POETRY CONTEST
It's time for me to work on poetry so I can enter three in the Spokane Poets contest. I've been entering for years and generally place which should make me happy. There is nothing to stir up a writer more then some acknowledgement of words you've worked on and gotten the courage to publish. Last year I decided it was high time I win first place. I'm tired of third and the one second. I thought the following poem would do the job. Guess. what. I didn't even make an honorary mention. I'm going to make the poem a first person. I thought I would share this so it will make me work on it. Then I'll publish the re write and see what you think.
RAINBOW GARDEN ARMS
by
L.A. Malby
A courtyard seen through the windows is green in early summer.
Pathways and benches slouch as a water fall
cascades above a mermaid statue
sitting on a replica of a lily pad.
Purple Iris border the walks.
Oriental poppies wave in the breeze.
Silence is shushed.
There are murmurings and swishings
as mechanical walkers stumble along the hallway,
pass the exercise room and the private dining hall.
This can be reserved for special meals, birthdays, maybe.
It’s designed for celebrations.
The lovely appointed dining room can seat seventy-five.
Long tall windows watch Main Street as trucks rumble by
as if to suggest freedom.
The only music in the place.
The lunch menu today is baked chicken,
with au gratin potatoes and green beans.
Dessert is a peach cobbler.
Each table is set to serve four.
Eating is desperate.
The elevator slowly arrives at the third floor
shudders to a stop.
Apartment number 504 is around in back.
The door opens into an apartment filled with journals,
emotions are palpable like the onset of a summer storm.
Emptiness, no indication, no knowledge.
Perhaps this moment will give back a memory.
Return to what we thought we had
before the escape from living;
after the lost sense of the environment.
When time became a fugitive.
Hope darkens with blankness.
There’s no returning.
Little faith left for tomorrow.