Prize Winners

2006 Free Verse

2006 Rhyming Poetry

Weekend Away by Edith Ward

The top drawer in the dressing table
smells of someone else’s perfume.
Someone else’s cigarette
has put a mark on the dressing table top.
The beds are hard but for two days
we belonged to this room.
The fluffy whites droop in the bathroom,
the hotel soap sits in its own juices
and the shower caps have eloped.
In the wardrobe the non-steal coat hangers
clink together waiting to do battle
with the next resident’s clothes.
There’s always a broken one,
who leans against the others
in the empty wardrobe.

Someone had messed up
the digital alarm clock in the room
and it wakened us at one in the morning.
We couldn’t find the ‘off’ button
and the noise awoke the room next door,
who banged on the wall.
We think it was the man with the wig
and the woman who doesn’t have
the cooked breakfast, who sit on table six.

The room is stripped of us.
Dirty glasses group together,
the bin is full of yesterday’s papers,
tissues and an old pair of natural tan tights.
The comfort tray has been drained
of all but the sugar.
Tomorrow he will make tea and coffee
for someone else.
There’s a tug on the heart when we leave,
as the ‘Do not disturb’ notice on the door
rocks a gentle goodbye.

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The Retailer’s Tale by A F Harrold

Before I got into poetry I got out of retail,
but before I got out of retail I ran a book shop,
providing books to pirates,
until we were picketed by a pacifist amputee group – the Harmless Armless –
after which I stocked safe plain prosthetic hands,
and changed the name to the Second Hand Shop,
which led to some confusion when horologists started asking
for second hands – that is the smallest subdividing moving markers of a watch face –
so, faced with supply and demand,
I promptly changed the shop’s name again to the Second Hand And Hand Shop,
and ran a scheme where I bought back people’s prosthetics
as they upgraded to smarter models and soon had a pile of second-hand hands,
but since on the other hand a second-hand second hand is rarely worth much at all
I only sold them new,
so the shop became the First-Hand Second Hand and Second-Hand Second Hand Shop.
Until the bottom fell out of the hand market and I tried something else.

Moving to the seaside I opened a Flip-Flop Shop
followed by a Fish & Ship Shop, catering for all nautical needs,
and my unique venture in which a white English gentleman promoted urban music,
the Hip Hip! Hip Hop Shop. (It shut.)
I moved on to the Stop Watching the Stop Watch Stop Shop,
a guidance centre for people who couldn’t control the urge
to watch stop watches until the stopped.
Then there was a shop which didn’t sell a lot, but had it very neatly displayed,
the Ship Shape Shop. It went under.
There was the store that sold the B-sides to singles which never charted,
the Flip-side of the Flop Shop,
and then my ultimate circus emporium, the Non-Stop One Stop Big Top Shop.
After that I moved to Edinburgh,
and opened a store selling a children’s playground game,
which was my Scotch Hopscotch Shop.
As a sideline I stocked some home-brewing kits, using only locally sourced products,
and renamed the place the Scotch Hopscotch and Scotch Hops Shop.
I sold Old English Bards in the Scop Shop
and equine footfalls in the Clop Shop,
before moving into Greek jazz with my Bebop Aesop Shop,
limited haircuts in the Flattop Shop,
and an Irish band, ballet gear and a variety of moisture
in the Raindrop/Dewdrop U2 Tutu Shop.

For Vikings I ran the Longship Shop,
for Admirals the Flagship Shop,
for Archbishops the Worship Shop
and for War Veterans there was Shell Shop.
For folk who liked to watch small pieces of old hardwood vessels be made smaller still
I ran an Antique Teak Ship Chip Chop Shop.
I sold French children’s stories, a Hannah-Barbera character and certain shaved mammals
in the Bare Bear, Babar, Booboo Shop,
and polarised cans containing parts of a Belgian reporter and a Hollywood dog
in my Tinted Rin Tin Tintin Tin Shop.
If you needed to make animals go away you should have come to my Shoo Shop,
and for very light pastry there was my Choux Shop.
Then there was an Ape Shop, a Cape Shop,
a South American Dictatorship Shop, a Sheep Shop,
and an Everything’s Going Cheep Shop – which sold baby birds in old jokes.

