Publication Award: Learning to Cope Poetry Prize

A publication award-winner  from one of our recent contests, the Learning to Cope Poetry Prize!

How Our New Immigration Policies are Like the Bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef

... as the algae provide the coral with 90% of its energy, after expelling the algae the coral begins to starve. –Wikipedia on coral bleaching

Starvation starts the day you spit them out,

those guests you harbored, off whose strength you fed

until the times turned hard. You had some doubts

but didn’t dare show weakness. So you led

with confidence. “We don’t need them,” you said.

You drove them off; you celebrate the rout

insisting it will make us strong. Instead,

starvation starts the day you spit them out.

Just listen to the garbage that you spout

to feed the hate, whip up the fear and dread.

It’s criminal, the lies you tell about

those guests you harbored, off whose strength you fed.

We all were glad enough to eat the bread

they baked and use their labor in our drought-

struck fields. Oh yes, it’s all good fellowship ahead

until the times turned hard. You had some doubts,

I think. I could be wrong. You always shout

the loudest when you’re anxious. That inbred

team of flunkies trembled at your pout

but didn’t dare show weakness. So you led—

at least, you call it leading. Better dead

than stranded in some borderland redoubt

the wrong side of the national watershed.

And when you close that border to the south—

starvation starts.

 Tiel Aisha Ansari

Finalist: Ballade (Not Ballad) Contest: Elizabeth Ehrlich

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Brighton Palace Ballade

A wounded conscript far from home

dangled, drugged in bloody grief,

woke to missing limb and bone

and gazed around in disbelief—

the jeweled hall and glittering gold-leaf,

a hospital commissioned from a vain

king’s palace for the War Relief.

No other vacant space remained.

Ten decades on, we tourists roam

the seaside town for pleasures brief

and smart, like the Palace, known

for its excess and art. Now our chief

goal is a good spot in which to leave

our car and start our tour before it rains.

We circle, stalk the street like thieves

but not a vacant space remains.

To us it's just a lovely hunk of stone, 

but once, a soldier lay beneath

the ornate frescoes, gilded domes,

with bitterness between his teeth

for this hard mess, though with relief

to be alive. So many tossed in pain

in their brave beds— call it reprieve—

that not a vacant space remained.

The earth is full of dead men. See

his words within a picture frame:

War is like leaves falling off a tree

and not a vacant space remains.

Elizabeth Ehrlich

Finalist: Ballade (Not Ballad) Contest: Susan McLean

Ballade of Useful Advice

Some lessons in life are clear from the start:

if you pray for a snow day, it never snows;

toys and families fall apart;

umbrellas don’t help when a stiff wind blows;

a wart starts small, yet it always grows.

As Mom advised me when I was a tyke,

every “free gift” has its quid pro quos,

and you never forget how to fall off a bike.

It isn’t shrewd to reveal you’re smart,

for an envious friend makes the worst of foes.

What doesn’t make sense, if you call it art,

will impress your teachers and win at shows.

From puberty on, you’ll observe that those

who desire you are seldom the ones you like.

You’ll give one yes to a dozen noes,

but you never forget how to fall off a bike.

It’s not the rejection that breaks your heart,

but the way that happiness comes, then goes.

The path to contentment is not on a chart.

The banker reaps what the saver sows.

When visiting Paris, you never suppose

that the government workers will go on strike

and every sight in the town will close.

But you never forget how to fall off a bike.

The truest wisdom, as anyone knows,

you learn before studying Intro to Psych:

you’ll have time to relax when you decompose,

and you never forget how to fall off a bike.

Susan McLean

Susan McLean is an English professor at Southwest Minnesota State University. Her poems have appeared often in Light, Lighten Up Online, Measure, Mezzo Cammin, and elsewhere.