OPEN COMPETITION
1st place - Frances Malaney
His Sister’s Dress
At the water’s edge among
seaweed, plastic, condoms, cans,
lies a child starfished in trainers,
little boy shorts, clutching the sand
holding onto land at last.
If the incoming tide took the boy
back through wave and water,
returned to him the breath,
we would see the home he had
where he kicked a stone along a dusty road,
forgot for a moment the faraway buzz
of an invisible drone, turned his corner
to a place he knew, but didn’t know
where empty rooms gaped onto streets,
a child’s bike dangled from a drainpipe,
his sister’s dress, a stained rag,
flapped from some railings,
her arm where the door should be.
and his father - dumbstruck for days,
packing up, leading him to the water’s edge,
lifting him gently into the boat.
2nd place - Shirley Wright
National Trust Gardens – The Search for Paradise
Oh, here it is! We have emerged into The Wilderness
via themed white-and-green, fruit trees, alpine flora.
My pockets bulge with autumn pleasure,
windfalls snaffled from the orchard floor.
Cross-legged on the grass I sink my teeth
into crisp temptation. Overhead a pair of buzzards
circle. The gardens are planned like rooms, I mumble
from the booklet, mouth full and chin dripping juice,
afraid to offer you a bite for fear of sparking
another epic conflagration. At this western corner
of the edge of the world, three nymphs of evening
hunker in muddy jeans to weed the phlox; above them
over the boundary wall, clusters of Albertine,
once creamy pink, once fragrant, now with,
plus ça change, a less than lovely curl in the petal.
Flowers lean to rot inside the riot of things.
You give me that look. Cup of tea, then? To be followed
by a turn around the gift shop while you search
for gaudy kitch and chutney made from local produce.
I ditch my apples in the bin. Adam and Eve’s
should have been baked with raisins and demerara
to hide the worm at the core, disguise the aftertaste.
Vistas, I say, waving the map. Have we seen vistas?
Beneath a mound of soggy leaves, something slithers.
3rd Place – Helen Kidd
The Specialist
He has frost in his hair and silence for breakfast.
He sleeps at the top of the house in a place you must never enter.
At its door two eyes sit like stone dogs.
Its mouth clicks softly in the wind.
He passes through corridors like an icicle.
Wherever you go, he is watching. At night
you can just hear him breathing. He knows
things you don't want to understand.
Only he knows the locks to each part of the building,
Would you like to see how I unlock the doors?
He sits with the keys in his pocket and jiggles them.
He can stalk like a whisper to find you.
Come when he calls you.
Speak when he asks you to.
Sit on his knee when he tells you to.
The women say he is terribly learned.
The village calls him a perfect gentleman.
He says that you imagine things. He says that
he knows you did it. I know just what you are thinking.
This room stares at the face of the dark.
This one is full of strange voices. In this room
there are pictures of ladies without any clothes.
This one is full of machinery.
Yesterday someone mistook him for the vicar.
Today his hands are folded like two white spiders.
He says he knows you are lying. This key
fits your head. He is clever. He knows
you have opened that door.
KEATS' FOOTSTEPS COMPETITION
1st place - Elizabeth Diamond
THE RIGHT ANSWER
Blue sky winked at us through a hole
in the house-wall blown wide
by a bomb in the night. We left dishes
unwashed, turned out the dogs
to roam feral in the street.
Outside, we stepped over somebody’s hand,
finger ends nibbled by rats.
We travelled in trucks, in a boat, on a train.
Walked for hours amidst many people.
Some of them already looked dead
in the many ways there are of being dead.
At first the sun was searing. Then it grew colder.
We huddled with strangers for warmth
whilst we slept.
I didn’t know it was so hard to cross
from one place into another.
That borders could hurt so much.
Sometimes we were handed food and water
by people wearing surgical masks.
What we suffer from is not contagious, I tried to say,
but there was no one there to translate.
Between the cries and the hunger
my children played. Children
will always find somewhere to play.
Home is something you can carry on your back
when you are small. Forgetfulness
comes easily then, flows like water,
which is a blessing.
You sit behind a polished desk.
It feels like a border, like those between nations.
You ask me to speak of things that can not be mentioned
as if I haven’t had to bury the past along with the dead.
Yes, but were you afraid for your life when you fled?
I turn to my translator -
Should I nod, or should I shake my head?
2nd place - Mark Cooper
MURMURATION
This is no ordinary murder:
thin as rumour; dense in our folds as coal.
A waveform of curling crows,
crow-consciousness, our own idea of crow
smudged above the wounded coombe.
Here we come, and fade again, a ghost
pulling itself out of empty air.
A sketch, a fingerprint of crowing,
contorting wing and sinew into scavenger
and funeralist with an actor’s clever-clever.
We’re riders on our own black wind.
We are pure language: ink cannot trace us.
As soon as our shape is there it’s gone.
And pinning us to the page is to see a shape
where, after tricks and turns, there isn’t one.
3rd Place – Pam Gidney
ODE TO KEATS, THE NIGHTINGALE
You sang us words of beauty from the dark
That are a joy forever. As your night
Drew swiftly on, you kindled spark on spark,
Gathering extra courage that you might
Fulfil your hope to overwhelm yourself
In poetry, although the hoped-for years
Were five, not ten. But though the time was short
Each poetry-lover's shelf
Is graced by books of yours, which bring us tears
Or joy unbounded, which your words have caught.
So, in the darkness of our longer lives,
Your words sing on, your thoughts inspire our minds,
And your philosophies, like bees in hives,
Hum in our heads, feed us with honeyed wines,
As you pour forth your soul in ecstasy,
Like nightingale on branch, life-giving breath.
No bird more sweetly sang in the world's night,
As from your apogee
You gave us all we need: comfort in death,
Joy in our living, and in darkness, light.
