A message from: Matthew Cariello

One of the things I look for in poetry is a sense of context, of the life that surrounds the poem. Whether or not this particular piece is autobiographical, it resonates in ways that go beyond the moment of the poem, out toward the politics of daily life, history and on to the moments when the outer and inner world collide. While the commitment to the “triggering constraint” has been maintained, it’s also been transcended in ways that suggest a subtle and sensitive mind. The bold subject matter, the strong images, the consistent rhythm of the quintain (broken with a sestet at a crucial moment) all suggest a writer with both natural ability and great potential. Well done, and buona fortuna!

WINNER, Summer 2010: Hell's Kitchen - Ryan Roskilly

There is a demon at my kitchen table,
The father of my children,
Red and fuming with his half-empty bottle of black liquor.
I don’t dare speak; silence is his language,
Silence is my language.

I hear my children’s footsteps lightly drumming
On the hard-wood floors.
They peek their heads around the corner
To see what mood He’s in.
The bottle says it all.

The words “Get in here!” roared, as if culminated
In hell itself, rattling and cracking the windows.
It was enough to loosen my grip
On the pan I was bringing to the table.
His steak, as if in slow motion, fell to the ground.

He rose from his seat, slow and menacing;
I’d just triggered my own agony.
I drop to my knees, scrambling to salvage his patience,
But he soon towered over me,
Fingers clenched.

He waited for me to rise, to look him in the eye,
Before he cocked back and
Crushed my jaw with his hammer-like fist.
I fell to the ground, blood and teeth on my tongue.
My children look, horrified, at their mangled mother.

He looks down at me for just a second, marveling
At his work, then steps over me toward the children, whiskey in hand.
They both back against the wall
Out of reach from the monster, their father.
Good boys.

They hurry in to bring mommy to her feet,
Tears now streaming down their soft, pale cheeks.
They sit me in a chair before running
To collect towels and ice.
A glimmer of light guides my eye to his revolver on the counter.

I stand up while my little boys search,
I wander toward the pistol.
The silver metal, gleaming bright,
Tells me why he loves this gun.
My children are now watching me, looks of terrified approval;
They’ll never see my blood again.

The weight of the gun in my hand
Pulls me toward the living room,
Where the demon now sits.
I smell the liquor, his fiery rage,
Filling my lungs with flame.

I stand tall before his throne of black leather,
The shining pistol between his horns.
I look him in the eye again, this time I am strong.
My finger lays upon the trigger,
My trigger.

C.A.R. - Kev Kage

One, two, points at you
Four, three, curled to me
Opposing digit starts to fidget
Tires of waiting patiently

Heard a sound, look around
Into night, out of sight
Swear that I just heard you there
Don’t run if you came to fight

Sneak attack, can’t turn back
Two best friends, thumb descends
Pow! Clang! Click! Bang!
See how this game always ends:

I got you first

No, I got YOU first

Today it was breakfast - Sarah S.

Today it was breakfast.
Breakfast killed me today
half an avocado
pitted
shriveled
gray
which could have been delicious but looks instead
like a metaphor for
my decaying life. Malicious
mocking
fruit.
I am squeezed. Abruptly it begins:
that familiar fusion
of piss-warm tears
and sticky snot on my chin. This is absurd.
I’m losing my grip: avocados
are not adversaries.
But my emotions slip suddenly from beneath
like a slimy tub floor under
unsuspecting feet.
Boom.
“It’s the hormones,” I say
or
“It’s my job,” or
more
the strain of pretending
things are what they were
Before.

At dawn I am queen.
By breakfast, reduced
to a lunatic
weeping
at the sight of produce.
I have sense enough left to at least be
embarrassed. I shake my head
compose myself
wipe my nose on my sleeve.
I pour cereal instead.

Trigger - Mark NP

If you believe that you possess
an individual solution to save this planet,
I’ve got a poem to sell you where
I step on a flower and – through
a series of wild and incredible events –
trigger an alternate future
where butterfly wings
crash down buildings
and aliens father a new humanity,
all thanks to chaos theory.

Gee – it kinda feels good to pretend that I
actually have some remote control
over anything that happens out there,
and that I don’t live in a time & place where
I’m a wage-slave to debt and obligation
under the threat of some brutal alternative like poverty;
that instead I alone control the fate of everything.

At present, tidal wave
forces of history and economy
have condensed
life into one hopeless
vision of an ecologically unstable and
politically violent future.

Alone I am nothing. My life is nothing.
This truth is a contradiction that puts to shame
a fantasy where I am in any way
in charge of what happens to me.
One person does not stem History
and nothing about this life
will change except that
to which humanity itself wholly
and finally endeavors together.