Slow Cellar Door Contest Finalists

[The Poets]

The following three poems earned the most votes in their respective threads in the Slow Cellar Door poetry contest. They are the three finalists. Congrats to their owners and to all the writers who, as always, rose to the occasion and wrote terrific poems.

The final round of the contest will be open until Sunday, July 10th at 8 pm EST. If you submitted a poem to this contest, please vote for your choice for winner from these finalists. If you *are* a finalist, vote for someone other than yourself. You won't mind because the poems are all worthy of the win and you're noble anyway.

Vote by pming your choice to The Poets by Sunday July 10th at 8 pm EST. In the event of a tie, I will drag in another moderator or one of you people and make you cast a tie-breaking vote. Ok?

Good luck everyone and thanks again to all who participated. I'll post all the other semifinalist entries in a separate thread.


Angeline

 

[The Poets]

Poem 1

Cellar Door

I looked down into that hole
where dust motes roll
by in the air. That place
where fuel once filled
the ancient black-stained
bin of oak and coal dust
roiled through the space.
The hist'ry's enough
to make you choke
on a Cape Bretoner's grief.
Relief comes with death
when the miner's drawn
his shaky last breath
and the company store
sends his new widow
and orphans
a sympathy card.

 

[The Poets]

Poem 2

Slow

In summers’ torrid heat, sinuous and slow,
reaching for uncertain future far below
the mountain cascade feeding gnawing need
is just a distant memory of greed
tranquility conceals the winter race
that tore at banks and washed without a trace
last summers detritus in chaotic chase.

but now at ease and lazy 'neath shading trees
the weeping willow boughs that dip and tease
catching boaters passing by them unawares
and pristine swans with wings that whisper prayers
I have let her hold me in her cool embrace
and teach me to live life at a slower pace
I’ve found her secrets and her hidden face

the summer river dawdles to the sea
reaching at last her constant destiny
a brackish welcome is her final prize
as swirling seagulls greet with raucous cries
she feels once more the parting salmons’ fins
while miles away a mountain spring begins
the race to lowlands no one ever wins

 

[The Poets]

Poem 3

Slow Cellar Door

To hold your gaze, I drink from the chalice
of dormant tears.

The salt.

That is why I built a shelf in the unknown cellar.
I uncover its silence every time I am there.
It is an empty cellar, with an ebony shelf.
Without furniture, or memories, and, because I leave the doors open
the air goes on in its journey without obstacles.

The shelf is of ebony.

When I go there during the day, I take a suede cloth
and a box of wood polish.

The air goes on in its journey but does not stop by the shelf,
it passes by with a slight whisper. It is what I feel
every time I am standing at the back.
I slowly chew on exotic candy that I unwrap
in a timid silence, not to awake the mosquitoes and wood fretters.

I gaze at the shelf for hours.

And every day when I am there, I take from my pocket, with extreme care,
another bottle. Minuscule.

They are bought on a store in Paris,
at the top of Rue Lepic.
The shop girl has Amelie's eyes,
and even after three months she always recognises me
and folds the meticulous package, without anyone noticing.

I do not spend money on anything else.
I stopped going to cafés or the movies, buying newspapers or fashion magazines.
I only borrow money from friends without explanations.
After three months, I check in and enter a plane,
calmly have lunch and order a coffee
and a port.

The sun.

The shelf in the unknown cellar expands noticeably
and invades every alcove.

The air goes through its journey without obstacles.

Yesterday, I counted thirteen bottles.

It is my domain.

I have no books, no paintings, no posters, no mirrors.

When on that distant Thursday I first saw you
I breathed in so deeply that the corners of my lips felt torn.

My design is to cause suffering, as if it were meaningless
an act.
That happens every time you shrug off your blouse
and it is with immense care that I let the liquid pool
by the corners of your lips.

The shelf is of ebony.
The bottles are white and minuscule.

In sepia, in lime tree.

Rue Lepic leaves me at the top of Montmartre
and I look at Paris through the half-light and the fog.

[Tears run down my face. Sweet, acidic.]

To hold your gaze, I drink from the chalice
of dormant tears.

In truth, my domain consists
of minuscule empty bottles
set along a shelf of ebony
that fills the unknown cellar
and the air that goes on through its journey without obstacles.

The rictus, the door.

The key.