We are excited to announce the winner of the October 2023 Chattanooga Writers' Guild Monthly Contest is John C. Mannone with the submission "Synthesis of Bone" and runner-up is Ken Harpe with the submission "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever."
Synthesis of BoneWe are his workmanship, his poetry—after a Greek interpretation of Ephesians 2:10
My atoms, salt and bone,
once were dust in the stellar wind.
My carbon molecules peppered
lattices in clay, and water seeped
His whisper in—the spoken words
spread to every line, to every curve
of DNA, sequenced perfectly,
replicating Him, Elohim, a miracle
of mitochondria. Organic chemistry
of flesh, ligaments, cartilage; bone
cantilevered for balance and grace,
every curve, every line crafted.
A skeleton of metaphors cages the heart
beating its song, resonates the dark,
calling for my mate. The other piece
of me lays shattered—my ashes
entrained in dirt, transform to blood,
traces of salt, chalk to bones, still remains
a piece of broken poetry.
.
John C. Mannone has poems in North Dakota Quarterly, Poetry South, New England Journal of Medicine, and others. Also awarded a Jean Ritchie Fellowship (2017) in Appalachian literature and has several chapbooks and four full-length collections, including Sacred Flute (Iris Press) and Song of the Mountains (Middle Creek Publishing) forthcoming in 2023. He is a professor of physics currently teaching mathematics in East Tennessee.
On A Clear Day You Can See Forever
There were treasures in the old house,
But this was not one of them:
The baroque gold frame of the broken mirror
Weathered, one corner warped open.
Why was the mirror still hanging here
In what had been the dining room?
What could have caused the implosion,
The point of impact clearly visible?
These were quiet, dignified people.
The Sun through the sheer curtain
Lined a kind of map in the broken glass.
Standing a certain way, the world
Was a lovely opacity in silver and red.
But head-on and face-to-face,
The sliced-pie mosaic could be a life in chapters:
Leaden, contained, finished in blood;
Bound in the sharded circle of herstory:
Ever reacting to someone else, always other.
Her face in the mirror.
Broken apart.
“Hello, Trauma Surgeon,”
She says aloud.
The blondeness – her strongest feature –
That boys used to long to touch,
Has long since had a chemical crunch;
Her too intent eyes are scrunched
Together; the thin professional lips
Are rose petals fallen on foil.
Her weak chin is bifurcated,
So that even the practiced Kirk Douglas
Jut … cannot compensate. Long nails
Remove a small triangle of glass
- the lower quarter of her chin –
But the lead backing is a dour prosthesis.
She moves her hands in front of the mirror,
As if to remake her face:
The face she faces every morning
- the nineteen face/ the fortyfive face –
But the fragments do not click in place.
Her sigh is just a punctuation mark.
She is an artist of ormolu and gold pins.
Slide in a new glass and make a new world,
And old wood loves an elixir of kiln and oils.
She smiles.
.
Ken Harpe won second place in the 2022 Chattanooga Writers' Guild contest for his poem "Blaze." He is a Poet, Fiction Author, and writes professional articles. He graduated with honors from UTC, has a fellowship in English, fulfilled military commitment as Officer, and founded a long standing professional business.
In the poem, "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever," the "bones" are the remnants of a broken antique mirror in a house a realtor seeks to sell. The poem is "about" vision, memory, and identity or talent - the multiple selves each of us possess and usually don't reveal.
Congratulations, John and Ken!
The Monthly Contests rotate through a pattern of Poetry, Fiction, and Creative Nonfiction throughout the year, with a new theme each month.
Go to the 2023 Monthly Contest Series Info page to view the genre and theme for each month.
This contest is free to enter for members of the Chattanooga Writers’ Guild. To become a member, click HERE.