Placed First in Standard Contest
Specular Fugue
Sponsor : Suzette Richards
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watching passivity in activity
sad, sombrely sad
memories from womb rise and fall
little miracles of remembrance
holding the hands of Fate we wait
Wheels of Fortune revolves, race stagnates
we do not cry, hankerchiefs dry
timeless we watch, clock ticking
clock glancing, mindful of time
unseen cry, tissues wet lie around
loss centres, race proceeds
there is no Fate, only Self-determination
every forgetting is a miracle
uterine amnesia ~ stumbling and ascending
sombre joy replicates in silence
active we look away, passive and still
Mermaids and Mermen are given a choice you see
Whether to lay eggs or have a live birth in the sea.
Each one makes her wishes known in a dream.
It is promptly granted by the Mermaid Wishing team.
Some choose laying eggs, for it gives more chances.
Many mermaid babies will hatch southern sea wind dances.
Others choose a live birth, but it limits them to two.
You will want to choose this if you only want to raise a few.
Mermaid twins and triplets are raised in incubators in the deep.
They are implanted via a uterine vial that you will want to keep.
There are other ways too, since mermaids are magical and kind.
If I share all mermaid birthing secrets though, they will wipe my mind.
See the stalking of the weed,
I think he's angry at the seed.
He finds it hard to see the shark,
Overshadowed by the small stark.
Who is that squealing near the bats?
I think she'd like to eat the dats.
She is but a lying teenager,
Admired as she sits upon a wager.
Her sarcastic car is just a cube,
It needs no gas, it runs on uterine tube.
She's not alone she brings a spouse,
a pet tiger loaded of lighthouse.
The tiger likes to chase a pond,
Especially one that's in the gironde.
The weed shudders at the scary eagle,
He want to leave but she wants the spiegel.
See the stalking of the weed,
I think he's angry at the screed.
He finds it hard to see the shark,
Overshadowed by the small starke.
Who is that squealing near the bats?
I think she'd like to eat the dats.
She is but a lying teenager,
Admired as she sits upon a wager.
Her sarcastic car is just a cube,
It needs no gas, it runs on uterine tube.
She's not alone she brings a spouse,
a pet tiger, and lots of lighthouse.
The tiger likes to chase a pond,
Especially one that's in the gironde.
The weed shudders at the scary eagle
He want to leave but she wants the spiegel.
The groundhog is about
she’s fattening up
on hedgerow shadows.
Winter babies are carried
in small wombs over stark ground,
they have eyes and mouths by now,
almost human paws.
The snuffle of small rodents
awakens more as yet unborn.
My own inner child
opens its eyes, calls out once.
From all directions,
brown in-uterine orbs
glance my way.
Dawn, like a stripper,
takes off her long black gloves,
arrives in white thighs,
remembers that she too
is a working mother.
I'm not looking good
as if we could know what happiness is
from the grey area
in dream
fairness is a cancer
of the float
so stop
don't judge your dreams
because you only see them in half
or neither
the feeling of devaluation
towards myself or my own achievements
strong feelings of fear
culpability
uncertainty
frustration
guilt or annoyance
change the position of the dream
and we will see
only the trace left on the sand
when he slides his body into a free zone
talk to me, thank you
I appreciate
Womb of Gaia,
uterine fluids rocking
offspring;
shore drinks
thirst is quenched
by Mother’s milk.
to the rhythm of my
swaying boat,
the gulls cry,
as womb waters
whisper.
Salty spray
from a passing orca
hisses past and I am awed
at my sibling’s
graceful,
breaching beauty.
Turquoise sky
casts it’s hue upon
silvery waters,
amid filtering
fingers of sunlight.
Starboard,
a pod of
bottle-nosed dolphins
playing, arching
among the whitecaps,
their chirpy laughter
rings and
I can’t help but,
smile.
I cut my engine,
lay back in Sol’s warmth
I immerse myself,
in the pulsating
heartbeat of Gaia’s womb.
Mama boy ...
that be me
Lactose weaned on nuturing apron strings,
tugging on uterine maternal instincts
Mama boy ...
always so needy
Taught spiritual hormonal wise sayings,
faithfully abide by those loving estrogen teachings
Mama boy ...
Father said that was me,
and I’m just like my daddy —
Splitting image ... umbilical unique
I picture myself on a bicycle
speeding past this fallopian tube of a man
with the stop sign
squeezing cars through one at a time
like unfertilized eggs
that disappear
into a blur
of uterine dust
I need to get to work on my own road
if he would just flip that sign over
I promise
I will go slow
Wanna make a baby?
Here's how it goes....
The ***** enters the vagina.
Then out comes a flow.
Meanwhile from the ovary,
down the fallopian tube.
A tiny egg is swimmimg
and plops into the uterine lube.
After a fierce battle
the fastest sperm wins.
Brakes through the egg's shell.
Then multiplication in ovum begins.
Oxygen and nutrients flow
through the umbilical cord.
From after birth on uterine wall.
Or placenta as it's sometimes called.
A little baby is growing fast.
Nine months to be exact.
The womb then contracts.
These are the facts.
Out pops a baby...
Simple as that!
In the womb my golden days,
warm with twin and thump of
mother’s heart, give a kick
Now and then, good for friends
and family ahh!
not hungry ever: want for nothing
Here with twin: we have a little dance
amniotic, you might say, and often
acrobatic, give us a twirl and I’ll
Be your partner in our chromosomal
twisting, umbilical, fluid-trance; Ahh!
so many words, images, thoughts, but
No language yet, to put a name to our
uterine caper; so I think in images:
ha ha!...clever or what? But he, the
Other one, in our mischief made,
just floats around; yes floats!
I kid you not:
(how long can this last?)
Starburst from a mid-night sky,
jettisons dreams from the sky-web.
Imagination's flight can be terror
for those who would cloud sky with plutonium-rot.
Grandmother Spider's tears
soak Earth's belly with toxic rains;
her sky-web glistens with crystal tears.
If not for the trees belching grayed-out oxygen;
no life could survive.
Tree branches wipe Grandmother's eyes;
each night fewer crystals adorn sky-web.
Grandmother's tears, plummet through acid skies
to a "Nuked" womb...
a ball of micro waved...uterine...dust.
Inside scrapings of darkness
how restless and doomed,
the bellow crashing in like
an agonized moon;
the tunnel hears blood whooshing
in pits full of rain,
hurling damn imaginings
of her fetus’ pain,
wails rip through the stained window
and grinds near right lung,
heart reeks for a babe frozen
knowing breath is gone;
if I could pluck her memories
from uterine wall,
to touch sun’s glint christening
new eyes on dawn’s call.
-----------
*Sadly,research estimates that approximately 1 in 4
pregnancies end in miscarriage; and most women
experience a grief period during such occurrences.
For Susan's If These Walls Could Talk Contest
when the brain is bold
the pen is pregnant;
and nine months stretch
out over an inch
under the title still
like expectant father
waiting for a kick
and you’ll feel a flurry
but knowing this can be a trick,
those uterine lines
need nutrition,
don’t tear at that gut feeling:
let them gestate for
monday evenings
exceptional in convention
when your lady spills her drink
all over the bathroom floor,
and now your water’s breaking, too
all down your cheeks
and onto your
baby.
Flashlight: Stranger in the Gangway
The lack of visitors is uterine
and that is why you porcupine
in this dark corner. Here
who can see the cobra
slither from your lips, spray
the phrases of your mind,
slip back to its moist nest.
Here, who can hear the jeer
of cheetah eyes. “Come,”
they cry, “pour on the light.
Your heart I’ll lacerate
with razor fright.”
Donal Mahoney
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