I became a floor walker in the Grammatical Deportment Department Store:
the ground floor opened onto the mall in a semi-colon and colon colonnade,
the first floor housed the bracket booth and the comma counter,
the second floor supplied cedillas and circumflexes,
alongside the solidus/slash/oblique section, the dot and dash desk and the tilde till.
If you were willing to wait we could order in an ellipsis.

Eventually I left there lit with literacy,
and spent a period of time in the Full Stop Shop,
but then I stopped.

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Textures of November by Margaret Wilmot (extracts)

Perspectives (14 November)

There is condensation on the window again; the nights
are getting cold. Autumn this year has arrived incrementally:
shorter days; leaf- and apple-fall; now the temperature falling.
I locate a scarf before pedalling off to Art Class where
the still life’s tones of beige and white nudge the month yet further on.
My paternal grandmother was born today. She visited when
she was 88, sat by the window reading a Pelican History
of the USA, fascinated by the new perspective.
She was born in Horse Heaven Country in 1897, in the south
of Washington State. Was it my grandfather’s family who
arrived at the Columbia River in a covered wagon
just too late for the last ferry of the season?
They had to spend the winter with the ferryman, eating cabbage.
I pedal madly to get home before the season turns treacherous.

Seeing (15 November)

Out a different window I suddenly see small flowers,
almost oriental in their sparseness, dotting the grafted cherry.
Each year they surprise afresh, and more from this angle,
above. I turn back to the Home Office form on the desk
I’ve commandeered, locate numbers, a document, recent photograph –
and that too looks strange. Bill pointed out in Art Class
that even mirrors can’t show us what others see.
An article about a current exhibition remarks
on the curious fact that it is only artists who can choose
the face they want to show the world. I have little idea
what face would be most comfortable, but I’d love
to see through the mask of me; see with no barrier into
the garden from a house built of great transparent blocks
the day before Adam and Eve arrived on the scene.

Ordinary Things (16 November)

I glance up and there’s a brilliant light just
hanging there high in the sky’s emptiness.
Of course, it’s the moon but already there’s been
that catch of wonder, the heart has skipped before
this miracle, which only illustrates again
the old sermon how the ordinary things in Nature,
would be greater miracles than the extraordinary,
which we admire most, if they were done but once.
Bird-song. How out of a tiny throat music comes
pouring everywhere. Long ago I gave up asking
which bird is this? Almost always it was a blackbird,
or a thrush, or the delicate English robin. Let’s not start on seeds.
Still the moon exerts its pull though now light is seeping
into the sky, diluting the darkness into the bluest ink.

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Farm Lanes by Brett Van Toen

Sundays can’t be wasted, a day to spend out above the farms, finding open ground
space to be explored. Picnic among the hills, shelter behind broken stone walls.
Under a cosh of imaginings we set out early, nervous, twitchy, high hopes.

To find a perfect place to be, a better way. Mornings with the air so blue
you hope to break through the eggshell into somewhere else. Sky too tight
for it not to crack. Climbing into the magic car we left, top down, the safety off,

car cocked and about to go off, me, head down rear gunner, toy rifle. Taking out
the passers by. But Yorkshire farm lanes trapped my parents, every time.
Edges of the road reached out, verges with hidden rocks, brambles

scratched the morning good mood as I knew they would. The lanes
inevitably faded into farmyards overflowed with rustery, melted stone walls,
celandines, manure. Cheeks sucked in, sighing, tight lipped, paled, then snapped,

eventually shouting, How can you be so stupid, it was obvious! I told you! Failure!
We always had to turn in the yard embarrassed and Mum was right, it was clear,
grass grew down the middle of the road, the way the tarmac faded out.

A notice saying “Hillside Farm”. The row hopped a couple of times
until divorce was mentioned with relief. Eventually air cleared as it might
after a thunderstorm, someone pleaded and cried – who kept count apart from them?

Me, I’m caught by time not space. The deadline finds match heads stuck between the tiles.
Enough joints undone each day for all the tools to be left out in a corner of the room.
The garden fails entirely at the edges even when each single bed is done.

Just so in 4.5 billion years the world was almost finished. Which is why
we can’t quite dance or play the guitar. Only in the centre is my wall quite plumb.
So time pricks my temper like a bad bald bull and serendipity is going out to go nowhere.

