Here are selections for this challenge. As always, tough call. 2 additional poems, “the winners,” will be published in Right Hand Pointing issue #85. These are poems by Cindy St. Ogne and Irene Mitchell.
Ray Templeton
Three Things that Happened in March
1976
In a pub in Llanidloes, you leaned
your head and touched
my arm with your hair.
1977
After the Kinks at the Rainbow,
After the Kinks at the Rainbow,
we were floating,
laughing at the gap
in Ray Davies’s teeth.
1978
In a flat in Hackney at the end
In a flat in Hackney at the end
of the bus that took forever–
dried blue specks
on the tip of your paintbrush.
Ray Templeton is a retired librarian who often describes himself in ways that he thinks will make him seem more interesting, when writing his bios.
Laura Winkelspecht
Three Things That Happened in March
March folds back in on itself
as a left-handed blessing,
with every passive lion
and every wicked lamb.
while spring rains soften
a fickle beginning,
a tight-lipped ending,
and all the days in between,
try as we might,
overlapping priorities
form three-leafed pledges
we never intend to keep.
Laura Winkelspecht is a left-handed poet and writer from Wisconsin. She has been published in Flyover Country Review, American Tanka, and the Clementine Poetry Journal.
Terry Ofner
Three Things that Happened in March
The wind in the Norway spruce stirs the branches,
opening and closing the dark places like mouths.
A name breathed in a wisp like the shadow
of a black bird passing briefly before the sun.
A man rooted to a spot looking at his hands.
I had a brother once? Where did he go?
Terry Ofner has a BA and MAT from the University of Iowa where he also attended the undergraduate Iowa Writers Workshop in poetry. Terry contributes regularly to several poetry boards and recently won first place in the January 2015 InterBoard Poetry Community Contest for his poem “Mama Carving.”
Jo Taylor
Three Things That Happened in March
Judy Foster-Brothers broke her tailbone
sliding down her kids’ playground set
with all the force of
a middle aged American woman.
The kindergarten class at
Baum School sat in a Huey
that flew two hundred missions
in Vietnam.
Claire Foster left a piece of paper
on the railroad tracks where
the firemen would find it
when the train stopped.
Jo Taylor used to be a Nurse/Writer and is now a Writer/Nurse. She left the ER and found work from home doing chart reviews which is a bit boring comparatively but it allows her time to read and write daily. She writes poetry and fiction.