Silver Award Literature

Chris Joseph Stancato, poem.

 Enlightenment (in—bloom)

Enlightenment (in-bloom)—Do you sense the room filled with transcendence, transformation, healing—(in-bloom)?

(transcendence)

Doors to portraits of rooms for galleries.

Our art—Our love—Our songs—Our symphony,

For we will keep those tender memories.

Faces and Places—drawing stories.

Paintings—Photos of travel and family.

Doors to portraits of rooms for galleries.

We pull passion close to our bodies

As subtle tree-rain explains harmony,

For we will keep those tender memories.

Singing—Singing lyrical liberties…

“Every great song, has a great story.”

Doors to portraits of rooms for galleries.

Our lives arranged for soundtrack symphonies,

And orchestral mornings for our movie,

For we will keep those tender memories.

These lengthy hallway’s anniversaries:

Our time! Our time! Glory, glory glory—

Doors to portraits of rooms for galleries,

For we will keep these tender memories.

(transformation)

Our change is the range of our encouragement.           

We see our receptions in telescopes—

The way we think—feel—will: enlightenment.

Stages—Stages of your environment

For trouble and despair, for dreams and hopes—

Our change is the range of our environment. 

You live life to the bottom sediment

With glowing cycles of filament spokes.

The way we think—feel—will: enlightenment.

Do you feel nature’s law—lure—kind consent?

Sympathy. Empathy. Your soul provokes…

Our change is the range of our environment.

We fight. We fail. We win. We relent

The charge of change, challenges and provokes...

The way we think—feel—will: enlightenment.

Rejoice in your choice to reinvent.

Dream… Dream with dreams and deposit your tropes.

Our change is the range of our environment…

The way we think—feel—will—enlightenment.

(healing)

We remember those good times—space and time.

To recall what we want to remember…

Our death: between the blades of grass—or twine.

Room to breathe, to heal: sacred and sublime.

Latitudes of peace, panic you render…

We remember those good times—space and time.

Dimensions of dreams with no reason or rhyme,

And the past, present, future our center.

We remember those good times—space and time.

We grieve: We hope, cope, cry, all for a sign

For the length of long days—ever so tender.

We remember those good times—space and time.

We receive the new day, way—all align

The length of the past—ever so tender.

Our death: between the blades of grass—or twine.

It’s time! It is time for you to define…

Transcend, transform—a supreme love’s splendor.

We remember those good times—space and time.

Our death: between the blades of grass—or twine.

Chris Joseph Stancato

September 2022

ARTIST STATEMENT: 

This is the time of technology and speed; of instant gratification and social media platforms. A challenging time for some—a difficult time for others. The fast pace demand is only a simple nod to these times as recognition. 

What does poetry demand?

Some of us will take a direction away from the viral activity, and onto a blue highway—the lifeline of a sacred road map. This entry where local people and shops shoulder the community; where nature is nestled a few blocks in any direction. A place and time where the senses are blooming with engagement. This encounter, this way, this perception—these are poetic forms of profound beauty. 

It is my intention that the objective of writing poems is to provide a wealth of words and messages. This objective is to create a place where the fast pace, and instant reciprocation, will give you pleasure reading these poems.

BIOGRAPHY

Chris Joseph Stancato was born in 1971 in Western Pennsylvania. His father was a first-generation Italian-American and his mother was Irish-American. He was raised in North Belle Vernon, and moved to Miami in 1989.

He has authored a dramatic paperback novel titled, A to P, and two short-story books: Gas Station Ganja and Serendipia—James and Adaline. He wrote a comprehensive personal review about August Wilson’s ten plays called, The Three Months of August. In the Autumn of 2019, he produced a project of poetry and art and music called, The Literary Mule, the first book in the series: Autumn Ballads from a Roman Augur.  In the Spring of 2020, he wrote Haiku Porticos 1, introducing a new haiku form: “American-Machina33.” When the global strife of the pandemic affected his community in the summer of 2020, he wrote a chapbook of social realism, titled, Supplemental Sonnets, Almanac. 

The Vinyl Record Collection of Stories, Volume I was his first novella, followed by Volume II, Six Songs of the Open Road. Every Great Song, has a Great Story (Volume III) is his first hardcover novel to be released in the spring of 2023.