1st place - Frances Malaney
His Sister’s Dress
At the water’s edge among
seaweed, plastic, condoms, cans,
lies a child starfished in trainers,
little boy shorts, clutching the sand
holding onto land at last.
If the incoming tide took the boy
back through wave and water,
returned to him the breath,
we would see the home he had
where he kicked a stone along a dusty road,
forgot for a moment the faraway buzz
of an invisible drone, turned his corner
to a place he knew, but didn’t know
where empty rooms gaped onto streets,
a child’s bike dangled from a drainpipe,
his sister’s dress, a stained rag,
flapped from some railings,
her arm where the door should be.
and his father - dumbstruck for days,
packing up, leading him to the water’s edge,
lifting him gently into the boat.
2nd place - Shirley Wright
National Trust Gardens – The Search for Paradise
Oh, here it is! We have emerged into The Wilderness
via themed white-and-green, fruit trees, alpine flora.
My pockets bulge with autumn pleasure,
windfalls snaffled from the orchard floor.
Cross-legged on the grass I sink my teeth
into crisp temptation. Overhead a pair of buzzards
circle. The gardens are planned like rooms, I mumble
from the booklet, mouth full and chin dripping juice,
afraid to offer you a bite for fear of sparking
another epic conflagration. At this western corner
of the edge of the world, three nymphs of evening
hunker in muddy jeans to weed the phlox; above them
over the boundary wall, clusters of Albertine,
once creamy pink, once fragrant, now with,
plus ça change, a less than lovely curl in the petal.
Flowers lean to rot inside the riot of things.
You give me that look. Cup of tea, then? To be followed
by a turn around the gift shop while you search
for gaudy kitch and chutney made from local produce.
I ditch my apples in the bin. Adam and Eve’s
should have been baked with raisins and demerara
to hide the worm at the core, disguise the aftertaste.
Vistas, I say, waving the map. Have we seen vistas?
Beneath a mound of soggy leaves, something slithers.
3rd Place – Helen Kidd
The Specialist
He has frost in his hair and silence for breakfast.
He sleeps at the top of the house in a place you must never enter.
At its door two eyes sit like stone dogs.
Its mouth clicks softly in the wind.
He passes through corridors like an icicle.
Wherever you go, he is watching. At night
you can just hear him breathing. He knows
things you don't want to understand.
Only he knows the locks to each part of the building,
Would you like to see how I unlock the doors?
He sits with the keys in his pocket and jiggles them.
He can stalk like a whisper to find you.
Come when he calls you.
Speak when he asks you to.
Sit on his knee when he tells you to.
The women say he is terribly learned.
The village calls him a perfect gentleman.
He says that you imagine things. He says that
he knows you did it. I know just what you are thinking.
This room stares at the face of the dark.
This one is full of strange voices. In this room
there are pictures of ladies without any clothes.
This one is full of machinery.
Yesterday someone mistook him for the vicar.
Today his hands are folded like two white spiders.
He says he knows you are lying. This key
fits your head. He is clever. He knows
you have opened that door.
KEATS' FOOTSTEPS COMPETITION
1st place - Elizabeth Diamond
THE RIGHT ANSWER
Blue sky winked at us through a hole
in the house-wall blown wide
by a bomb in the night. We left dishes
unwashed, turned out the dogs
to roam feral in the street.
Outside, we stepped over somebody’s hand,
finger ends nibbled by rats.
We travelled in trucks, in a boat, on a train.
Walked for hours amidst many people.
Some of them already looked dead
in the many ways there are of being dead.
At first the sun was searing. Then it grew colder.
We huddled with strangers for warmth
whilst we slept.
I didn’t know it was so hard to cross
from one place into another.
That borders could hurt so much.
Sometimes we were handed food and water
by people wearing surgical masks.
What we suffer from is not contagious, I tried to say,
but there was no one there to translate.
Between the cries and the hunger
my children played. Children
will always find somewhere to play.
Home is something you can carry on your back
when you are small. Forgetfulness
comes easily then, flows like water,
which is a blessing.
You sit behind a polished desk.
It feels like a border, like those between nations.
You ask me to speak of things that can not be mentioned
as if I haven’t had to bury the past along with the dead.
Yes, but were you afraid for your life when you fled?
I turn to my translator -
Should I nod, or should I shake my head?
2nd place - Mark Cooper
MURMURATION
This is no ordinary murder:
thin as rumour; dense in our folds as coal.
A waveform of curling crows,
crow-consciousness, our own idea of crow
smudged above the wounded coombe.
Here we come, and fade again, a ghost
pulling itself out of empty air.
A sketch, a fingerprint of crowing,
contorting wing and sinew into scavenger
and funeralist with an actor’s clever-clever.
We’re riders on our own black wind.
We are pure language: ink cannot trace us.
As soon as our shape is there it’s gone.
And pinning us to the page is to see a shape
where, after tricks and turns, there isn’t one.
3rd Place – Pam Gidney
ODE TO KEATS, THE NIGHTINGALE
You sang us words of beauty from the dark
That are a joy forever. As your night
Drew swiftly on, you kindled spark on spark,
Gathering extra courage that you might
Fulfil your hope to overwhelm yourself
In poetry, although the hoped-for years
Were five, not ten. But though the time was short
Each poetry-lover's shelf
Is graced by books of yours, which bring us tears
Or joy unbounded, which your words have caught.
So, in the darkness of our longer lives,
Your words sing on, your thoughts inspire our minds,
And your philosophies, like bees in hives,
Hum in our heads, feed us with honeyed wines,
As you pour forth your soul in ecstasy,
Like nightingale on branch, life-giving breath.
No bird more sweetly sang in the world's night,
As from your apogee
You gave us all we need: comfort in death,
Joy in our living, and in darkness, light.