First Place Winner: Adele Barclay Soft-spoken Cranes I prefer you soft-spoken, word uncurled and an unmentioned hand that twists paper-thin sentences into origami cranes they stretch their wings that we have made they are creased in all the wrong places not from a lack of concentration or effort but a lack of skill yet still they dive into our conversation that is devoid of a grand purpose and so our origami creatures unfold themselves into a crippled flight Clumsy, you could be beautiful Creased, we may be right Crooked, we were too delicate at times Crinkled, not forceful enough we watch our crumpled creatures live out the rest of their days in a short life, let them breathe the clouds of our wasted breath until we can give up our scribbled lyrics of "he said" and "she said" lift ourselves up from this mess battered from inexperience the mistakes we make when desperately trying to create learn from these early attempts at beautiful paper birds and know when to put these old unspoken scraps to rest Back to Feb/05 Winners Home