Contest 3 First Place Prize
Matthew Cremer

Berchtesgaden, mein frau?

Berchtesgaden
for a pagan feast
in the crisp Bavarian air
we are gorging on oysters and crab stuffed lobster
shrimp-coctail
olives and ice cold vodka
and good German pils
looking down at them with the eagle eye
aiming the death ray

Ferdinand locked the liquor closet
but i will use my jack-boots
or a potato-masher
if i have to
don't worry dear
i invented cruelty
after lunch, and some hang-gliding
i will shoot him in the throat.

Berchtesgaden
like a dream
or a lovers kiss
or a shot of good H

in Berchtesgaden
today is a good day to die
and a good day to brush your teeth with flouride
come down the stairs in velvet slippers

or barefoot on the Persian rug

you can
eat a couple soft boiled eggs
and whole grain bread
with sausage and coffee

*(I will make beastly eyes at you through the glowing candelabra)*

cold nights
and the mountain draft
the screaming meemees
our own 88mm howitzers
the thud of blitzkrieg and mulching bonemeal
the factory sounds of modern warfare
the grizzly flesh-factories

ash-clouds and sulpher screams
muffled, like inside a sea-shell
because we are in Berchtesgaden
and we are together
by the fire… and your feet in woolen socks
hands tucked into a furry muffler
or tangled in my blonde locks
we wash down morphine jelly
with glasses of Napolean's cognac

24 Frames per Second

you could hide a derringer in your thigh-high stocking
bring me a glass of sour-mash
while I tear the linings out of their pockets
and stuff bank notes in your brassiere

because I am your huckleberry
I would fight duels
and not so much as wrinkle my seersucker

on a riverboat
or a silent movie
on a zeppelin
drinking gin

the wheelman on a bank-heist
you would look so sexy
on flickering black and white celluloid
mowing down G-men with a Tommy-Gun
gritting those sharp white teeth
a snarling deadly flapper, pearl necklace
lit cigarette in mouth
leaving a dust trail down some dirt road in Nebraska
drinking fortified wine
like hobos
on some moldy mattress
laughing
counting our loot and laughing
while I dip my straight-edge in a coffee cup
and pull up my suspenders

like mint jelly
in a box-car
or a farm house
just to be
some road-side attraction
for the nuclear family

they shot him outside a movie theater
he wasn’t scared
his eyes looked like a faded gray flannel shirt
his hands were still
and as the scene closed
and the lights faded
she got away
and because she got away
so did he

Requiem for Myself

i would rather wear vulgarity like a cheap toupee
than church it up like you
sunday-school, pomade
holding hands at the tractor pull

your thumbs stuck proudly into your suspenders
i wear my shit-kickers to the street-dance
drinkin beer two fisted

i eat barbed-wire like spaghetti
your hands look like a bankers
or somebody with "religion"

i smoked cigarettes downstairs
when you were taking that correspondence course
on funeral home management
and practiced bloodletting
with small animals around town
you missed some good re-runs, man
but those dogs weren't going to slit their own thorats, i guess

i guess i knew you were a gonner
back in grade school
even though you got all those gold stars for being a kissass
your days were numbered

have fun crashing other people's christmas cards
and weddings
have fun eating tv dinners alone
mowing the lawn
alone

Doomsday Device

my eyes
trained at your eyes
across seas and timezones
like a doomsday device
stamped with a hammer and a sickle
cool steelie eyes behind a full windsor
a briefcase
shined shoes clicking down hallways
making right corners
at brinksmanship
and mutually assured destruction
bashing the curbs like a diplomat
drunk on guns and butter

i miss our cloak and dagger
exchanging secrets, methods of soft death
while we smoked cigarettes and
loaded clips with hollow-points
we could have brought the world to its knees
and lived comfortably
under fronds of lush greenery
under the bricks of a georgian manse
in bulletproof GMC trucks
i miss our quickies in the embassy stairwell
and the way the light wavered when the bombs fell
sweating gunmetal in our bunker
drinking Molotov cocktails
garnished with the smell of spent brass

we used take the family jinriksha to market
buy eggs and peppers and spiced beef
opium tincture, dynamite
and automatic rifles to sponsor the revolution
because nothing was ever sexier than seeing you
when you knocked down that bank door in Argentina
swung that smoke wagon MP-40
the webley .45 tucked discreetly in your thigh-high stocking
like lipstick, or a compact
the way you stood there, set
in high-heels, a pencil skirt
and that beret you stole from patty
(it looks better on you anyway)

then the dusty shafts of light
came down from
the high marble ceiling
and I watched you like you were a movie star
when you put a clip into the teller

i still have the pinstripes and the scowl i lifted from Clyde Barrow
the thompson .30 has the hammer back
and the engine is running outside
come back to me, baby
we have atrocities to commit