THIRD PLACE
~
SECOND PLACE
Eight Views of a Lego® Block, Peter Frankis
after Wallace Stevens
(i)
Among everything moving —
the gulls and the kelp lifting and again
or slumping on the sand in the early heat
Lego® is still.
(ii)
400 billion since Adam –
fecund almost exponential –
36,000 in the time it took to read this:
enough
(iii)
I found one on the beach this morning
battered
matt orange (was fire engine glossy)
abraded by the seabed as it abraded
faded by UV and salt as it imperceptibly
faded.
(iv)
lego is pig-Danish/Latin for put together
yet alone resembles a stone,
once part of the consumer spiral,
now the sedimentary cycle –
sand to stone to sand.
(v)
< 2 grams of
acrylonitrile
butadiene
styrene,
of forests buried, compressed and liquefied in hot rocks, tapped by
money makes the world
catalysed, injected, marketed, lionised.
(vi)
I kept my Lego® in a tin
ardent pipers chased ivory nymphs
round the battered lid.
(vii) – A speculation
(a) Maybe blown
from a young engineer’s imagination
on the SS Oriana’s deck as it steamed through the Heads
while parents at the railing watched the new country
— so clear, so harsh — come into view.
(b) dragged down for an age –
and then yesterday’s storm freed
tossed with weed and fishing line and remains of drink cans where
the dog and I
walked.
(viii)
it’ll take another hundred years,
like a juniper reversed,
slough off a molecule or two
until fully dispersed
into our great plastic sea.
FIRST PLACE
Jawbone: Homo Sapiens, Merril D. Smith
Almost 200,000 years ago
he hunted across the miles,
journeyed farther than his brothers–
an explorer,
a dreamer–
a man following fate
who lived
till he lived no more,
joining the dust of space
cycled through time–
lush green land
gradually turning desert brown–
and there,
his jawbone, open to the stars,
a monument.
His epitaph,
“eight teeth, one broken.”
Not living,
no longer here,
yet not completely gone.
Vita Brevis Press. 
I will send you a few more cups of coffee to help out!
We’re more than appreciative of your support!
I am honored to be placed with these two–wonderful poems!
Thank you, Vita Brevis.
Reblogged this on Yesterday and today: Merril's historical musings and commented:
I’m excited and honored to have won this Vita Brevis monthly poetry contest.
Wow. I think all of these are magnificent. I am inspired. Congratulations to these winners. The world needs your poetry so keep on writing. Thank you Vita Brevis.
I liked the riding the rails poem very much with its memories and the final trip ahead included someday. . .
The Legos poem made me smile, many different ways this captured my interest! The tumbling sand, sea salt worn and faded lego is one I have seen a few times myself washed ashore.
Merril’s poem has so much packed into it! History, portent of man, time carried out and now, it’s jaw looking bare among the sand below and stars above. Bravo!
Congratulations to all three for their uniquely beautiful written poems! ✒️📃 🌟🌟🌟
Congratulations all of you!
So pleased to be in such good company. Thanks Vita Brevis
I can see the skull in the sand….
“Not living,
no longer here,
yet not completely gone.”
What a great line!!
Dwight
Congratulations!
These are all excellent entries. Congratulations!
Congratulations to all concerned, jaw droppingly stunning (not proper English) words fail me.
Well chosen. Congrats to all including “Vita Brevis” …