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Contests : War Poetry Contest : Past Winners : 2007 : Tim Mayo
THE COUNTERFEIT SEAL
In Athens each Sunday of our honeymoon
my first wife and I scoured the old flea market
at the edge of the Plaka, beside the ancient Agora
said to be the true birthplace of democracy.
We were each searching for that one treasure
whose value dealers of trinkets, junk and
all other items that end unnoticed in life
would not know, but we, in our self esteem
and with countless degrees of ignorance,
somehow would. Everything was so cheap
that we felt we could squander our hearts
and never touch the blood reserves of our love.
But I digress, for it was there I found this
seal of a warrior saying farewell to his wife.
The fine detail of his muscled calf as he turned
from his spear, shifting his concern to his wife's
imploring arms made me think I'd found mine.
I didn't know then that an art of significance
was what I was searching for, nor did I see
the true meaning in his implied turning back.
None of this was etched into that piece
of colored glass as I saw the sun flash through it
highlighting each muscle of his readiness to leave
for something he deemed more important than love.
This poem was a finalist in the 2007 War Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers. Copyright is reserved to the author.
About Tim Mayo
Tim Mayo's poems have appeared in The Atlanta Review, Arbutus, Del Sol Review, The Rose & Thorn, The Cold River Review, Paris/Atlantic, Four Corners, Mannequin Envy, Poet Lore, 5 A.M. and The Chrysalis Reader. Two of his poems have garnered "International Merit Awards" from The Atlanta Review, and in 2000, he was a Semi-Finalist in the Discovery/The Nation Poetry Contest. In 2006 he received a Vermont Artists & Writers Grant from the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT, and recently his first collection, Dreaming of a Dependable Force, was chosen as a Finalist/Runner-up for the 2007 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. It will appear in February 2008.
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