saigon in Ho Chi Mihn City
outside the war memorial
a man, missing a foot asked me—what country
miss
he wanted to sell me postcards, but I had no words
nothing to say my country packs metal
in its veins
the gun under the pillow has a barrel at each end
I grew up on re?runs
watched M*A*S*H on television, but that was Korea
Gary Tufts wore drag to get out of Vietnam
they sent him anyway
then there's my uncle who doesn't talk about that
year
like a deep hole he walks around
and the man, he asked me again
what country—
and the answer lodged itself in my throat
I know this is an old story—
children on dirt roads, a man holding
another man's head in the air,
fire and more fire, the medal an American soldier
sent back
to Vietnam, an apology
Irma kept chattering I wanted her
to go away
I wanted everyone to go away—the man, his
one leg
later, we were talking about war
and MJ the Canadian was saying something
about but isn't life cheaper here
the line about poor people not loving as much
and I had to look away from him and toward the sky
behind us
because the words pulled away from me
this is what I wanted to say
on the train to Hanoi, I watched
a father and his son
a delicate, wide-faced boy, with an open gaze
he kept staring at me and saying something
to his father his father smiling, said something
back
and tried to put the boy to sleep
he swept his palm across the boy's back and ran
his fingers through his hair
the boy kept standing up in the berth to look at
everyone on the train
then his father would coax him back and try again
to put the boy to sleep
this went on for over an hour
the man holding the boy, stroking him
singing quietly
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