Meet your Top 2 Picks + a few Honorable Mentions
The challenge was to write a 149-word poem exactly, not including the title. And it must include all of the following words: pottery, vindictive, backfill, sheriff.
And, just like last time, the writers blew me away. Love seeing this kind of creative energy flow; so fun! If you haven’t had a chance to read all the entries, please do. But first, grab a cup of coffee and then enjoy all the masterpieces.
Based on the reader’s picks who meet the 149 words exactly and incorporated all the words, enjoy the two reader’s picks of Katrenia Busch and Andrew Paul Ward. The two honorable mentions go to Mystery Williams and Tanja Cilia.
I also want to thank all the others who entered the challenge:
Molly Miller, X. P. Callahan, Bradley Staman, Thompson Emate, and Tom Weikert.
Prepare for a little enjoyment on your Thursday afternoon.
Just as Pottery is Sculpted by Katrenia Busch
Just as pottery is sculpted By a potter’s skill, works, arts— A vindictive word then be crafted From one’s bosom, chest, hearts— As the scenery is molded— That is to say— from one’s abode— From the backfill— that once surrounded A persons works— they have sorrowed Just as a Sheriff is to county And the sky is to earth— The reign of necessity— Marks innovations birth— The days— and works deployed Under the reign— of necessity Whether embraced— or taught to avoid— Under this here prophecy: “The calendar has its course; That is to say it’s ways— Each year, month, week— but a source That is counted into days— Carefully consider the path of the moon Watching the pattern of the sea— The sculpture of this here tune— Shall guide— you precisely— If you read each stanza from beginning to end You will count 149 words— that do portend.”
IN TOMBSTONE by Andrew Paul Ward
Let the historians of today’s time—
if anyone really wants to be a historian of our time—
Let them know that the zeitgeist of the age is in Tombstone.
Not the vindictive Sheriff in the OK Corral shootout in eighteen eighty-one, no,
I’m talking about the tourists of Tombstone in twenty twenty-one.
Just take one photograph of those t-shirt clad vacationers!
See how they tread all over the lumpy, backfill graves,
One has a can of diet coke in his hand while he reads the stone:
‘Here lies Lester Moore—four slugs from an A44—no less—no more.’
With his phone he takes a picture of himself,
Grinning astride the corpse of Lester Moore.
And to think somewhere in Greece,
There are ropes and tapes and securities all to protect
A single shard of ancient painted pottery:
Painted on it not a coke can tourist, but a Hercules.
CACTUS by Mystery Williams
I told you up front. I’m part cactus.
My grandmother was full cactus and she did just fine.
Initially, we were happy together.
But my cruel vindictive spines kept ambushing your soft parts.
I took up pottery.
The clay was thick enough to pull out most of my spines.
I became smooth and spineless.
I made brightly colored mugs.
The glaze was leaded. The clay was full of spines.
Everything leached out when you drank from them.
Probably, it was the spines that did you in.
I didn’t think you’d die so easily. Or so slowly.
Or that death could sound wet.
I am sorry for that.
I buried you the best I could, but I was never any good at digging.
The sheriff came looking for you here.
He might notice the loose backfill and look for you there.
But probably not.
He’s drinking from my mugs too.
Handle With Care by Tanja Cilia
The Sages tell of two doves that fly;
Their rainbow of love doth span the sky.
The pottery shards in the backfill tell their story;
When keeping up appearances was mandatory
Lives shattered to smithereens, pique, and a fence…
The pressure on the lovers was incredibly intense.
The Scribe who dared to love the daughter;
The vindictive father who sought to thwart her.
Sending his Sheriff, today’s C.E.O;
To search and to capture, to search high and low;
A posse to chase them o’er hill and vale.
Never imagining that true love would prevail.
The daughter, though captive, her hopes never ceased;
She eloped with her lover on the day of the feast.
The dastardly father, killed the man and tore them apart
She died minutes later, of a broken heart.
The gods to protect them and their innocent loves
Made them doves flying free in the skies above.
