The Results of the 2014 Editor's Choice Award are in!!!

And the Winner is . . .

Scavenger Hunt by Donna Barkman


2nd place goes to . . .

Visitation Tuesday by Denise Weuve


3rd place goes to . . .

Mathematics by Christopher Hivner


This year we had three Honorable Mentions.  They are . . .

The Traffic in Old Ladies by Mary Newell
this small rain by Alexis Rhone Fancher
Signs of the Apolcalypse by Terri Simon


To read the winning poems and to see the complete list of finalists go to Kind of a Hurricane's Editor's Choice Contest Site:  http://editorschoiceaward.blogspot.com/ 

Three Poems by Paul Tristram

A Grey Heron

To see him Majestically Crown the Tennent Canal
with ruffled, ragged white and grey plumage.
Neath Abby Ruins half silhouetting his backdrop,
the grumpy old Grandfather
of these inland Valley waterways.
Grave silent and statue still yet observing all always,
the lamenting bulrushes, his stalking ground
as he pines and worries himself slender,
slowly through the reed beds,
looking for something years ago lost,
reminiscing mournfully and fighting off
the inevitable approaching Winter.
But deep in thought always and wise I feel,
wise enough to keep his wisdom safe and sound
and let the hooting owl's take all the credit.
Until an explosion of children's voices scamper up ahead
and he lurches off in silently booming, powerful, rhythmical wing beats
like a glorious water colour momentarily dripping into life.



The Hedgerow Hedgehog

The Hedgerow Hedgehog uncurled awake slowly
stretched, yawned and smiled up at the Waxing Moon.
Then partook of its regular bum-shuffling jaunt
around it's half street and allotment territory
to do a spot of midnight slimy h'orderve hunting
whilst also gardening and pest controlling on route.
It stopped to wink friendly at the homeless Grey Cat
living quite comfortably under that shed on the corner
and to watch a Pipistrelle Bat expertly sky-fishing
various sizes of moths from the glow of a streetlamp.
Then with a full belly and a happy contented heart
it snuffled back home to its warm nest of mossy leaves.



A Clapping Woodpigeon

A Clapping Woodpigeon exploded
from the Horse Chestnut leaves
above me as I corner-turned
the golf course Hedgerow
on this 6 a.m. Summer Morning.
Once Grazing Rabbits shock upright
keenly from the dewy grass up ahead.
An Amber Fox stops to glance,
in a lazy sort of way, two fields over,
sensing no danger only spectating
for a long misty second or two.
I happily stop to listen and watch
a Green Woodpecker sporting red-cap
three quarters the way up an Oak Tree
rat-tat-tatting away with work smith bill.
Whilst Yellow Hammers burst alive
their van Gogh colourful courting
dance at Hedgerows glistening top.
I stand and sigh for a few moments
then whistle lowly to the Two Dogs
and head home for coffee and breakfast.

Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories, sketches and photography published in many publications around the world, he yearns to tattoo porcelain bridesmaids instead of digging empty graves for innocence at midnight, this too may pass, yet.  You can read his poems and stories here:  http://paultristram.blogspot.co.uk/

Three Poems by Doug Polk

Silver

cottonwood leafs shimmer silver in the sun,
the moment beyond value.
worth more than money markets could image,
incalculable on a spread sheet,
unlocking a treasure trove of memories under a childhood sun.


A Thunderstorm

lightning fills the eastern skies,
hail and flooding rain,
instead of fire and brimstone,
punishing sinners and saints alike.


The Bridge

the bridge spans the river,
trestles of iron from another century,
when the country new,
and hopes still lived,
the dreams now as rusty as the iron,
brittle with age.

Doug Polk is a poet living in the wilds of central Nebraska with his wife and two boys, two dogs and four cats.

Two Poems by John Grey

A NOVEMBER RELIEF PACKAGE

 

It's early November,

the reds are gone from the trees,

only the yellows and browns remain.

 

A walk through the shedding forest

is half-drug, half-dream.

 

I'm enamored of

the breath of breeze on skin,

refuse to remember

the difficult time

I leave behind in the cottage.

 

I stroll to a stop,

watch a squirrel gathering and burning acorns,

in panic that winter may come too soon.

And a deer nibbling grasses

that poke through the roots of an oak.

 

I am so taken by my surrounds

that I have less of my own self

to deal with.

I thank you forest.

A disagreement turns to fluttering leaves,

silence between crackling steps.

   

 

 

 

LOONS ON THE LAKE

 

The lake ripples toward the dusk.

The sunbaked stillness,

the feeding repetitions,

are done with for the day.

No more takeoff for no reason.

No more headstrong landing whoosh.

White patches succumb to black.

Yodel quiets to fluttered murmur.

From crumbling surface to fading shore,

red eyes guide birds home.

For in the long creep of shadow,

the world changes hands.

Moon appeals for softer focus.

