Gival Press is pleased to announce that Chino Mayrina of Davis, California has won the 8th Annual Oscar Wilde Award for his poem entitled We Must Always Sing.
Chino Mayrina received a cash prize of $100.00 and his poem is posted on the Gival Press website (www.givalpress.com).
Winner of the 2009 Gival Press Oscar Wilde Award We Must Always Sing by Chino Mayrina of Davis, California.
Honorable Mentions:
The Break Up by Michael Montlack of New York, New York.
Boneyfiddle: Floodgate by Amanda Rachelle Warren of Aiken, South Carolina.
My Carpenter by Jeff Walt of Honolulu, Hawaii.
Everyone Knows by Trish Cole of St. Mary\’s City, Maryland.
WINNER OF THE 2009 GIVAL PRESS OSCAR WILDE AWARD
We Must Always Sing
There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven. – Ecclesiastes 3:1
***
We heard the water running before it turned into milk. Our teeth felt buzzed and sweet before we were told of honey.
Our open mouths swayed, having been throbbed into prehistoric song before learning about dissonant supplication.
The smell of sizzling meat washed from our tingling beards as we drank from the chalice we poured our love into.
We bathed in clear river when there was no need for stronger bones. We tasted the same peaks when there was no need to stomach them.
***
It is sunset, the rivers are burning, but for now everything is perfect. In this narrow strip of space on the brimming Castro Street condensation means love.
We are marching to the pulse of our bridge. 18:23 and 20:13 are nothing but times here. We are naked without having to huddle through nights lit by new moons.
If we must burn, may we smolder like foxfires— wound healers earth diggers hopeful children of modernity.
Glittering precariously on the brink, we blow kisses to the coming night because we know the earth is moving. Out of smoke and liquor neon lights and guns the air drips with mouths swaying condensing almost like rain.
***
Our bottles and jars will not be empty. We will be tired, but just like star-loved children we will sway in moonlit concert, mouths pulsating to the lilt of rivers unburned.
Copyright © 2009 by Chino Mayrina.
Biography: Chino Mayrina is currently a fourth-year undergraduate at the University of California, Davis, pursuing a major in English and minors in Spanish and French. He plans to get an MFA in Creative Writing in the future. Meanwhile, he’s hoping to graduate on time and teach in Spain for a year or two as he scrambles to pay off his student loans. This is his first publication and award for writing.
Judge: Stephen S. Mills, last year’s winner, who read the entries anonymously, served as the final judge. ###
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