The Robert Burns Poetry Awards, 2003

1st Prize - Frank Jamison - Knoxville, TN

My Mind Wanders

And I follow as he slips through the door
Wondering where he needs to be,
What meadow, what quiet creek,
What dusted memory we will visit...

Stoddard Street with clapboard houses
Against the Cotton Seed Oil Mill,
The hot oil smelling delicious
Like baked ham on the cool autumn nights
And where more than one glistening black man
Smothered when he lost concentration
And fell shining after midnight into the soft clasp
Of cotton seeds that flow like water and pull
Like quick sand, like those times:
Sucking the life out of certain things.

At Deaderick the Ice Plant beside the train tracks
Where in summers we packed okra,
All slime and green, into pure white boxes
And made so much minimum wage we could
Rev our engines and joy ride Saturday night
Up and down Highway 45 and out 70
Through the Experiment Station where we once
Spun out of control in the 36 Chevy
And later leaned on the hood breathing
The July night's hot fusion, a soft lucidity
Of corn rustle ending the drift.

And I want to ask,
Have you ever stood naked in your Past?

The mind becomes detached and you see
All the things that were and it is
The sweetest most delicious thing
To feel the old heat come over you
Aware that time flows thick and warm
Like oil pressed from cotton seed
And you understand no one
Can see what will come
Down the day's quiet slope. 

Award of Excellence   -  Connie Jordan Green - Lenoir City, TN  

Award of Excellence   -  Jo Ann Pantanizopoulos - Knoxville, TN

Sunday Afternoon

After our big meal of moussaká, tzatzíki, and feta, talk softens as
Our daughter Antigone brings in the tray of coffee in the pretty demitasse cups,
The ones with blue peacocks strutting in a red paisley world.
Our eyes measure who gets the most kaimáki , the most fóuskes*.
We sip and slurp until just the dregs, the telling dark grains, remain.
As we swish the mud and empty the sludge, we peek one more time
To see if our future is self-evident, cup tilting on its edge against the saucer.
Air setting the pattern of luck, doom, fortune, friend or enemy soon divulged.

As Vera hands her cup to Babá with, What do you see, daddy?
The room soon fills with the spirit of others seeking the Delphic oracle.
Hellenes, both ancient and recent, hover round.
Memories of their grandmother's careful telling sit on each daughter's brow.

Your worries are gone, Vera, a friend whose name begins with M will visit,
You're invited to a large table, and I see good health with infinity , he says.

Then, Antigone, scowling at the drab of mud in the bottom, hands hers over.

Uh, oh.  Looks like a few worries are here, but may be leaving soon. 
Your cup shows a long trip ahead and perhaps two short ones.
I see a bird, always good luck, is flying towards the edge.
And you'll be getting good news, yes, two pieces of good news soon.

The youngest, Alexia, reluctantly passes her cup to her father.
Complaining I drank too much of it this time it was too thick.

Your problems are pretty heavy right now, but they're moving on.
I see a winding road with just one obstacle and here are
One, two, no, three fóuskes at the top. 
You'll soon be getting three pieces of money.  Her smile re-appears.

The future looks bright, the oracle is satisfied.
I inspect my own cup and search for birds, fóuskes, numbers, signs
But I already know my fortune.  I lift my eyes and survey the room.


*  kaimáki  = foam
** fóuskes = bubbles

The Scottish Society of  Knoxville Award for a Poem Reflecting Celtic Heritage   -  Chuck Bowers - Knoxville, TN

Oi’m Scotch Irish; Why d’ ye ask?
     
   A Trilogy

I.    IN THE BEGINNING

I trace my roots to Adam
And so can you, my friends
For fam’ ly trees do take strange turns
Before their branching ends

From Eden down to Noah
My lineage was quite plain
From Noah on to Abraham
Still clear, tho tinged with pain

Then Israel’s tribes did scatter
To north, east, south, and west
And Benjamin toward twilight sun
Took his God-given quest

The years then passed by hundreds
And then by thousands more
One tiny tribelet came to rest
Near northern England’s shore

Ben’s tribesmen worked and prospered
Raised fam’ly, kith, and kin
And set their tents near Aberdeen
And gathered snug within
 
II.  JOLLY OLD GREAT BRITAIN

In Scotland in the Highlands
‘Way back in Twelve-0-Eight
Ben’s offspring  Chuck met Belfast’s Joan
On that auspicious date

Though Joanie she was Irish
And Charlie purely Scot
Their brash young love did know no bounds
“Together” was their lot!

They settled, first, in Renfrew
Near to the Firth of Clyde
And there began  a fine new life
For Charlie and his bride

They next went South to Belfast
The place of Joanie’s birth
For, Charlie knew that Ulster was
Joan’s fav’rite place on earth

The loving pair did labor
While their offspring did grow
Tho’ poverty and tyranny
Befell them, High and Low

Chuck’s line endured the tempest
‘Til they could stand no more
Queen Lizzie’s death in sixteen three
Then opened up a door

The Matriarch’s last wishes
Were for an English stand
She wanted much to see her flag
In Ulster’s tempting land

The news began to travel
And with it awe and fear
The Ulst’rans knew that they must flee
And did so, that same year

They hurried north to Caithness
Four hundred miles away
And started lives and loves anew
Each in his desp’rate way

III.  AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL redux

And Charles The Tenth one summer
Took Joan the Tenth, his bride,
In seventeen and twenty-four
Upon a wondrous ride

To far-off Pennsylvania
And up the Delaware
Where there debarked Chuck and his Joan
America to share

Soon children of First Charlie
Six hundred years removed
Did find themselves deep in the south
With fortunes much improved

First stop was Carolina
Then on to Georgia’s pines
From thence to Alabama’s clay
And last to Flor’da’s climes

Where I was born in ‘thirty
To Michael and his Lil
They named me after Charles the First
My destiny to fill

And there my old tree crested
When I, Old Charlie’s seed
Did find my bride, my own sweet Joan
Who filled my ev’ry need

I knew that she was sent by God
Through Adam, Moses, Ben
And that she shared the same great tree
That’s common to all men

And looking back, I see my sires
In Judah and before
And know that all the men on earth
Are brothers evermore

Yes, brothers all, and sisters too
From Eve to Joan of Arc
From David’s Psalms to Bobbie Burns
One tree, with common bark

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