wherein i did not win a poetry contest

which honestly isn't a big deal! it cost me nothing, literally zero things, to enter it so it's not a big loss at all. the good news is now that the contest is over, i think i can post my submission! like i said in the last post, it's a revision of an older poem of mine, so it might seem familiar to the two readers i have. without further ado, here it is!

Thoughts While Flying Home

One

steamboat’s weight worth

of cicadas’ droning

drowning out whatever

my cousin twice removed is saying.  It’s not important

that the sun hangs low or

that the air is closer to a stew,

thick and bubbling with the scent of heat.  I’m numb to it,

the vibrations of countless crystalline

wings blocking it all out

everything

block out the sun

two

times this week I sat legs crossed

head back laughing while grilling meat

told a tale, full of sizzle with a spiced up plot,

our mouths drip dripping with lust,

and our tiny plastic pitchforks hungry in the air

three

nights straight we sat while artificial

stars on our vine hidden porch blinked in time with

their highborn stellar kin.  And all I

could do was sit and watch, bourbon

in one hand and cigar in the other

four

kids in a tree,

no fears, no cares

responsibilities unheard of

sap the only worry, once it sticks

to hair or skin the only way out is a bath.

back to the tree one day and

all we found was a stump

five

redneck hick prick bastards

hollering that the South will rise again,

too full of cheap rotgut whiskey to realize

the South they want, She’s not ever coming back

She never really fell in the first place

No, she just changed, she just grew

into something a little less ugly,

a child after a tantrum