You have asked me: where have the skies stopped producing the mixture
of light and spirits?
I'll tell you all the locales.
I lived in a state of mind, full of slumber poppies, with rainbows, and
birds, and joy.
From my heart you could feel Apollo's penetrating heat: an
iron love.
Is it that you recall from the great good above
those August nights when
our bodies woke by the dance of the
fireflies?
Friend, now my foe!
And one afternoon your spine was sliced,
one afternoon the bones of the
living dead marched
together--
and from then on we burned separately.
Serpents that serpents would despise; monsters that the monsters would
abominate!
Side by side with you I have watched the waves climb and climb into a
tsunami
meant to deafen you from the outside screams of my pain and
strife!
Hungry bandits:
hear my dead body fall, listen for the murder of my
friend:
from every heart poison leaks instead of harmonious love,
from
every pore of my body another being emerges,
empowering me as I slither round
your throat.
And you have asked: why wasn't her life made of frolicking and dance?
Put down your gun! we're already dead.
Natalie Turturro, FL, Spruce Creek High School
SECOND PLACE WINNERS
Spilled Tea
The sound you made was a yelp of pure jazz.
A mouth distorted as if a caricature by some sidewalk
artist; a
testament to the art of kneading, or needing.
It was skin sore with fire, a
bite of my
caustic wit, a tea bag vacillating like a pendulum
between
the juggernaut of thumb and forefinger.
Tea dripping into a saucer like rain
or tears.
Burned by Earl Grey; lemon-sour fingertips to rosy lips;
love spurns the pain. I told you so, I told you so. The
profound
confounds us, tumbles despotically like a
teacup, fractured on the floor.
Hot liquid dripping
from the counter like rain or tears. Palms red
with
fragile porcelain, garbed in fictional blue gardenias.
Smooth
lifelines turned to jagged edges or abrupt cliffs,
flesh plunging into
mounds of granulated sugar and glass.
We cackled at the cracks until they
cut us to the core.
Your jazzy yelp closed in my grip, smelling of
danger and despair, a shaking warmth between my
forearms. Small
consolations dripping from my lips
onto your earlobe, like rain or tears.
Yuliya Benina, PA, Council Rock High School South
SECOND PLACE WINNERS
to a farm girl
we were born at the end; yellow ankles, minds--buried in steel
in
mechanized meat, in bank accounts
no veil as toxic, mother
earth it's easy to say this
and gilded streets of lonesome crowded west--ward bound
what safety
valve? what golden country?
what world and dream to rape when
ankles stagnant meet the
water?
what direction, but down?
we woke this morning, and fell a
little further
into generations forth--nothing to
claim but hollow chests and empty pockets
born with inward marble pupils,
open us to find no instincts
slam
us shut to abandon: we are
backwards scrambling blind
true-artist-seer, do you figure do you wonder why
modern hands
bear no semblance to applause? we know, we know!
ask us to
wrench a bit of world, feel and taste, triple, throw it in the air
and what
do we find except that our hands are dirty
ask us to wrench ourselves from machinery
in reply
we hit the salted sea on knees, beg for mercy, deny a
source
repent for their sins, what instinct
what
applause?
Ivy Phan, CA, Armijo High School
THIRD PLACE WINNERS
Dashboard Confessional
If my father ever illustrated time, he
would first sculpt
the insides of his dusty red Honda,
where his little
girl sat quietly, graying before his eyes.
Something about
headlights and fireflies on a dashboard confessional night
makes her prone to
bumping her head on the Accord insides
as she gently uncrouches and asks his
permission to take flight.
He might have sprung her from his
head
(he was ninety percent Zeus, ten percent man),
but he was missing the
light that had begun to shine within her
in the past two years of her
life.
And she was his kite. The first few decades,
he'd pull
her (drag her) along, and when she gained height,
she would use his higher
wind and agree to lead—with speed.
Then every year on dashboard
confessional night
they rediscovered the twine that paralleled
them.
He drew pictures for her to read
and she
wrote words for him to see.
On a warm night, behind headlights,
father and daughter confide:
he
gave her room, she gave him
time.
Lucy Tan, NJ, Livingston High
School
THIRD PLACE WINNERS
Grief.
The mother hates all the black
clothing. She
leaves the guests
for solace in the kitchen. She
prefers linoleum to lying
tears.
