Click…click went the ticking of insects all night as he lay in his cell
Listening to his own heart for twenty-seven years
Beating on the drums of his ears,
His tongue clucking as he fell asleep
Chased by a giant boulder over the wild coast of the Transkei,
Closer & closer, at his heels, as he ran in his dreams,
The cries of the motherless child echoing over the rolling hills…

Click…click went the sledgehammer blows on Robben Island
As he broke the rocks down into smaller & smaller stones
And the pebbles into infinite fragments & dust…

Click…click went the trigger of the nightmare gun cocked back
As the riot police took aim at the fleeing people of Sharpeville
And the night-sticks came down, cracking the skulls
Of the innocent children of Soweto —
Horses hooves trampling their hopes on the pavements
As the camera shutter closed on moments of truth
In the steady accumulation of a thousand slights…

Click…click went the notch in the ratcheted wheel
Lowering the hollow-eyed souls of miners
Into the diamond dark,
Stacking another ingot in the golden vaults
Of the secret impregnable treasury —
Coin against coin in the palm of the hand
Of the guard at the corner, looking the other way;
Of the judge in his wig & robes, passing sentence, pounding his gavel;
Of the low-level clerk typing up the appropriate papers…

Click…click went the rattle of iron chains
And the clash of spear against spear
As the mechanical hands of the clock ticked off
The endless minutes & hours of his imprisonment --
Twenty-five…twenty-six…twenty-seven years --
As the key in the tumblers turned, the bolt drew back
And the jailhouse door flew open…

Click…click went the chickens pecking at kernels of corn
Where the women pound grain in the village compound
And the rhythm of freedom has come to the calabash & drum
And the blades of the tinkling thumb-piano;
And the sound of laughter & chatter comes back
To the dancers clapping their hands & stomping their feet
On their own piece of ground at last!

EDWARD FISHER
New York
First Prize

Copyright (©) by Edward Fisher. All rights reserved.

The bungalow stares back at me
through its window eyes and ledges
white as the venetian blinds
that once graced the panes of glass.

Grass still grows down the middle
of the split driveway, and Grandpa’s evergreens
keep watch like sentries. But it is the third
evergreen that haunts me most,

the one he stole from the nursery
when he was denied a refund
after the first died. This evergreen blocks
the basement windows where my childhood

fears still fester. These branches are even fuller
than when blackbirds sat upon them
clucking their omens before sweeping
down the chimney.

Grandpa passed first. Grandma knew
she would be next, and I believed her.
I was left surrounded by Mom’s grief
frightening as the coal cellar ghost.

I have tried to forgive this house
for surviving, the brick for not fading,
the trio of trees remaining
pruned and lovingly shaped,
while I stand before them,
arms at my side —
empty limbs of loss.

DONNA K. PFLUEGER
Arizona
Second Prize Winner

Copyright (©) by Donna K. Pflueger. All rights reserved.

Where I live the factories are closing,
the banks are folding, the houses
foreclosing, the stores, shops, bars,
bakeries, salons, boutiques, movie houses,
bowling alleys, roller rinks, rapidly
disappearing; while the young leave
and the old grieve, as incomes freeze
and more jobs are outsourced overseas.
Where I live church doors are shutting,
playgrounds are silent, hope is abandoned.
A pale moon has risen, all spirits broken,
all dreams turned into bad ones by
forces no one saw coming, no one can
stop, alter, run or hide from.
Where I live life is ending. What made
it worth living blew away with a ghost
wind.
We pray for the Rapture to lift us to
lift us to heaven.
We died for our sins.
There is no resurrection.

REX SEXTON
Pennsylvania

Copyright (©) by Rex Sexton. All rights reserved.

