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Welcome to Garden 423 in
ARTELLA'S POETRY GARDENS OF FAME!

Click the links below to read the winning poems for the week of April 23, 2004.

Poetry Gardens of Fame Index

First Place
Second Place
Third Place
Fourth Place




FIRST PLACE WINNER


Penny Hackett-Evans

Celebrate the body?

Just back from the doctor’s today
toting a handful of prescriptions that I
have come to rely on.
Suddenly I realize,

I have become an old person!!!

with a BAG full of pills.
When did this happen?
When did my body stop
acting like it should?
Taking a pill to boost that
and another to reduce this.
Another to repair broken down
tissue. And another for the
malady of the month…
and then there’s my eyes needing
stronger and stronger
light and lenses
and a TV that needs to be
turned up and up…

I hadn’t planned to age
like this. I had planned
to be 40 until I died –
of a sudden heart attack
during a gourmet meal
drinking a glass of red wine.

I didn’t count on
this slow dwindling.

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SECOND PLACE WINNER

Mary Rowin

Goals Are Not for Everyone

I found the goals
where I left them,
unfinished,
in a book, in a drawer,
in the basement.
Stretched out
in the sun like a cat
who wants to play,
someday,
but not
Right Now.

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THIRD PLACE WINNER

Jim Nelson

Learning To Juggle

The balls are rising
and now they fall,
And here I'm stuck
in the midst of them all.

The harder I try
to think what to do -
"Where the heck is that ball
that I just threw!"

The balls all seem
to have a mind of their own.
I try to control them
but they find their own home.

Then suddenly it happens,
the balls seem to know -
For when I toss them,
into my hand they go.

The rising and falling,
a catch and a throw -
The balls teach my body
what it must know.

It's holding on,
and it's letting go.
I'm catching on
with each new throw.

The panic is gone,
the patterns are clearer.
The rhythms I hear now
with more than my ear.

I'm no longer controlling,
I feel it inside.
When I said I couldn't juggle,
to myself I had lied.

It feels so good,
my body's alive.
Ok, it's time now,
I move on to Five!

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FOURTH PLACE WINNER

Federico U. Acerri

Pretend

Love, pretending to be love,
Stands outside the heart,
And rests upon the tongue.

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