POEMS OF THE LAUREATE CANDIDATES – FREQUENTLY UPDATED (Helen Humphreys, Michael Hurley, Eric Folsom)

(Gradually listing 1 poem per poet on the candidate lists)

Helen Humphreys (From ‘The Perils of Geography’)

Landscape on a Birthday

All day the ground is
restless with mud, glitching up
into hunchback bubbles
plotting the ruin of rocks

birds are sprinkled
against grey sky, speciks
of black pepper flung
up to find the sun

All day the wind is
a blunt hammer swinging
down the row of winter trees

The lake from the window
a stiff blue arm

Michael Hurley – (From: ‘Blue Heron Press Anthology’)

Haley Goes For A Swim (1st page)

You walk into the lake
as if entering a dream
a poem
that buoys you up
the deeper you descend
for you allow it
to enter you
to dream you.
It is assumed
you are half-fish
since of all your family
you remain
immersed
the longest
from 45 seconds
to a year
(for time & space-
those frauds-
curve and bend
like sumac or bamboo
in this world
as much as in outer space
or inner).
Your aunts and uncles,
grandfathers and brothers
you leave on shore
with your shoes
and everyday masks
but here you discover
yourself…

ERIC FOLSOM – (From: ‘What Kind Of Love Did You Have In Mind?’)

The Hills Speak Our Language

come dressed in sheets of water, veiled in glass
make gowns of energy and dress your hair with light
come and take morning for your given name

they brought my family Bible to the glacier’s edge
tossed it into the million-year-old-crevasse
and waited for the words to melt centuries later
for the ancient words to rush down rivers
and water orchards we’d dug with our fingernails
then the railroads came, tearing up the orchards
putting knives in every cake

I speak what I remember, the days are careful
the night has a warm place to sleep
the hills can speak our language of course
that is why they comfort us

and a parliament of starlings will gather
in the town where I once lived
they will eye gooseberries and hurry through
their discussion of lost love
no prophecy can describe the sound they make
as judgment comes forth

let the sunlight from under our tongues
heal your broken hands