Bruce Stater
Colin Van Der Woude
Jonathan
Mark Phillips

Bruce Stater

A House of Porifera

There is a temple of Porifera, a house in the ocean
composed entirely of living sponges
left to dry in the air when the waves receed
and fill with brine at high tide.
 
It is a simple structure, designed in the form of a tower
with a supporting structure of wooden beams
visible only from the interior when one passes through a window
made available at the monument's base.
 
From the dandelion covered cliff
it appears to tower as a beacon of lichen encrusted bricks
marking the uncertainty between sea and shore.
 
Entering its cavern, one feels the call of becoming,
the lure to return to the water encompassed in the warm bath
of amphibiotic memories of the womb.
 
Inside one feels the breath of the living walls, a change
in atmospheric pressure excerted upon the tympanum
and the resulting congestion of the inner ear.
The crash of the breakers lulls in the muted cavity
like the hollow music of the conch which fascinates children
with its mimetic echo of the sea. The scent of sweaty moss and kelp
left drying in the sand overwhelms oneas nostrils
with the infussion of its pelagic wine.
 
Returning through the window which opens space and time
to the transforming in-between, one feels that he has been
reborn, remade, reformed, regiven and regifted to life.

Copyright © 2005 by Bruce Stater

Contributor's Note: In addition to writing poetry, Bruce Stater spends a considerable amount of his free time creating art. He still suffers from occasional episodes of psychosis, but no longer considers mental illness an obstacle in his spiritual journey. He lives in Astoria, Queens with his wife Lori.

Colin Van Der Woude

Untitled

Shifted minds burglars snitch
never again eyes watching twitch
come and go with everything I owe
she said my writing was good,
but widely misunderstood.

Copyright © 2005 Colin Van Der Woude

Untitled

I want you to see beyond my body this time
to be female like you I don't know why
just you in a theatre you mime to cry
 
I don't want all this undenied attention
to talk of thoughts is to unduly mention
 
Stealing love from the rich to give to the poor
what's left for the thieves?
nothing to add a tally or score winter's leaves.

Copyright © 2005 Colin Van Der Woude

Contributor's Note: I'm a 28 year old from Australia who is living with schizophrenia and I use poetry as a creative outlet. I love using words to convey memories and feelings, emotions… I hope to one day have some work published and I'm on a mission to dispel any myths of mental illness.

Poems from the Poetry_Sz Mailing List Contest

1st Place

Jonathan

Seeds in the Bag

there are two reasons
for me
to write
when
I have something to say
and
when
You do
by grace for grace
I beg
thank
or scream
maybe at once
or more
now my mind
Your easel and mine
is the white silence
of
all the colors of light
my children home
( the easier three)
the oldest okay
and no new pain
shrieking and stabbing
through the old
I simply am
(not waiting)
and You
paint as You will

Copyright © 2005 by Jonathan

2nd Place

Mark Phillips

the Voice on-the-tape

"The brothers were seated facing Joseph…they looked at one another
wide-eyed, wondering what would happen next." Genesis 43:33 [The
Message]
 
In what can only be described as a reality-denying maneuver
he still insisted it was not-my-voice on his answering machine
though I knew it was and had left him the message to encourage
him after life took a merciless left turn down a dead end
alley.
 
He left me his longhand affidavit cataloguing every reason why the
voice
on-the-tape
that left him the encouragement about
new prospects,
new opportunities,
a job where he might tickle or clap his hands again,
why the voice on-the-tape could not
have been mine.
 
For sixty days he painted black the chipper waves from the
little box by his phone.
It must have been a taunt that summer from another someone
haunting him down like ghosts through the cornfields.
 
The voice was-too-friendly to be real, it couldn't have been mine,
and the demon he created pulled his teeth out by the roots,
tied his hair back in knots and wouldn't let go until
the pain was all that remained of sunset walks and
cabin-side suppers.
 
But still, the voice on-the-tape was mine.
 
If I buy you dinner, grill some burgers,
invite you to wine and cheese,
will you then believe the voice is-a-friend's
and not the apparition of daggers in your dreams?

Copyright © 2005 by Mark Phillips

3rd Place

Jonathan

wanting the flames to hurt

as I slowly pull away
from what
temptation
fools
me
into
believing I want
toward
what
You want
beginning to feel
aware
of the wrongness of sin
of the hurt
increasing in my body
(that I can manage
though
not very well
it is not unholy)
I sit
wondering
how long
until
my will
wil help
with the struggle
to follow Yours
and emotion
will pull me
too
as I lie
at Your feet
and know that
eventually
I will also be aware
that You
are
trying
to pull me up

Copyright © 2005 by Jonathan