The Poem of the Month for July is Toy Boys by Elaine Barker. The Commended Poem is Not Much Left by Ivan Rehorek. The poems were selected by FSP 2018 Anthology editors Veronica Cookson and Lindy Warrell from poems read at the July Open Mic.
Toy Boys by Elaine Barker
The gnomes I chose are stop-at-homes.
This spot in my garden is the place
they gaudily claim. Though gnomes
do roam — you hear of them
disappearing months at a time.
They send cards from wherever
they’ve been, only to reappear
one morning tight-lipped, benign.
Yet no such trivial travel
would ever interest my gnomes.
Like a squat of fancy birds
they parade, preen, step out
untrammelled from the ferns.
Accepting a terracotta life
they raise red-hatted heads,
might grumble at unseasonal rains.
Not Much Left by Ivan Rehorek
So there’s not much left of the moon as it slides into the last of the washed-out clouds behind the dying night – and the stars all get busy sweeping the unmade bed that is the horizon-line, and they are put out one by one like cigarettes: with a stab of stiletto heel…So there’s not much left of the moon, and now all the birds are starting up and there’s an arpeggio of wind that takes the second-last chorus and sings it like it was the last…And it has a coughing fit and gets all the neighbor-hood dogs joining in – once we had golden throats, yes indeed, but now we’ve nothing but dirty necks and are only fit to rake the leaves, sweep the hearts and the tears in the long cold night with only the music to keep us warm. So there’s not much left of the moon but memories, all soft as your hair my beloved, take an extended solo like a vacation to the outer planets – go now with all the blessings, go now with all the curses, you know that’s the only faith you can keep…
Now that there’s not much left of the moon.