See the winners here.
Above is a recent photograph of Chateau Boswell, a winery, vineyard, and tasting room located in California. It has suffered terribly because of the recent “Glass Fire” in Napa Valley.
Write a poem based on the above photo and post it in the comments section below. You will then be considered for the $100 prize.
WHEN: Now until Sunday November 8, 2020 midnight EST. Winners Announced November 15, 2020.
ENTRY FEE: None
WHO: Anyone in the world, any age or background, may participate. From within the Society, anyone, including Advisory Board Members, not involved in judging the contest may participate. (If you are outside the United States, you will have to have a PayPal account or a bank that accepts U.S. checks to receive the prize money if you win.)
WHAT: Each entrant may submit up to two poems of any length. Entries are expected to be classical in style, meaning that they must have a regular meter. Rhyming and other traditional techniques are of course good as well.
WHERE: Post your poem in the comments section below.
PRIZE: $100.
JUDGE: Evan Mantyk
A Relic of 2020
I stopped to smell the roses in
This double-twenty year
When men thought Mars and flying cars
Would finally be near
But since I found no blossoms nigh
I wandered off to search
(And though I scrutinized the skies
No hoverboards emerged)
At length I caught a spot of red
Like blood or new-poured wine
As I drew near, the sight grew queer
Then dismal in design
A single rose with head bowed low
Abandoned on its stem
As if a plague of flow’ry ague
Had seized the rest of them
Or maybe some strange insects like
A murder hornet swarm
Attacked the blooms and sealed their dooms
In angry protest storms
My fanciful conjectures were
Arrested by a scent
And then I took a closer look
At petals black and bent
I stopped to smell the roses in
The twenty-twenty gloom
But smoke and spark have made their mark
And masked the bud’s perfume
Florid Frame
Did a tremor travel your florid frame
When you saw the headlands glow?
Did you disown your botanical name
To uproot your feet and go?
Did smoke soon stifle your stomata small,
As you wept for your neighbors?
Did your sight dim from the noxious pall,
No use come from thorned sabers?
Did you bat a leaf like a flimsy flue
To aid the burning staked throng?
Did the wilted canopies spot you, too,
And vainly stretch tendrils long?
Did grapes burst into a rolling boil,
Watering earth with nectar?
Did bottles follow suit, drenching soil
Like a pelican specter?
Did the given juice and wine wind a stream
Along their reach to your base?
Did you gulp and gasp, your bud with red gleam
Preserved in a ruined place?
Did you make the escape a fixed pilgrim
Above consecrated ground?
Did stemware fill again with a singed rim,
A glass laden, still, and round?
‘A whole nother world’ by Beate Haddad
There are thousands of truths contained in this vine-yard-castle:
Behind the iron door is drawing a cardiac muscle.
Leaning against it, hearing its beatings-
feeling its pulsative heartbeats- cheatings.
‘Let me in’, whining and knocking emphatically.
When I first heard the noise of the hidden heart
I felt that my own one was flying enthusiastically
towards the other trembling hidden heart.
Longing for chaste embraces to the unseen booming bust
Keeping on repeating the hammering knocks against ice crust.
Heart melting possessor of this secure stronghold whinstone,
begging you bitterly, menacing this near threshold t- bone.
Every single blow of my fists united in the beats
simultaneously of the cold fancy vault unseen heats.
Pleading you stranger, come reigning in midst of my heart;
I want to kiss you with the kiss of your love alert.
As you are drawn by your own love, I may force you open sweet dove.
As I fuse my hammerings of fists in yours of heartbeats,
I’m not sure if my mind myself reluctantly cheats:
The iron door is opened widely up, an immense void, all of light
comes before my bedazzled giddily astonished sight.
In this immense void none can find the extents of the hearts’ height,
Or its depth or its boundaries on the right or the left, or those on the back or the front.
In the midst of this immensity, in a highest point, I see
The most chaste, purest love is waiting for me!
Chateau Boswell After the Glass Fire
A singed red rose, a deformed door,
both stand before a sky of haze—
If all burns, what’s a rose for?
The crunch of ash is under feet
and tells the story of the blaze:
the singed red rose, and deformed door.
Lovely tinctures were set discreet
for divining: wines in display—
If all burns, what’s to sow for?
