Poetry

By Abigail Giroir It fills the cracks, trickling through the empty spaces, off the tips of each leaf and jutting branch. Down my tree bark spine, slipping against the soft green flesh and onto buried roots. It fills the cracks, seeps through sand and pebbles, erodes the surface, pulling at the excess like wind off […]

By Zavier Davis Under the many rocks and boulders, tainted with years of blue and purple elemental abuse, there I lay with a clean slate resting as my torso. Open to metal nails and hammers, ready for the cuneiform depicting my fate of nocturnal nights, addictions to footnotes, words and the other. Puncturing in the

By Julia Franks I step lightly through the reptile room, feeling the shards of glass under my sneakers. The python smiles at me, lizards surround me, dragons sing my death song. Black Mamba and King Cobra stand at full attention and read my crimes. I’m not guilty, but I accept my fate. Toothy grins and

By Brookes Washington Honorable Mention for the David Middleton Poetry Award Spent cane to meet a new world, but I ain’t got there yet So questions rolled off the tongue like dew on morning grass untouched by weary footprints and lost only a simple soul could know Unkempt, Delaying the Inevitable Deceived and Convinced closed

By Brady Robinson Third Place of the David Middleton Poetry Award Trees stand for trees and roots drink for leaves, like the tired spouse who wrests pot and sponge from stand to stove to cook and clean for time yet spent. The child lives to dance, loss flitting in his core when Mom and Dad

By Samantha Carpenter Second Place of the David Middleton Poetry Award The white-capped fists of the sea pound the gritty white shore. Hear the silver incantations sliver forth creep up on the shore twist slowly around your ankle wrap around your knees… Captains strangled by her silver-toned blade, tucked away into the beds of the

By Taylor Mitcham First Place of the David Middleton Poetry Award When you push me down hard, I leave behind a trail of thick black smoke on the straight one-way roads. I’m a vehicle to dreams and you think you are the driver, but it’s me who makes the paper comes to life. Hazy swirls

Established. 2015 The David Middleton Poetry Prize is awarded to the writer of the most outstanding poem submitted to Mosaic in a publication year. The Prize honors long-time English professor, Poet-in-Residence, and Mosaic Advisor, Dr. David Middleton. Dr. Middleton arrived at Nicholls in 1977. Soon thereafter, the young instructor of English became principal faculty advisor