Both side roads and missed appointments bleed us playfully. But I met Hecate, Goddess
of crossroads, turnings in both time and space last night. She decorates she says idly,
areas between highways. Lost ways are lost, as Dad always claimed, justifiably.

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Remembrance Day by D B C Reed

In his last year
I stood with my father
at the village memorial
as he laid a wreath.
He’d been in a reserved occupation
during the war, but my mother’s cooking
drove him to volunteer for the R.A.F.
He was only accepted as a third-class packer
after the aptitude test.
He wore a very good bowler
for the service
slightly pushed to the back of his head
so he always looked like a bookmaker
out at Friars Wash.
The Fallen in 1914-18
made a pretty impressive list
of names still current in the village
for breaking the law when pissed.
Once on Boxing Day
walking pubwards up the High Street
we came on one of them
locked in a tight embrace
with the local constable
who, getting nowhere, gasped
“Send for the Police!”
My father, then a JP
was engaged in charming my fiancée
so side-stepped this new struggle
without a break in his repartee
and entered the bar to acclaim.
On the other side of the valley
I could see the hills rise in unbroken acres
save for a pump that stood distinct;
it leaned forward like a falling man
its handle stuck out straight.
Once I had worked this pump
destructively, as a child,
and a warm smell had emerged amid the guttering,
choking gasps.
With long convulsions
a stream of water
ran swiftly
then sank into the ground.

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Hell Returns for an Extended Run by John Feakins

A savage storm hit the city
Driving its citizens away,
Those that could flee
In their big cars

Sped out of the way,
Before the horrors
Of destruction swept
Their lives and possessions

To nothing, in the terror
They grabbed what little
They could and packed
Their necessary treasures.

Those that remained, old,
Infirm, poor, bewildered,
Surrendered to the full
Fury of the onslaught.

Becoming the first, but
By no means last, victims
Of this predictable violence,
The buildings collapsed

Under the weight of the assault,
Bodies lay distributed unevenly
Across the city’s reeking grids,
Broken walls, cowering pets,

A distant howl of sirens,
The air shuddering with
Approaching helicopters
And the blind rage of smoke rising.

After the continuing shock
Of the first few days,
They realised the ferocity
Of this nightmare would hold,

Pausing only to register that
They were still alive, realised
The storm had abated, and the dust cleared
To reveal a growling of desert-coloured tanks
At the corner of the street.

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After by Barbara Marion Rockall

I stand on the edge of a different world
That tries to take me over
I must resist and stay where I belong
But sometimes the walls of glass and brick are so strong
They must come down piece by piece
No matter how long it takes no matter how painful
To be free, to be strong, is all I pray
One morning I will wake up as good as new
And it will be such a wonderful day
Let me wake up to a morning that holds no terror
After a peaceful and dreamless night
People will see the difference in me
And all the love and support they have given me
Will once again show me I can cope
No more lonely times even when I am alone
Joy in doing simple tasks that have been such a burden
The garden will blossom, the house will shine
Hands will be busy doing all the things I love
Alien eyes will shut and normal bright eyes
Will look at the world
Colours will be bright like jewels on a ring
Shopping will be good with no worries about
What to bring
Eyes that follow me and watch my face
Will no long bother me because I will escape
From this deep dark place that tries to enfold
All that I am
I WILL BE WELL!

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Service with a Smile by Doreen Hinchliffe

Clarke’s
the shoe shop
with the strange machine
that clicked and whirred
and turned my feet fluorescent green
till I could see them shining
through the dark brown leather of my lace-ups,
where Mum would watch me wiggle
bright emerald toes
and never failed to marvel at the miracle.

Vallance’s
the record shop
where rainy winter afternoons
were whiled away
with Perry Como and Pat Boone
their disembodied voices drifting through
the holes inside a soundproofed both
in which my dad and I would settle down
to listen to the latest 45s
and dither over how to spend our half a crown.

Frederick Totty’s
ladies underwear
for the fuller figure
where Gran went all her life for corsets
and never realised she was getting bigger
with Frederick dancing his discreet attendance,
unfolding intimate garments
while I watched behind a screen, unseen, unheard,
intrigued by how he glided between ladies,
assessing sizes without uttering a word.