I walk the grounds: a game of seek
all I find is soot and malaise,
a singed red rose, and deformed door.
How the ramparts vaulted, brimmed, peaked
with bustle, now in refuse traced—
If all burns, what’s to grow for?
Barrels broke open in last weak
gasp, wine untasted, gone, erased;
a singed red rose, a deformed door—
If all burns, what’s a rose for?
Title: Even Roses Know
Not even roses have their day.
Next to musk of gargoyles
tranquiling the air
of sodden fallen romanesque castles
valued obscolescent
by renaissance grandiloquent snobs.
Looking to pay a buck
for ingenius wit
that cometh out their mouths.
Their sole humility act
to placate, not test the gods
and keep the charismatic graces
endearing them to the Jasmines of the high courts.
And the Pocahontas of foreign Ministry lands.
No, sir.
They do not ingratiate themselves
with abandon
until they’ve paid homage
to the stone.
That which builds their life.
The bud that allows them to grow.
And wine with the best
like in the bygone height of Aux-la-Chappelle.
Cause even Charlegmane knew the limits of the best,
and the ashes that decored the empire of his roman antecedents.
Nice ruins.
Ashen and fertile soil
for the next power (papels)
on the throne.
Greatness rebuilds.
But even Roses
know petals
receive red flavenoids deluxe
for function and not for them.
Not vanity. Not for nothing.
But even this must happen
for self-realizing.
For to like oneself is to use it.
At the end of your day,
for pedalling autumn
And succombing seasons
into the fold
of the present day
Ballad of the Deflowered Rose
By Maurice DeLivre
O winsome Rose of deepest red,
Hallowed be thy pure name!
Virtue has made you most demure
And shielded you from blame.
Erubescent shades flush thy cheeks
In their velvet softness.
A scarlet hue paints thy full lips
Which speaks with politeness.
Clothed in robes of modesty
And decked with jewels of grace;
A wholesome creature most divine,
Worthy of mankind’s praise.
Thy charm and thy unfettered soul –
Both enthralled and awed me.
For who among the flowers could
Match with thy purity?
Within thy loftiest Château
That overlooks a vale,
Thy presence stole the hearts of all
The valley’s every male.
And there they came, from near and far
To ask thee for thy hand.
Yet chaste as thou were, ye refused
To accept their demands.
Disappointed and crestfallen,
Thy suitors went away.
And thus ye remained unsullied
For yet another day.
But there was one whose lust consumed
His heart in hellish flames.
So great was his desire for thee –
To him, ye were the flames.
When honeyed words failed to take hold,
He forced himself on thee.
Ye defended thyself but lost
Thy guarded purity.
The robes of modesty were rent.
Thy virtue turns to vice.
Innocence shuns her gaze in shame
And doesn’t hear thy cries.
Why give yourself to lechery?
And shy from what is just?
Consumed! Consumed were thee by flames!
Fires ignited by lust.
And when he’s had his way with thee,
He leaves thee with nothing.
Robbed, depraved of thy erstwhile joy,
Thou art a sorry thing.
Now, I behold thy present form
And pity thy poor state.
Thy maiden gaze that once was meek
Is blazing now with hate.
O winsome Rose of deepest red!
Tainted by sin and blame,
Thy vestal vow is disobeyed!
Branded by sensual flame.
Much more lies, beyond that door.
We see the chars and sob, alas
the greyish tones of sorrow,
such weeping words we speak of, yet,
a pinch of hope, we borrow.
But what once happened, here, within,
what joy, what love, what laughter?
For it’s not what it is now, we should dwell upon
But on what will come hereafter.
Notice how the rose is bold,
she says, ‘Hey! I’m still here,’
hanging on with a lust for life,
not giving in to fear.
She soon will bloom and spread her seed
and create a garden, bejewelled.
The grass will grow, the trees will leaf with love
and with life they will be fuelled.
The stone is strong and stands aloof
bound firmly by its mortar,
remembering how It once kept safe
a Mom,
a son,
a daughter.
The stubborn door that guards the way
could tell a thousand tales,
of passing guests and words exchanged
that brought happiness and smiles.
So, look again, don’t feel despair
or let sadness cloud your awe.
For life is itching to begin again, it seems
so much more,
lies beyond that door.