Stars spill across the lake,

like a broken string of pearls

 

 

 

 

John Grey is an Australian born poet. Recently published in Oyez Review, Rockhurst Review and Spindrift with work upcoming in New Plains Review, Big Muddy Review, Willow Review and Louisiana Literature.

 

Two Poems by Kelley White

At the Gazebo, the Town Band

 

plays a Souza march.

I pluck leaves and twigs

out of blueberry buckets,

nibble hard green berries,

remembering the lake.

 

 

 

Fall Lambs

 

I pulled over to look at fall leaves and to talk to you,

the most serious of conversations, and then my words

were choked off, swallowed, as a bright red flag

unfurled from the rump of a ewe, became a purple gush,

saw her quick licking of the heavy lump and its

staggering rise to pink-eared whiteness, a miracle,

and even more--I had not expected, the other dropped,

and the mother, perhaps too tired to turn to more work,

or too in love with one newborn, the twin lay still,

ignored, until a child came from the shepherd’s house, lifted

the first lamb in her arms, carried it away, and the mother bent

to that second bundle and began her heavy kiss

 

 

 

Pediatrician Kelley White worked in inner city Philadelphia and now works in rural New Hampshire.  Her poems have appeared in journals including Exquisite Corpse, Rattle and JAMA.  Her most recent books are Toxic Environment (Boston Poet Press) and Two Birds in Flame (Beech River Books).  She received a 2008 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant.

 

 

 

 

Three Poems by Ken L. Jones

All On A Moment Of A Morning

Dozens of large scoop billed pelicans

Attack the salty guts and peering eyed fish heads
Thrown everywhere on the sea sprayed slick uneven planks of a pier
That only rubber boots can stand erect upon
Now that the shorter winter days have at last decided to rear their heads
So long after we’d given them up for dead

  

Delicate Experiments

The birds returned as ghosts and fragments above playgrounds

Whose fingertips had become snow
As church bells rang out until I found out
That they were made of seaweed and driftwood and of foam
And deserted my environs for the beach below
And on that autumn coast line where my mother
Still sings in the stormy weather there
With all the slow motion of a thrift store
My thoughts became a monstrous shipwreck
That scattered everywhere

 

Communication From Earth

The crumbled Santa Ana winds are peculiar machines

The spring trees now have angelic faces
The streets are flowing with blackberry wine
Tikis that look like they were made out of dishwater
Under the moaning lamplight of the white doves
Above the Wal-Mart across the street
And since never again will the night bloom in exactly this way
Who will miss me singing my songs that have no family tree
As I vanish into the moonlight that smells like rain
Somewhat shriveled by all my forgetting
And yet lost forever in the snowflakes of all that used to be.





For the past thirty-five years Ken L. Jones has been a professionally published author who has done everything from writing Donald Duck Comic books to creating things for Freddy Krueger to say in some of his movies.  In the last six years he has concentrated on his lifelong ambition of becoming a published poet and he has published widely in all genres of that discipline in books, online, in chapbooks and in several solo collections of poetry.  

A Poem by Inna Dulchevsky

Her Autumn

Once she becomes the prisoner
Of her captivating thoughts
     She may be longing for
An abundance of beauty

Soft flying bundle of feathered fibers
     Its muted dance in frigid air
     Its weightless landing

Burned by autumn leaf of vine tree
With clusters of dark purple grapes

     Shine of round pebbles in a puddle
     When water cleans left rays of the day

Refreshing wind
That wrestles hair against its known order
     And gently outlines her lips

Drops of milk fall from the cup
     Do not escape the cat's eyes
     That runs with tail up to lick the ground

A dark green moss warms up
Corners of a wooden house
     Wild rose hips light up walls

With silver spider web     without spider

That captures flies and tortures them
     As she gets tortured by her own thoughts

Inna Dulchevsky spent her early school years in Belarus.  She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.  She was awarded First Prize in the 2014 David B. Silver Poetry Competition.  Her poems have appeared in both journals and books including Pyrokinection, Jellyfish Whispers, Lavender, and Antheon.  Inna's literary influences include Pushkin, Lermontov, Yesenin, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Block, Bunin, Turgenev, Chekhov, Gogol, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, Nabokov, and Dostoevsky.  Her interests include metaphysics, philosophy, literature and practice in meditation and yoga.  Inna's musical education in violin and classical singing, as well as her discovery of Vermeer's light and expansion of consciousness through the connection with inner-self and Nature, are essential in the writing of her poetry.

A Poem by Linda M. Crate

raven song

i am a raven
my feathers shimmer in the sun
also have my talons
for keeping outsiders out and
to avenge myself
against those who would hurt me,
but rarely have i ever stood
up for myself,
always i protect others instead
because it has always
felt right--
i am a raven and i have a song to
sing but no one ever wants
to listen to my words
as if my voice were harsh and more grating
than nails on a chalkboard as if they
could not grasp the weightiness
of my meaning.

Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville.  She currently resides in Meadville.  Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print.  Recently her two chapbooks A Mermaid Crashing Intro Dawn (Fowlpox Press - June 2013) and Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon - January 2014) were published.