The Poem of the Month for December is The Crow by Tess Driver. The Commended Poem is Fleas by Suzanne Verrall. Congratulations to both of them, and to all the poets who have had poems selected in 2018.
The Crow by Tess Driver
Flames lash the sizzling bones of molten walls:
Crackling heat, a keening call of birds
As wild-eyed stallions crush against their stalls.
Her Monday wash hangs smouldering, then falls,
The cats run howling, roasting in their fur,
Flames lash the sizzling bones of molten walls.
The wind is singing fiercely as it mauls
And guzzling flames spew out their greedy words.
The wild-eyed stallions crush against their walls.
A mother, dragging one child, blindly calls;
A bird’s dark flight is caught in the smoky blur-
Flames lash the sizzling bones of molten walls
And all is deafened by the fiery roars.
The smoke imprisons and inters
The wild-eyed stallions crushed against their stalls.
The girl relives her blackened past, recalls
The crow’s harsh cry. Her mother’s fear recurs.
Flames lash the sizzling bones of molten walls
As wild-eyed stallions crush against their stalls.
Fleas by Suzanne Verrall
the city was inundated
with fleas.
people were scratching
surreptitiously in taxis
in parks
in beds
in back seats
in cafes and restaurants
in office buildings.
scratching
while trying to appear
like they weren’t.
city officials mounted
a pest control campaign
that proved highly successful.
almost overnight
it seemed every flea was gone.
even the dogs
weren’t scratching anymore.
they took up howling
through the night
for want of anything better to do.
except the working dogs that is
the guide dogs
the guard dogs
the therapy dogs
the companion dogs
the herding dogs
the military dogs
the search and rescue.
and the cadaver dogs
who locate bones and other things
they have not buried themselves
and who will howl
or sleep
only when they are dead.