Out Loud Poems of the Month

Poem of the Month (June)
"Randomly Held"
By Trinity Eiting

Am I a doll
then I should fix myself
accordingly
must I ask why?
Isn’t it inevitable
the poses, the stricture;
the frigid nature I possess
a crucible of folly
enrgeticness?
I can play house dutifully
or viciously,
how may you want it.
Of course it’s all abstracted
and fractured gathered like art.
You would need to pick up
each piece according to your own purpose
then send it back again into the vacuous void
or put Humpty Dumpty back together
for the first time.
But I’m not so sure it would work,
So for now we will keep our keepsakes
randomly held.
 

Congratulations to Andrew Ziegler!
His poem "The Hug Drug" won the Poem of the Year for 2010!
Read his poem below:
 

 Poem of the Year (2010)

"The Hug Drug"
By Andrew Ziegler
 

Hugs are the gateway drugs of love.

Sure, you'll start with a slight taste of the soft embrace, but soon

you'll need two or three or even four hugs to

equal the joy of just one hug.

Indeed, after awhile,

only the pure stuff will hit the spot. Which means that watered-down,

weak and awkward excuses for hugs like

the side-ways scoop and hook hug, the hasty hand shake turned thug-hug, or the

sneak attack ninja half-hug will no longer fly,

won't get you high; no. To satisfy,

it's got to be straight on and pure and

those hugs inject so much love drug

that you'll need both arms outstretched to get the same narcotic effect.

Yeah it feels good at first but

finding a dealer at any hour of the night will

become an increasingly Herculean effort. And I'm saying like

Zen riddles of one hand clapping will be

easier to understand than

finding and wrapping your

self-same sore arms around a good hug-drug dealer.

Especially if you're like me and looking to

soothe your mind at odd hours for fixes between

the lines of pages or on the lines of my hands where

life is rumored to be written. And I have spent

countless hours contemplating the lines in my hands,

looking for ways to reshape the patterns and curves that crease across my skin because

I’m tired of feeling helpless against this emotional addiction written along my lines

and I’m

tired of wondering why I’m attached to

frustratingly finite feelings, fleeting, flaking, futilely failing, falling away

freaking A! I just

wanted

a hug, but now I’m stuck scrutinizing the lines in my

hand, searching for ways to diminish this addiction, but

these lines won’t bend; I can’t change the patterns of my skin.

Even though I’ve tried to rewrite these lines a thousand times, especially when I’ve

lost touch with the hug drug dealers and instead switch to

a different source to get my fix like switching to

burning spoons of rage to inject into my veins or

switching to rolling my joints and voice into strict silence where I’ll

inhale breathless and exhale isolation or like

switching to trading in my lips for a loveless kiss, but

nothing can bring bliss like the hug drug.

I try to get clean, but that just makes a mess, so

I guess the only steps left will lead towards acceptance of this

hand-written addiction

to the love hug drug.