Butterworth’s
with sweets
of every colour crammed
in jars on dusty shelves
a half-hearted bell above a door that slammed
and then a heady mix of smells
snuff and pipe tobacco, peppermint and ginger,
where Five Boys chocolate always promised acclamation,
and I’d hover over liquorice, pear drops, sherbet,
tasting the flavour of delicious hesitation.

Marshall and Snelgrove’s
exclusive, high class
drapery and department store,
its coat of arms engraved in gold
above the great revolving door
through which we’d venture sometimes as a family
then huddle together in alien territory,
talking in whispers as we walked the perfumed aisles,
afraid our accent might betray us, or we’d somehow
show our lowly breeding by our nervous smiles.

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Off The Anchorage, Scapa Flow 2006 by Don Nixon

The moonlight sets and freezes on the sea.
Foam splinters into shards of glittering light,
Breakers like salvoes broadside through the night,
Gunshot waves explode in the headland’s lee.
Out there, the ocean slides, uncluttered, free,
Except for genuflecting buoys, red bright,
Held fast by anchors, rusting chains hauled tight
Which strain down to a grim finality.

Above, poetic moonlit fancies fade;
Dawn clarifies in monochrome and grey
Torn shattered hulks, war’s iron coffins splayed,
Behemoths cornered in a deadly fray.
Tombs rusting with ribbed sea drift overgrown
A steel walled charnel house of mingled bone.

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Driven to The Edge by June Drake

Occasionally I cannot bear to stay
and have to take a turn around the block.
I know like hell I should not go away
and leave her there alone, perhaps to stock
the fridge with socks she’s taken from my drawer
or rearrange the yoghurts in the sink.
She likes to lift the carpet from the floor
believing that it makes the kitchen stink.

This is the lass who brought me so much joy
and comfort too, for over fifty years.
How proud we were when she produced a boy
and, later on, a girl, allaying fears
that he would have to be the only one:
she was a model mother to them both.
She can’t remember now, those days of fun
and laughter, how we marvelled at their growth.

I’m no great cook but do the best I can
with things I know she likes. Yes, even cakes.
However, if I turn my back, the pan
is emptied down the sink in just two shakes
because, she says, we had that yesterday.
I bite my tongue and force a smile again
and tell myself it’s just a game we play,
as some misguided way to hide the pain.

The evil thing that eats into her mind
will swallow me as well, if I’m not strong
and patient. When I’m forced to be unkind
for safety’s sake, I hate myself. It’s wrong.
I try to make her laugh as I remove
the spoons she’d hidden deep within her vest
and not to show at all I disapprove.

God take her soon and give us both a rest.

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Timeslip by Ann Peat

I wandered through a hole in time
And saw her at the gate
A bonny girl with rosy cheeks
No more than seven or eight

She stood beneath a cherry bough
Blowing bubbles in the sun
I reached high up to catch them
My reflection in each one

My Mum and Dad sat smiling there
Upon the garden seat
Our little dog with waving tail
Came running to my feet

An apple pie aroma
Carried on the summer breeze
And I longed to be, that younger me
Dancing around the trees

I tried to tell what paths to choose
To make a wiser choice
Though she wouldn’t meet my eyes
And couldn’t hear my voice

I longed to warn the life ahead
Of sorrow and regret
Many tears I would have saved
If only we had met …..

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I’ll deal with it – in a moment by Ian Williams

