K. is the gatekeeper to spring
Marching me through February.
Vacuuming the chapel and halls I listen
To K cleaning the schoolhouse
Trying to make a home there
Waiting to be called up.

Biking town to town and street to street
I hear the mazes of Amerika
The gatekeeper before the gatekeeper before the gatekeeper
Before the law, vor dem Gesetz,
Knife passing from hand to hand
Before the final plunge and twist.

Hearing twenty-one hours I found myself back
In Brent Chambers’ German 3 class at Provo High.
“Time for a donut run,” Herr Chambers said,
“Take my car.”
“It’s just across the street.”
He threw me his keys anyway.

The parking lot became a steep climb
Till I saw the rollercoaster cars
Coming straight for me.
A movie cliché rescued me
As I jammed the car in reverse
And roared backwards down the tracks
Just ahead of the coaster.

Back on the ground
The parking lot gatekeeper stopped me.
“No leaving the grounds during school hours.”
“I’m coming right back.”
“No leaving.”
“I’m not even a student here,
Just come for a visit.”
“We’ll see about that.”

I defeat the gatekeeper by waking up–
Down the hall, down the stairs, back up the hall
To the bathroom.
Stepping through the curtain at the foot of the stairs
I glance across the family room.

Outside the sliding glass door
A tall brown head
Cylindrical like a Tiki god carved from a coconut log.

I step forward to examine the texture of the bark.
The head turns to me,
I see the body sitting at the edge of the lawn
I back away, knowing when I bring back camera the deer will be gone.

For a year I mull this scene
Till one Saturday night
My friend e-mails an invite to celebrate
Spring with a poem for her blog–
Ends Monday.

The next day in Sunday School as King Benjamin teaches Atonement
I remember today is Orthodox Easter.
K. Chi. Chi Rho. Chi Rose.
Like a medieval deer he bounded
Over the gatekeepers,
And the gatekeepers of gatekeepers of gatekeepers.
No gatekeeper,
No twist of nine inch nails,
No stone coasting down a roller before a garden tomb
Could keep him from springing the gates of death.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Harlow Clark pedals to work down what was a 2-lane country road when he moved to Pleasant Grove, Utah 18 years ago. Since the I-15 interchange went in Sam White Lane (Sam White’s) has been bisected by Pleasant Grove Blvd and partly rerouted. Just before the lane goes over the freeway there used to be a veterinary practice. In an interview for a news story the vet told Harlow he could gauge the transformation of north Utah County from rural to urban by the disappearance of large animals from his patients. Harlow traces the transformation by the disappearance of the home and veterinary hospital and the appearance of a two-story office building (though by New York City standards the whole state is rural). He became aware awhile back that he has written several poems featuring animals, and is working them into a chapbook called Dinosaur Water.

*Competition entry*

Regarding each as hours spent
When the rains come I tilt my face,
A mingling of joy and tears,
Of paths that led me to this place

Where Sorrow hand in hand resides
With Gladness as she brightly sings.
When the rains come I tilt my face
Toward each gift that living brings.

I will not turn away again
But meet each dawn with truth and grace,
Accepting all that life bestows.
When the rains come–I tilt my face.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

To read Lou’s other entries to the Spring Runoff, go here and here.

*Competition entry*

I step into the day…
opening doors and windows,
drawing in the morning air
cool off the ocean,
feeding cats and kittens on the deck,

squeezing juice and sipping as I write
what spills and flows,
feeling it come, letting it go,
lulled by errant phrasing as I stir

dusky berries into batter,
fresh cut lemon stinging
winter-weary splits on my thumb,
singing Joni Mitchell…

as I wash the spoons and bowls
and smell the muffins rising in the heat…

sweet days and dreaming,
bliss measured in moments,
fleeting in the light that pours
through my open windows.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

To read Lou’s bio and other Spring Runoff Entry, go here.

*Competition entry*

Dear you,
You first best cradle
And progenitor of oval me,
You waddle-walked me oblong
Into life and world. It wasn’t cake,
Though there was no doubt some of that
And has been once a year or so in honor of
My coming out. Some may, but I have not forgotten
That you had to push, and did, and have and
Have again you best cradle, you, you
Make and baker, cradler and most
Comforter; you teacher, giver,
Keeper, loser, loved begetter,
Wise and wander-letter;
You all of this and,
Sometimes, less
And more; you
First you.

____________________________________
Jonathon Penny has been around.

*Not for competition*

Snow that saturates the thirsting ground
as aquifers imbibe and drink their fill,
unleashed toward the sea where they are bound
when spring unties the thread of winter’s chill.

Chill that painted roses on your face
in March now slips away but still the blush
remaining as your fingers shake, unlace
the garments April sheds in such a rush.

