Bio

Caron Andregg placed second in last years poetry contest; second only to this years Judge Robert Wynne. She recently received her MFA in writing and is launching a new annually released anthology, Cider Press Review. Her poem Cloud Chamber received a perfect score of 15 from this years judges earning her the first place position in this year's contest. She lives in San Diego, California. She was a featured poet of the week on the Poetry Super Highway in March of 1997, and February of 1998.

The following work is Copyright © 1999, and owned by Caron Andregg and may not be distributed or reprinted in any formwhatsover without written permission from the author.

Cloud Chamber

I.

A neutrino reveals itself
in the infinitesimal
oxygen-bubble path
through an astronomer's
cloud chamber
high on Mt Rainier;
like so many things, invisible
yet always with us.

In the trail it burns
through everything it burns,
is an asteroid's suicidal dive
striping the atmosphere,

a rain-streak weeping
down a solitary window
in Aberdeen -- its single
yellow square framed
by rainswept night.

There are so many ways
to be alone.


II.

The insomniac in Boca
watches his lover's ribs
heave and sigh in sleep.

He is thinking of neutrinos
and the theory they,
of all things, can travel
back through time.

He would return
to that moment
between her knowing
he pressed damply to her back,
her rump, her thighs,
and her not knowing;

return as she slipped under
on the dark tide
of her breathing;

return to her,
poised and fluttering,
just before the fall.


III.

The penitent in Scranton
enters a house of glass.
He is thinking of stars
in their slow march,

and of the moment
their light no longer
traced the shape of God,

when they became
the sprockets and cogs
of constellations
indifferent to atmosphere.

The house stands
empty as his throat
fills with draft. His soul
is a box of fog.


IV.

The exile in Aberdeen
watches as endless rain
streaks the night into bars
against his solitary window.

He is writing a letter
to his lover in Indiana
and thinking of the time
she'll split the seam
he licks to seal

and how his lips
in leaving pressed,
one by one, the pink
cabochons of her fingertips
pale as moonstones.

In streaks of ink he traces
the shape of her thigh,
ciphers the subtraction of one.

On this sail of pale paper
he returns to her hand.

Timothy Russell
timothyr@clover.net

Bio

Timothy Russell's poem 'In Excelsis' received 12.9 points in this years contest earning him the second place spot. He lives in Toronto, Ohio


The following work is Copyright © 1999, and owned by Timothy Russell and may not be distributed or reprinted in any formwhatsover without written permission from the author.

In Excelsis

................."Fortunately there is history -if you can find it."
....................................................-Jacques

Barzun

At the very peak, Sammy loved Trish
and sprayed this truth on a bridge abutment
with stolen fluorescent pink paint.

Small pleasure craft gathered at dark
just downstream from the marina
at the half moon bend in the river,

their red and green lights bobbing
on the glassy black water,
somebody's CD player blaring "Bolero,"

and the full, apricot moon suspended,
eerily silent, above it all, in the eastern sky,
almost edible, a gigantic vanilla wafer.

Aerial displays blossomed from the brow of the hill,
opening like sea anemones,
but the brief wave of euphoria,

or whatever it was,
washed away westward,
and we began this melancholy decline.

Linda Etheridge
livre@webtv.net

Bio

Linda Etheridges poem 'Block Island Memory' received 12.7 points in this years contest earning her the third place spot. She lives in New Milford, Connecticut. She was a featured poet of the week on the Poetry Super Highway in November of 1998.


The following work is Copyright © 1999, and owned by Linda Etheridge and may not be distributed or reprinted in any formwhatsover without written permission from the author.

Block Island Memory

It was a lime sherbert day
with silhouette portrait
of two sailors (true friends)
under sea-sky.
Sailboats send patterns
over wake as dolphins bob
in ocean iris- there is
chasm between
life and death in the navy spray.
Wind pierces this portrait,
pulls it eastward
there is sense of great white.
In an eternal gesture
the sailors come about
then capsize, it is their death.
A small cape cod house
on hilly bluffs
surrounded by wild roses
holds an oil painting
where a schooner roams free,
searching.