Poetry Winners

ANAXIMANDER'S RAGTIME BAND

By STEPHEN SCHUR (second place)

The Moist in the center, amphora is the Earth with latest comic strips so hips for dying, fires the moist puts out the hots so dearth of plenty is merryment for Milesians, prying apart the union of Sky and Earth, these scaps under Anaximander made a meander of elements to a four-square jig of fire-water called "tab 's' to be inserted in slot 't'"--in short, a fence "apeiron" with seeds tied hatching to its string, knitting the cold wet hamburg of the world to clay and fleshing it with glaze, an onion ring sliced for a sky that curdled, by fire hurled.

Earth was a cylindar, like Edison's first records incised and not the blue plate special of today, air was also mist and dew and fog, immersed chords decor not unlike wallpaper, elemental, held its sway.

MOUNT FUJII

(for Mitsuge Tanaka)

By CONRAD GELLER (third place)

Through all that mountain's uncorrupted height, Past treeline, shrubline, grass, above all soil, The mind awakens and the eyes delight In contemplation of a crystal sight Made beautiful and sacred by our toil.

Gasping the acid, insufficient air, For this we labored through a rainy night Tired and frozen, up each cinder stair, Without the proper formula for prayer; But blind, not simply mothlike, toward no light.

Sensel, the top was bare. Why did we then Arrive like victors, bird nor biug to grace Our coming 7 only sun and sky and space, Burnt rock, primevel wind, and other men.

LENSES MAY BE MIRRORS, MIRRORS MAY BE LENSES

By EDWARD OCHESTER (third place)

Having seen its gigantic head in books, We know the dragonfly Sees with hemi-spherical eyes More lensed than planetarium projectors.

So this August Among the white silks puffed by wind, The garden music shrunk by the outdoor distances, The nylon tent in which tiny sandwiches are served, Wed imagine the fat man Reflected in those dark mirrors upside down.

The unsmiling, unscowling head Receives an impossible projection; What it sees we can not guess.

It is indifferent to the fat man's pleasure in the couple, To the woman in the arms she most desires.

The insect dips away.

Attracted by the sparks its shell strikes, The fat man traces its cold flight X Along the row of poplars.

Its fire reminds him of the painting In which a shaft of sun rests upon a blank of polished copper; In the mirror's ground the Greek bride floats, Dark in all that brightness, And in that mirror Warm.

THE FAIR

By DABNEY STUART (First Place)

#4 once you told me to get in here You could have jumped The fence. I Admired that you should choose The Main Gate, touch Money, exchange Something of Yours for Something of the management's, (The shape of the ticket Window reminded you said the guillotine) That was before I Noticed the fence, the shreds Of silk whipping like flags On those hungry palings, Before I knew No matter how You get in here You pay for it.

#8 I don't remember that Skeleton whose hand's In mine, and I've been Through this fun house Before

#9 So much to sell This barker Maintains histories In the inflections of his wares, Is so ravished By the scholarship Which redeems a season's Losses, wins Like an evangelist so many Souls to the skin's show, It's a wonder Anything's left Of his own life.

#20 Looked on Forgotten Mindlessly judged fit For their own world The giant stands The midget stands They stand Next to themselves Under no pretense By their extremes Bordering unmistakably The proportions Of insignificance.

#27 Ooo la la Mama O gobadaddy Hot And so forth what A combol When they get together Like this to the tune of Such music drives you Out of your mind Absolutely so what's left What else can you Expect by Twisting Twisting?

All Poems Copyright 1962 -- Harvard Summer New