Rush toward summer’s arms when ours are old
and frigid winds of change are fresh with cold.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lou Davies James grew up on the beaches of Eastern Long Island and currently lives in North East Florida with her husband Wes and far too many cats. She is the author of one full length volume of poetry, Adrift in the Holy, and two chapbooks; Drawn as Ever and Internal Insomnia. She has been published in Victorian Violet Press, Wilderness Interface Zone and JBStillwater.

*Competition entry*

The day had gone by in a flash
Sun was fading in the west
Ash-gray clouds making his bed
But I turned east to stare at the Wasatch
And I wondered
That my first spring in the valley
Was almost over.

Now I see the melting peaks
Quite closer,
Hovering over them:
Less than 35 feet, still V1, and more than ten hours to
Get back
The day
I run younger to come here.

Twelve fake hours of my life
That I have used to bury my ego
In this foreign plain surrounded by heaps
Of pioneering dreams become true.

Next year I’ll celebrate the day I creamed
My neck
Watching in awe how spring was sun
Caressing the stony lips of Princess
Timpanogos
While she was resting wrapped
In white blankets.

I already traveled back home.
A home I’m leaving and heading to at once.
Sparrows play in civic chestnut trees
And quails wriggle in the dust of Liberty Park.
It’s weird now to think about this
But I love to dream
That I’ve been disjointed by spring.

(Time to destination: the rest of it
Local time: no need
Distance traveled: always the longest
Altitude: too close to
Ground speed: please, slow it down
Head wind: dry feet
Outside Air Temperature: who cares!)

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

You can find Ángel’s other Spring Runoff entries here and here.

*Competition entry*

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

To see Ángel’s other entry and his bio, go here.

*Competition entry*

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ángel was born in Barakaldo, Basque Country, northeastern Spain around 1976. Currently, he is a professor of English at the University of the Basque Country where he has been teaching literature, poetry and history as well. Some of his short stories have been published in Deia newspaper and some other anthologies after being winners of contest such as Villa de Gordexola, Ciudad de Eibar or Ortzadar–all of them in the Basque Country. In the last few years all his creative efforts have been focused on his dissertation on Phyllis Barber’s work and some other scholarly stuff but he still got some time to publish a short story in a Chilean literary magazine and poetry in WIZ. All his poems in Spanish remain unpublished, waiting for the day Ángel feels confident enough to find an outlet for them.

*Competition entry*

I.

Earth surrounds you, my rough-orange Chessie.
Earth retrieved you through its door.
Raccoons quarrel in the yard without your night patrol.
Covered with daisy rugs and a new red collar on,
your head rests on a corduroy purple pillow.
You are held deeply like a queen’s companion
in cool repose.

Forgetting, I think you waiting in cool May grass.
I see your shining eyes–expectantly bright.
That morning I closed them.
They had watched for me one last time.
By excavating, we had you laid six feet deep
where summer heat will bother you no more.
At first, I kept watered there marigolds and zinnias.
We planted orange tulips and peony bushes
to watch for each spring.

I picked from the field white, beige-dappled stones
and laid them on the porch where your doghouse stood,
where I found you–the sheen still in your eyes.
One tear-shaped rock appeared a condensation
of your faithful heart.

White field rock gave me comfort;
that’s what I knew and did not expect more.
Yet in late summer, at the animal shelter
the porch stones’ colors–white and beige-spotted–
pranced before me in a long-furred spaniel-mix,
my husband named Buttons.

II.

On her window seat–as still as stone–
she intently peers with her brown eyes
at lengthening green and purple phlox
beginning to tower.
Out under the Mountain Ash
she tilts her nose into swift, moistened air
blowing ear flaps back.
Her alert stillness fills my silence
as rain touches skin, Earth’s anointing.
In the ash tree, diseased bark nourishes,
a deepened brown of spring’s wet ritual.
The least of momentarily dry spirits
shake off in downpour.

_____________________________________________
Mary Belardi Erickson has been partial to poetry since her childhood in Concord Township, Dodge County, Minnesota. Emily Dickinson was her first favorite poet. She was educated at Augsburg College, Drake and Purdue Universities. These were the nomadic years for her: living in various cities, studying and teaching. The 1990’s found her returning to a country setting, Hayes Township, Swift County, Minnesota. Her poems are now available in online and print journals. She was nominated for Dancz Books Best of the Web 2010. For “As a leaf,” she received 2nd place in the 2009 Numinous Magazine Poetry Prize, New Zealand. Her work appears in Sephyrus Press’ No Fresh Cut Flowers: Afterlife Anthology and Silver Boomer Books’ From the Porch Swing – memories of our grandparents. Her e-chapbook, Back-stepping Between Two Bridges, can be found at victorianvioletpress.com. Karen Kelsay, editor and poet, has selected Mary’s chapbook While You Blue-step to be published 2012 by Aldrich Publishing. Her web site is MaryBelardiErickson.com.

*Competition entry*

*Competition entry*