One evening, when I was eight,
My father took me for a ride
In our Dory Dink, a stubby skiff
With centerboard, gaff-rigged,
And a single, deep-blue sail,
So I’d forget my fears and embrace
His yachtsman’s lore and skill.
Picking up a stiff onshore breeze,
We raced across the choppy bay,
Close-hauled, gunnel low down,
Skimming the pale boiling froth,
And me afraid we’d soon capsize.
Dad sensed my apprehension
And tried to soothe my primal fear,
But I wouldn’t be convinced, so,
Exasperated, he put the helm over,
Crossing the chop as we swung about.
Then a schooner hove into view,
Jibless, mainsail furled, chugging by,
Lights below, laughter, clinking ice,
Like we two, out for a sunset sail,
But Dad burst out in angry reproach:
“He’s not much of a sailboat sailor
If he’s going to install a motor
And take friends on cocktail cruises!”
We then lurched on, boom cast wide,
Sailor and landlubber, father and son,
The moon rising over the obsidian sea.

TRUMBULL ROGERS
New York

Copyright (©) by Trumbull Rogers. All rights reserved.

When I play certain kinds of music
in my head the bugles call and flags
and I see guards stiffen to attention
as my arm shoots out above the crowd.

The announcement is enough. I make it
over CBS and ABC in the slightly mocking
formal tones that introduce the Queen
and Premier for fireside Christmas chats.

Beside the fire my black cat licks
its shimmering fur and I adjust my cap,
the ribbons of my orders and the day’s decrees;
I fiddle with my pens to sign.

And sometimes it is fun to sit upon a bench
with old men while I say aloud, “Friend!
Brother!” to my neighbor, offering cigars
and brandy and some talk about the weather,

but then I have my firing squads for laughs
and we are not always really equal though
the hall of benches seats us side by side.
I flex my black moustache and wait

to hear the martial music they will play
to greet the moment when I stride
between the rows of soldiers where they stand
presenting arms and colors in the sun.

Enough! The paper dropped against the door,
I click my carpet slippers, poke the fire,
and waddle in the hallway with a sack
of tuna cans and cartons, and the trees

beside me wave their vague alarms
while not far off a lake of battered ducks
stares blankly under sun and moving clouds
where rain is coming and the purple night.

ANTONY OLDKNOW
New Mexico

Copyright (©) by Antony Oldknow. All rights reserved.

As the siren sounded,
crashing us all under our school room desks
my spirit leapt out of my body.
I tried to think of myself as a flower
with a word on its stem,
puffing seeds into the wind.
Our spelling lessons were forgotten.
What good would words be to our childish
bodies against the radioactive wind?
Pictures: love or murder,
pleasure, hunger flooded in,
paintings sung into the ears of children,
sonnets of freedom whispered
like Baroque symphonies against
final doom. Ours is a bizarre era:
all styles of nations juxtaposed.
There is one question hot on the tongue.
Is “Earth, poor planet, born to die?” as Millay asked
after the first atomic bomb exploded.
Will it whirl a blackened crisp
in carbon summer or nuclear winter
prematurely toward Vega?

Have we bored ourselves to death
with an over-glut of vivid entertainments?
Have we satiated the greed of the extremely rich?
Has sexuality been made so lacking in love and romance
that we’re ready to give up “making love?”
Have we spilled enough warring blood to satisfy all
symbolic Satans? Are the Devils of every nation
sick of human garbage in Hell?
Vulnerable Reader, do you truly love anyone?
Have you found a way beyond all abstractions?
All of us, black, yellow, white, red crashed under our desks
and held our heads when the siren sounded, all the while
knowing our human hands were no defense against
the radioactive wind. Mozart, Bach, Beethoven’s music;
Shakespeare, Lady Murasaki, Dante, Rabalais, Walt Whitman,
Emily Dickinson’s poetry can only live as long as we could puff away
in a sizzle of hot hate, incinerating human dreams, eyes, you, me,
everything in a neutron explosion in space, a cloud of radioactivity.
The sleek-skinned grin of a salivating, cannibal god
could be all that’s left.

DANIELA GIOSEFFI
New York

Copyright (©) by Daniela Gioseffi. All rights reserved.