I’m trying to prioritise,
I’m trying to get straight.
Sorting all my paperwork
Is something that I hate.
I’m putting all the “urgents”
In a nice and tidy pile,
Although everything is urgent
And there is nothing left to file.
I’m sorting out important work,
An approach that cannot fail,
But I never can get on with them
For answering my email.
Each time I try to make some space
To do important things,
I’m constantly disturbed again
By insistent cyber “pings”.
I make a list of all my things,
“To do” is at its head,
but I never get to tick things off,
but add them on instead.
I try to sort out what goes where
With papers on the floor,
But then they’re back in chaos
As a draft blows through the door.
I carefully block out some time
To try and end my misery,
But every time I come to look
Something else is in my diary.
I stuff things in my briefcase,
Until its seams can take no more,
It creaks and groans then flies agape
And spews them on the floor.
I try some delegation,
My attempts somewhat burlesque,
But everything I cascade down
Ends up back on my desk.
And as exasperation rises,
And my patience hits its limit,
Someone knocks upon my door
And says, “Have you got a minute?”
They tell me that they’re feeling stressed,
With all the work they’ve got.
I nod, but really want to say,
“And you think that I am not?”
And just as they get up to go,
Relieved of all their strife,
The peace is once more shattered
As the ‘phone bursts into life!
The voice, which hails me down the line,
Is loud and starts to shriek,
The report they asked for yesterday
Is now required last week!
Why is it not upon their desk?
The Boss is having kittens!
Trying to remain quite calm,
I explain it isn't written.
Trying not to punch the wall,
As I tightly clench my fist,
I mumble that I’ll get it done
And add it to my list.
Footsteps and voices arrive outside,
“In his office, is he?
I’ll just pop in for a cup of tea.
He’s never really busy.”
I try to be assertive
And say I haven’t got the time,
But even then he sits right down,
“Two sugars please in mine!”
Thirty minutes more pass by
And still he’s drinking tea,
The piles of work still congregate
And leer at me with glee.
At last he leaves the office
And I dive towards my pen,
But the computer beeps into my ear,
My inbox is full again!
I put the papers back in piles
And start once more my sorting,
But find to my annoyance
That fate once more is thwarting.
The ringing ‘phone rents the air,
A director’s urgent call,
She wants a cup of coffee
And she’s got no milk at all!
I grit my teeth and try to smile,
Whilst all my files I’m dropping,
And, still talking quite politely,
Suggests she goes and does some shopping.
Another interruption,
As my day starts to unravel,
“Please can you try and sort this out,
I’ve not been paid yet for my travel?”
Then back to all my paperwork,
That’s spread across my office
And wonder once again, aloud,
Why did I take this poison chalice?
Once more I try to tackle things
When I get another call,
“I’m going to have to go off home,
I don’t feel very well at all.”
A call comes from the public,
So I act with some restraint.
Not happy with staff attitudes,
Can they please make a complaint?
I try to smooth the ruffles,
And I try then to disarm,
Offer some apologies
And am liberal with the charm.
More interrupting ‘phone calls
And further forms to sign,
And all the time the clock moves on
And quickly eats up time.
And all the while my files sit there
Silently and smirking,
And people think I don’t reply
Because I’m merely shirking
I start to think “outside the box”
To relieve me of this mire,
I’ll pile it in the car park
And set it all on fire.
Or maybe I should take it all
And go and do some shredding,
I could then start my own business
Selling quality hamster bedding.
Another moment’s peace and quiet
Is an event that’s all too fleeting,
As someone knocks and then enquires,
“Aren’t you going to this meeting?”
despite all of my best efforts
once more by work I’m beaten,
the files still lie unsorted
and my lunch remains uneaten.
I throw things down, pick up my coat
And leave, heart filled with sorrow,
I close the door and think, “Oh well,
I’ll get it done tomorrow!”
And as I pass reception
And think that I’ve survived,
The secretary gives a cheery call
“Today’s post has now arrived!”

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Three Degrees of Homicide by Barbara Daniels

When did I plan this calculated death,
this strangling of your hopes? Some time ago
I listened as you paused then took a breath
and said you worshipped me. I knew, I know
those words just had to die; they must not grow.
Shapeless, they lay there, waiting for the end,
small monsters, jelly. Yes, I can defend
pre-meditation, turning push to shove.
Too much to bear. Did you not comprehend
the full enormity of selfless love?

Yet there is always life for Murder One.
Better perhaps to do it in the heat
of any moment, draw my loaded gun
and zap it at your speeches. I could meet
soft sentences with bullet points and cheat.
The jury will be lax. “Crime passionel”
can put a mattress in a prison cell.
They’ll never know my motive was to kill
your love, not you, and I need never tell
the truth, the whole of it, and never will.

Maybe some lucky/hapless accident
will cut you off before you say too much:
a careless ladder, weighty ornament
right on the edge of that high shelving, such
small chances put me out of reach – and touch.
Something forgotten like a Freudian slip:
did I put that brake on? will this rug trip
you up so near the fender and your fire?
Domestic happenstance and marksmanship
could save me from the Bridewell of desire.

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