IBPC WINNERS ANNOUNCED!

Didi asked me to post these. She doesn't have power back from the storm, yet. Congratulations, Jenni Russell for first place and also the honorable mentions!

Winning Poems for July 2005
Judge David Brinks
* The judge has decided to pick one 1st place winner and three honorable mentions.

First Place:

Jack’s Belly Button
By Jenni Russell
The Critical Poet


Honorable Mentions::

Linen
By Christine Kiefer
Salty Dreams

grapefruit
By Lisa Prince
blueline

For Coyote, A Reflection
Myra South
Café Utne


Poems:

Jack’s Belly ButtonBy Jenni Russell
The Critical Poet

Jack has this belly-button “condition.” A robin-egg blue lint grows
inside it. When I attempt to remove the lint, he becomes aggressive,
recoils defensively. He says the doctor cut his umbilical cord wrong
and there’s a hole inside his belly-button exposing his organs to
the air. He claims the lint is a byproduct of these organs’ secretions.
I never believed him. I always thought he saved the lint for his Mom,
who used it to stuff her hand-made quilts. But tonight as he stood beside
my chair, I looked inside his belly-button and saw a tiny heart beating.
“Hold still!” I told him. The tiny heart flashed and rotated like a police
light. Above it a pair of pink fuzzy handcuffs dangled from a lava
lamp. I pressed my eye to Jack’s belly-button and saw a room filled
with confetti, plastic fruit in wooden bowls, dried sea sponges, trip wire,
lobsters with rubber bands wrapped around their pinchers stacking
themselves like plates inside a dishwasher, and at a cluttered desk with
old chewing gum stuck to its side, a gnome swiveled in a leather chair
smacking gum, blowing it, and popping huge robin-egg blue bubbles.



LinenBy Christine Kiefer
Salty Dreams

Woody interior rotting
Eases the removal of flaxen fiber.
This retting the aroma of a rat’s death behind the cupboard.
Women beating the ornery fannies of flax stalks.
Each child to far corners, wood versus fiber,
Further separation, no harmony in the roughing.
How fine are you?
Stay with your own kind.
Parallel hackles, rough goes first
Ladies last, age before beauty
They are easy when wet.
An orgy of women required
To keep this weaver weaving.
Spin, dress with sticky ooze.
Thicken, strengthen before the toxin.
Bleach now, sun in days gone by.
Virgin white before more pummeling
To close every hole.
Across the pond she longs for sun.
The castle madam prefers sun in Stirling.
In capris, craves crisp clean air.
In pedal pushers, ponders purity.
Shops for vests with lungs,
Trousers with bronchi
Fears Chlorox
And its suffocating ways.
A startling oxymoron
Her poisoned pants
Once pummeled and putrid
To her like women’s lips
On her cycling, climbing calves.


grapefruitBy Lisa Prince
Blueline

I have a little serrated spoon
hidden away in my utensil drawer

you have to pick a ripe one

I remember in high school
home economics classes
where they taught us to press
our thumbs into the ends
of fruit to test for ripeness

every boy I’ve dated
has wanted to squeeze my breasts

sometimes when I shower
I touch them myself
trying to understand
their globular form

for breakfast
mine would be nice

you cut them in half
with a serrated knife - not
the kind with a straight edge
so that you don’t bruise
them - ironically biting leaves marks

there was a boy who
so taken aback the morning after
when he saw the marks he’d left
he couldn’t believe they’d come
from his mouth

I wanted to ask for more

sometimes I’ll have
both halves of the grapefruit
even though home economics
would say half per person
neatly cut along each segment
so that each piece comes
out by itself

my mother had a mamogram
when she was fifty five

they found a lump the size
of a grape - there’s a fruit
I don’t like even if radiation
and raisin are very alike

she only has one breast now

I see her touching herself
sometimes when she thinks
that she’s alone or when
she passes the hall mirror

with only one breast she walks
lopsided - my brother gave her
an orange for her birthday

for the other side, he said

so I eat both halves
with that small serrated spoon

maybe I’ll buy one
for my mother


For Coyote, A Reflection
Myra South
Café Utne


So as the honey maker stops
atop the bloom
for just a moment

milking each drop of prism color
into the nectar she will brew,

so do we all alight

for a sweet span
between clouds
to create
what honey we can
hanging onto
our fuzzy lives

in hopes of feeding those
that come after us -
the buzzing
generations.

We are such
devoted
fleeting thieves

in search of one more
petaled jewel
to carry home

sun light gems -

we adorn crowns
with flower candy
for the mothers

dancing home again
humming between blooms.


Congratulations to all our winners!
IBPC
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