June 2013: Poems Recognized

Two recent poems have received recognition in contests sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and the Burlington Writers Club.

CLOSING UP THE COTTAGE OCTOBER 2012

I ascribe human attributes,

To our cottage on the pond,

And why not:

Four generations of

Idiosyncratic postures,

Favorite chairs,

The smiles of grandsons

Around each corner,

In every splash off the dock,

Scent of decades of pine rooms,

My father’s shaving brush,

Memories in other artifacts

We did not buy.

So when we leave,

Packing up board games

Along with Beth’s shy grin,

We ease out onto the lane,

Regret visceral

Until about the Massachusetts line.

The cottage, at first forlorn,

Has figured out what’s going on,

Recognizes the red kayak,

An intruder in the guest room,

But, relaxing under its cover of

Newspaper, moth balls,

Frayed bedspreads,

Like an old bear we know,

Dozes off for the winter.

First Place, Spring 2013 Contest

Poetry Society of New Hampshire

PIANO LESSONS

My lesson was before school.

My father waited in the car,

Smoke from his Lucky Strike

Clouding the windshield of our ’48 Plymouth,

Against a gray January sky

In Pennsylvania—

We did not know to call it the Rust Belt then.

My spinster teacher walked about

Her Victorian row house,

Checking on an invalid mother

And calling out to me,

“I hear wrong notes.”

The house smelled of cooked vegetables,

Even at 7:30

When Teddi Kalakos came for her lesson.

She and I played a duet once,

K.P.E. Bach, it may have been.

Her family ran a restaurant;

She may have inherited it—I don’t know,

One of many threads of the plot

Lost over time.

Once a year Miss Edna would take us

Into Philadelphia, the Reading Railroad

More than a Monopoly card,

Elegant iron horse, cold coal-smoke dawn,

Dutch trainmen in shiny blue suits

Calling out the station stops:

Royersford, Conshohocken.

She let us shop at Gimbel’s,

Have lunch at Bookbinder’s,

Wasted on 12-year-olds,

And took us to the Academy of Music,

The children’s concert,

Peter and the Wolf, no doubt.

Years, years later

My mother asked if I remembered

Seeing Ormandy conduct.

First Place, 2013 Poetry Contest

Burlington Writers Club (Alamance, Caswell, Chatham, Durham, Guilford, Orange, Randolph and Rockingham County, which includes Greensboro, Durham and Chapel Hill))