Little Julia will play next. She’s barely nine.
A poised youngster looking like an elf
in long black skirt; a pony tail. No sign
of fright. Although not smiling, she is self-
assured. She bows two times. Her tiny feet
can’t reach the pedal. And so, this foot-stool
will remedy that. A cushion on her seat,
and all is set. She sits, composed and cool.

Her fingers strike the keys. She seems to grow.
What art and what command beyond her age!
Like sparks of fire—the bubbly allegro
and wild presto. Her hands become a swage
to shape at will the tender adagio.
A child she came. A giant leaves the stage.

YALA KORWIN
New York

Copyright (©) by Yala Korwin. All rights reserved.

(Written in 1920's. Published 1991 & 2005 in Green Acre on the Piscataqua, the history of Green Acre Baha’i School.)

I stood on the bank of a river
The sunset to behold
And lo from each side of the river
Appeared a bridge of gold.
They told me the story of red men,
Awed by this vision one night
Named the river Piscataqua
In our words “River of Light.”
And now high on the hilltop
Overlooking this river of light
Stands a village where people gather
To learn of a new found Knight,
Who has brought to the world a new vision
Of love and new hope for all,
We found it deep down in a prison
Away from all ports of call.
Now thousands have caught this vision
Ignited like a burning flame
Caught from that spark in the prison
Bearing the Greatest Name.
(Ya Baha'ul'Abha!)

ZYLPHA MAPP GRAY
October 3, 1890 -- December 8, 1970
Massachusetts/New York

Copyright (©) by Zylpha Mapp Gray. All rights reserved.

(by daughter of Zylpha Mapp Gray, from Green Acre on the Piscataqua)

It was early August 1926, a few weeks before my twelfth birthday, when my younger
sister Jo and I excitedly awaited the hour of dawn when we would arise to take the
longed-for trip. Mother had made preparations the day before and packed the car early
that morning with large baskets of fresh vegetables and fruits from our farm in Avon,
Massachusetts to take with us to Green Acre, Eliot, Maine. After settling in, we were
invited to explore the grounds of Green Acre. How delighted we were to view the
beautiful green landscape and feel the serenity of the spot once visited by ‘Abdu’l-Baha.
Mother and Dad walked with us along the well-traversed pathway to the Piscataqua River where we saw friends, including “Kitty” Schopflocher (wife of Fred Schopflocher, who became a Hand of the Cause), wading at the edge of the water. It was at sunset by this ‘River of Light’ that mother later composed her poem about Green Acre.

ZYLPHA MAPP ROBINSON
Massachusetts/Uganda. East Africa
(1914-2001)

Copyright (©) by Zylpha Mapp Robinson. All rights reserved.

I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna
or on any river for that matter
to be perfectly honest.

Not in July or any month
have I had the pleasure – if it is a pleasure –
of fishing on the Susquehanna.

I am more likely to be found
in a quiet room like this one –
a painting of a woman on the wall,

a bowl of tangerines on the table –
trying to manufacture the sensation
of fishing on the Susquehanna.

There is little doubt
that others have been fishing
on the Susquehanna,

rowing upstream in a wooden boat,
sliding the oars under the water
then raising them to drip on the light.

But the nearest I have ever come to
fishing on the Susquehanna
was one afternoon in a museum in Philadelphia

when I balanced a little egg of time
in front of a painting
on which that river curled around a bend

under a blue cloud-ruffled sky,
dense trees along the banks,
and a fellow with a red bandanna

sitting in a small, green
flat-bottom boat
holding the thin whip of a pole.

That is something I am unlikely
ever to do, I remember
saying to myself and the person next to me.
Then I blinked and moved on
to other American scenes
of haystacks, water whitening over rocks,

even one of a brown hare
who seemed so wired with alertness
I imagined him springing right out of the frame.

BILLY COLLINS
New York

Copyright (©) by Billy Collins. All rights reserved.