Best Second Year Poems

(In December 1936, English poet John Cornford
was killed in combat near Lopera, during the 
Spanish Civil War.  It was the day after his
twenty-first birthday.  Could this be the poem
he was formulating in his last hours?) 

They switched from cubes to cylinders,
those knights of...

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The recess bell screeches loudly
Students cramped in quarters
dismiss the high pitch

Ding dong repeatedly it fires
No one surrenders

You and I dazzled 
Speak with eyes only
Seldom twitching, gazing still 
Time trickles down in sinewy
streams of desire 
we are fixed , motionless

This ten minute break bleeds
through the souls...

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The Second Year of Barely Breathing
David J Walker

When can we breathe again 
exhaling the dust
Of a long-lost day
Safe from the safe distance

Look them in the eye and pray a prayer
Of resistance to the unknown God of goodbye

Our Father 
If we ever 
get to sit together...

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