Enter the 4th Mystery Box Contest!
Introducing our latest Mystery Box:
This box was found in an antiques mall in Redlands, California. It is ceramic, in what appears to be perfect condition, and was labeled as a "Persian Gem Box". It's about 3.5" in diameter.
The rules are the same as usual: Write a poem inspired by the box. The winner receives the box, plus winner's status and publication in an upcoming issue.
Again, we would like you to post your poem as a comment on this page. The contest will remain open until the last day of February. Readers will again be able to vote for their favorite poem, but possibly in a slightly different format the details of which remain to be ironed out; rest assured they will be announced by the close of the contest.
To view the 1st and 2nd Mystery Boxes click here.
To view the winner of the 1st Mystery Box Contest click here.
To view the winner of the 2nd Mystery Box Contest click here.
To view the winner of the 3d Mystery Box Contest click here or here to read all of the entries.
Good luck!
Archer perched astride your horse
To whence has your arrow flown?
Carrying a letter in lieu of shouts grown hoarse
Flying across a green lawn freshly mown
Into a window set high in a house
The fastest delivery in the days before morse?
Sent after deer fleeing through gorse
Landing where this springs’ seeds are sown?
Did your shaft pierce the stag’s throat
While he leapt as nimbly as a goat
O’er the stream gurgling so merrily
Through gracious lands on its way to the sea?
Or are you an assassin on the job
Sent out to avenge the theft of a cob
From lands on a lake where punts bob
The only mare of maiden who will sob.
Perhaps you charge upon a battlefield
Harrying the enemy’s flank that they might yield
Darting amongst infantry heavily laden
Heading towards a tent wherein lies a maiden
Kidnapped from her ancestral home
For refusing to marry a gnome.
Where are you headed, archer horseman?
Is there a maid you bedded, of another man?
And now he has thrust you eternally damned
From all the fields that constitute his lands.
Archer, archer, speak to me
Tell me your story that all might see
Where it is your arrow went
To see how its dashing flight was spent.