Her son follows her in, peers
into the refrigerator. "A
juice-box
can solve any problem," she
says. He approaches her
with
glassy eyes. He holds her. He
rises onto the tips of his feet
and
she bows her head as he
kisses her. She feels his soft
skin brush across
her cheek as
she waits for him to pull away.
Jason Sherwood, NJ,
Northern Highlands HS
THIRD PLACE WINNERS
Strategy
Authorities that wish to be
The monarchs in command
Attempt to use me
as their pawn
Across this two toned land
Branded me a rebel
So they can clear the way
Intended to be
forfeit
Unmoving I must stay
A piece with few directions
But still prepared to fight
The board is
somehow slanted
My progress is made slight
Devotion to my movement
Will be my scheming way
To forge a path
toward my goal
While others are in play
I reach my destination
My powers now are seen
No longer labeled
anarchist
For now I am a queen
Jessica Caraballo, NY, DeWitt Clinton
HONORABLE MENTIONS
(in random order)
His Human Thoughts – Anne Rase Atalig, GU, Academy of Our Lady of
Guam
Hence – Christopher Records, CA, Martin Luther King HS
Ballooning –
Tina Bu, SC, Greenville
Honesty Through a Child’s Eyes – Samantha Suddaby,
CA, Clayton Valley HS
And the Pill Bottles Were Like Tiny Maracas – Matt
Tutor, TN, Germantown HS
For.the.Partially.Whole – Deanna Soviar, OH, Toledo
Christian HS
Damn it’s cold. She lights a cigarette… - Michelle Grand, IL,
Lyons Twp HS
(I’m Fuzzy) – Joshua Fu, CA, Harvard-Westlake
School
Corrosion – Leda Sox, FL, St Augustine HS
Release – Julia Fine, MD,
Bethesda-Chevy Chase HS
6 Ways I Look At The Tress In My Yard – Emmalene
Raff, OK, Miami HS
Our Time As Ghosts – Amara Madeo, WA, Sequim HS
Killing
Brilliance – Jordan Jaked, NC, Middle Creek HS
no words exclaimed – Renee
Jeremiah, NY, Middle Coll HS at Medgar Evers Coll
The Cricket Hunter –
Bridgette Zacharczenko, NY, Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake
Hawthorn – Julia
Broussard, LA, Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts
Creative
Nihilism – Karen Drydyk, WI, Fort Atkinson HS
Beware the White Feather –
Jason Thrasher, MO, Lafayette HS
Oppression – Chad Ellis, UT, Hillcrest
HS
Train – Carolyn Marire Caffrey, CA, The High School at Moor
Park
Impregnation of a Barren Landscape – Kevin Clancy, PA, Montour
HS
Here in Your Eyes – Nicholas T. Nowak, NJ, Homeschool
Thanks, You. –
Katy Condic, IL, Oak Forest HS
Thriving Youth – Nicole Reder, NH, Nashua HS
South
Washington – Elizabeth VanSant, KS, Wichita HS NW
This mind is
bursting at its corners… - Erica Michaud, NH, Winnacunnet HS
Refuge – Rachel
Anna Cotterman, NC, Carolina Friends School
Memoirs of a Stowaway – Ambria
Schneider, CA, Diamond Ranch HS
Lightening Storm – Allison Glasscock, CA,
Cameron Park Christian Academy
Painter – Katie Thompson, IN, Crawfordsville
HS
That Room – Lily Yan, OH, Seven Hills Upper School
Progression of Doubt
– Autumn Crow, AL, Lincoln HS
Esther, Dear – Amanda O’Connor, NJ, Nottingham
HS
Sometimes – Emily Adrian, OR, West Linn HS
A Sonnet to the Eye – Sarah
Goncalves, NY, Saint John the Baptist DHS
Stars in the Streetlights –
Alexandria Jenkins, TN, Martin Luther King Magnet HS
Safety From The Storm –
Tiffany Albright, NC, Dalton McMichael HS
An Afternoon at the Battlefield –
Amanda Scot Ellis, VA, Potomac Falls HS
Notes: Assistant Director of
Admissions, upon meeting at DU College Fair –
Maria Newkirk, CO, D’Evelyn
HS
Thanks to all of you for helping to make this year’s contest
the very
best that it could possibly be.