POETRY CONTEST ENTRIES

[Laurel and Rick]

OK, folks, grab your virtual sticky dots and get ready for some really tough choices.  I'd like to present the 14 wonderful entries into the biannual OSLIST POETRY CONTEST.  Please vote with 5 virtual sticky dots each, and send your replies to me by November 9th at noon, Pacific Standard Time.  Please vote by poem number (best not to peek back at the list to ascertain who wrote what!).

Brian, Viv and the Oz contingent, could you please post the entries on a wall at the OSonOSinOZ???  Here are the 14 entries . . . enjoy!

  
1.

ONOSONOS

What is it?
Is it a political movement?
Or perchance just a social affair?
Or is it a much deeper process?
Does it have a mite 'mystical' air?
Forfend we should try to define it,
dissect it, titrate it, for fear
that our postmodern administrations
would destroy what we all hold so dear.
(I just so much wish I were there!)




2.

THE SEED

Crack open a possibility
And get your bet down
Roll the dice through the warm furrow
Call forth the soaking, roiling heavens
Breathe deep the gifts of sunny summer days
And absorb the muscled mercies of a gardener¹s hand
Commune with the change of seasons full and season¹s end
Stretch out your sweet intention.
Gather close all the children
Whisper the truth
Behold the future



3.

OSLIST

The Open Space Community,

A life-line this past year,

Of invasions and uncertainty.

Spirited conversations,

Circling the globe,

Weaving a web

Of love, trust, hope, healing, 

And, best of all, challenge,

Opening space in cyberspace,

A technology for transformation.



4.

TRANSFORMATION

Open space in your heart
Drill down
down
down
Past all fears
Let them go
Arrive in virgin open space
Where you become brand new
once again
and greet yourself as if for the first time.





5.

TEN LINES FOR FRIENDS IN NOVEMBER

Now, as vernal and autumnal dance their biannual swirl
Over the sea out my window and diagonal to my point on this globe
Vitality flows through the unexamined places
Embraced by my friends as they gather in
Marysville, non descript and of no particular geography
But the centre of one of my worlds for a moment
Explorers dancing in the space of decades
Returning to their centres, the vast opened places

1000 hearts could beat together in that place and yet
One would be left behind, butterflying in descending darkness.



6.

Caught like a cup
Full
Brimmed with the beauty
Of the human heart
Alone together
Alert
To the tender intelligence
Of the not quite born
Becoming.



7.

I have felt the earthy peace that grows from the center of the circle.
In rainy budapest the bus arrives; late that night we find small beds.
The russians are coming after days on an ancient train.
Morning in the village: eighty people, eighteen tongues, and the shock
Of a coup in russia. the space yawns open like an earthquake fault.
But peace is a living being, like snaking shoots of ivy that wrap and
intertwine us.
On the third day yeltsin stands triumphant in the street. and here a trunk
yawns open:
Vodka by the case, and eighty crystal glasses. we toast. we sing. we dance!
My father taught me to hate the russians - their menacing blood-red on the
world map - but
I have felt the earthy peace that grows from the center of the circle.



8.

O...ne with the greater
P...ractice letting go
E...xpanding the
N...ow
- Together...
S...tep into the unknown
P...ractice peace
A...ll dancing
C...ircling
E...merging



9.

back in the USA
meeting friends south of San Francisco bay
hearts opening in the october sun like garage doors
marshmellow peeps and electrical bonfire
Giants and Angels fighting everywhere
national flags on the lawns
pumpkins pumpkins pumpkins
Bush Putin Sharon the Halloween monsters
will I ever understand this country?
hoping the cat sitter does a good job in Munich





10.

What is it ? what is it ?

to go to the center 

and then leave it open 

to sit at the rim 

enjoying 

the space - the place - the now 

what touches my heart ? 

so deep and free 

to let myself and others 

so spaciously free to be ?




11.

A CIRCLE LINE IN OPEN SPACE

the first line starts alone as mine
line two is totally for you
number three lets us now say: we
a fourth one leads us further on
to number five which gives life
for a sixth one for to mix up
with the seventh even yet having
contact to the white number eight
which leads to line number nine
ending with ten in closing down -- to one again.




12.

leaves are falling in the twilight
all over the world
on secret lakeshores and mountainsides.
As you prepare to walk the circle
pick up a leaf and read it. 
We are a bundle in a basket, 
little children starting
on a journey, being wrapped
with such care that we might 
look to the sky and weep with wonder



13.

SIGHTINGS . . . 


they say when deer 

come into your life 

you should beware 

(not afraid) 

gentle with yourself 

new adventure 

is not far behind 

this weekend I saw 

and was seen 

seven times...



14.

space opens

in hearts when 
compassionate listening lingers

in minds teasing
sparks of new ideas to 
ignite positive passion

in rooms
where collective spirit
waters and warms the juicy seeds
of right action

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