The Poem of the Month for July 2023, selected by 2023 Anthology Editors, Maria Vouis and Rob Ferris, is Storm by Steve Evans. The commended poems for July are Cast by Fred Willett, Clouds by Michele Slatter and Mass by Rory Harris.
Storm
Steve Evans
The house is a shattering of wind
and fleeing birds,
its windows shaking in their frames
played like drums in hail-shot rain
as if on the brink of collapse.
How fragile we are in here,
all night paper-thin and fearful,
startled by thundered light
that fractures our brief bravado at a whim
with camera flashes of stunned faces.
A calm will come, we know,
but there are hours to go.
and we could drown in these rooms
insignificant as the electric air.
Published in:
Storm Anthology – Minds Shine Bright
Cast
Fred Willett
My name is George, tall athletic and bold
my features are cast in a classical mould
but there’s this one blot it’s easy to spy
the thing that I’ve got is a cast in one eye.
So finding a job for me is a curse
though really to work I’m never averse
the problem is, as an interviewee
I’m not looking at you when you’re looking at me.
I got a job with a theatrical lot
and there I got cast in a Shakespearean plot
but things went astray on opening night
one eye looked to the left and one to the right.
I thought I might make my troubles abate
by entering into a marital state.
I took a young lady out on a date
but her sister went too and that sealed my fate.
One sister’s a looker the other’s a fright
I tried to look left but my eye looked right
‘Don’t you like me?’ the pretty one said.
‘I tried to look at her but looked past her instead.
My doom is sealed my misfortune set
but I may beat matrimonial hell yet
it seems no matter how hard I try
I can not get over this roving eye.
Clouds
Michele Slatter
When I was young, I bought a book on clouds
I was in love with the idea of clouds,
living under a cloudless sky. For years.
No cirrus, cumulus or stratus there.
Then clouds appeared with different names,
filled the horizon, hanging over me black and threatening,
heavy with rain, cold with hail, drowning me in fog.
The forecast is unsettled.
Yesterday, I bought a book on stars.
Mass
Rory Harris
Last week & this week at Mass
the woman in the wheel chair
nested the baby doll
in the wool wrap of her arm
& folded the other arm across it
so when the priest
presented the host
she didn’t let go
but brushed the sacrament
against her lips
which parted enough
to slip the Eucharist between them
A few weeks ago I visited
my granddaughter
I‘d arrived by plane
& took a taxi to the café
where my daughter
& the two year old sat outside
I hung back watching
until the child spotted me
her mouth formed
a perfect prayer
she slid off her mother
I put out the gag end
of a cigarette her mouth
against my unshaved cheek.