Sampling of Rhysling Award-Eligible Poems from 2008

A sampling of my Rhysling Award eligible poems from 2008 (a handful of cinquains and a ghazal). Publication credits are printed at the bottom after the poems.

***
Sunset, Monument Valley, Utah

Rust-toned
monoliths rise
from the barren desert,
red, like the russet hues of Mars,
like home.

***

Distant Cousins of Kerouac on the Outskirts of Europa

On the
sheerest of wings,
we ride the solar wind,
trying to lose our selves -- and find
freedom.

***

The Oracle of West 25th Street

I see
right through her scam.
Still, she claims to know my
future. “Dust,” she says, “and ash. Dust
and ash.”

***

Escape Clause

Re-wired,
the mind’s “I” lost
in endlessly looping
detours of charged electrical
chaos.

***

Resolution

Tombstones
weigh down the dead,
enforce the claims of earth
and ash-- all memories of sky
erased.

***

Lunaticus (in D Minor)


With steel and fire, we fly to the moon.
Apollo reveals a new sky from the moon.

Lunar depths house the machinery of gods
in this vast cosmic storm whose true eye is the moon.

Artemis unleashes the arrows of Fate.
With the blood of her prey, she baptizes the moon.

The river returns variations of night.
In untempered song, it reprises the moon.

Lilith would promise you undying life
through venom and lust. She trades lies with the moon.

With no light of its own, it survives each eclipse
while prophets predict the demise of the moon.

Its origin debated, a mystery, unknown;
only I know the how and the why of the moon.

The poet is lost, seduced once again
by the unadorned flash of white thigh ‘neath the moon.

***
© Copyright 2008. J.E. Stanley.


Publication Info:

“Sunset, Monument Valley, Utah,” Scifaikuest (Issue 20: Vol. V, No. 4, Sam’s Dot Publishing, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. May 2008, Online Edition). Editor: Teri Santitoro at gatrix65@yahoo.com


“Distant Cousins of Kerouac on the Outskirts of Europa” and “Resolution,” Scifaikuest, Featured Poet Section (Issue 20: Vol. V, No. 4, Sam’s Dot Publishing, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. May 2008, Print Edition) Editor: Teri Santitoro at gatrix65@yahoo.com


“The Oracle of West 25th Street,” Scifaikuest, Featured Poet Section (Issue 20: Vol. V, No. 4, Sam’s Dot Publishing, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. May 2008, Print Edition) Editor: Teri Santitoro at gatrix65@yahoo.com. Reprinted in Sein und Werden 18: Memento Mori (Vol. 3, No. 2. Manchester, England. Autumn 2008, Print Edition) Editor: Rachel Kendall at r_p_kendall@hotmail.com


“Escape Clause,” Sein und Werden 17: Sein; Cosein; Tangent (Vol. 3, No. 1. Manchester, England. Summer 2008. Print Edition) Editor: Rachel Kendall at r_p_kendall@hotmail.com


“Lunaticus (in D Minor),”The Ghazal Page: The Moon Radif Challenge (Rolla, Missouri. July 2008. Online at http://www.ghazalpage.net/2008/moon_challenge/waning_moon.html. Editor: Gino Peregrini at gdoty@fidnet.com