FreeWrights Peer Review™

Please post your own submission or nomination of another poet's work for the March contest as a reply to this thread. Closes at 8 pm February 28. Thanks.

Order of Events


Her crescent scar is earned a novel way
with every visit, now. The injury
occurs while running rows to scatter crows,
while milking cows, or on a morning stroll—

brought on when breezes pushed her window sheers.
And yet in every case she plays with me:
her first grandchild, possessed enough to dress
that varied wound; I wouldn’t have her bleed.

Regaled amid her keepsake jamboree,
I’m again naïve with a paring knife
and open up my thumb the very day
when Grandpa let me steer the Farmall A.

Her ghosts of recollection gather near
as chronological concerns grow dim.
A murmuring multitude of portraits
glance over toward her chair, and she begins

to speak. Relentless eyes, though spectacled,
won’t land today on my advance of gray;
she'll find instead that perfect boy, and I
admit that’s quite alright with me. So when

she strokes that purple moon and reinvents
our tale, exactness couldn’t matter less.
I’ll not remind her I was only five;
with Grandpa gone, she stemmed the flow herself.

Magma

Magma. A maternal word. Almost Mama.
Redolent of breast pumps and nurseries,
or the earth's steaming pulsing core.

Magma. Reminds me of Vesuvius
and Cousin Angelo kissing me on both cheeks
hissing that laying a hand on or divorcing
Annie is not an option (and I do so enjoy
remaining luxuriantly corporeal).

Magma. Almost Mama: teething wail of a baby,
the screams of a rendition subject while
his fingernails are being pulled out.

Magma. The earth shifting below you,
a time or two during sex or when getting
laid off. Magma, essential magma.

Magma: the blood-red glow
of the earth's core as it boils
round you. Magma. Oh. Mama!

Christopher T. George

Hooves of Winter


I have come to appreciate winter
with its faceless snow angels
and branches that scour a waxpaper sky.
Birds, once hidden in leafy hideaways,
become Red Hots, Lemon Drops, Root Beer Barrels
and Licorice Dots. Crows pour across the gray
like jujubes spilled from a box.
A fox stretches like cherry taffy
as it leaps over a Tootsie Roll log.
Winter is the world of the underdog.
Things seek to break through frozen loam.
A competitive tension hones my edges.
At the window, I clench a fist, pump it up and down,
come on, COME ON! Let’s gogogo crocus, tulip, jonquil!
Like a horse race where your bet is running fifth,
pushing up fast toward the finish,
and all you need is a show.

Les tres Amigos, once again, shall carry the banner. Thanks guys. Good luck to us.