The winners in the 2004 ChicagoPoetry.com Readers'' Choice Awards have been announced. Poems by thirteen Chicago artists were published in Letter eX for one month, and our readers were allowed to vote to see which poet would receive the award.
The third place honorable mention goes to Kathy Kubik for her poem The Dance. She is invited to read one of her poems in the Chicago Poetry Fest. She received a total of 28 votes.
Details at http://ChicagoPoetry.com
THE DANCE
Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight. Make me a child again just for tonight. - Elizabeth Chase Akers
The night we find the lump
in your breast
we watch those asian beetles
disguised as ladybugs fly to a refuge -
our indian lamp shade,
a wash of purple and violet.
Tiny beads dangle
like the skirt of a loose flapper.
Bare light beckons
like a lighthouse.
The beetles twirl, enthralled
by the potent spark.
We watch, rapt
as they dive deep, deeper
as one by one, each gets too close
to the hot bulb,
clink of hard body on glass,
buzz then silence.
Wings scatter like pixie dust
into the heaven
That is an 8x8 reflection
on our slate blue ceiling.
We are mesmerized by their bravery
each sees the casualties
but still dances onward,
a last dip before autumn leaves scatter.
You fall asleep,
light shines warm on your face.
I cover you with the afghan
woven by your mother many moons ago.
Questions, unquestioned discoveries, and answers in parable and rhyme…. This collection records a journey starting with a 1960s retrospective and the first man on the moon, moving to a new millennium welcomed in with a terrorist spin, family crises,
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