Photograph by Eleanor Bennett
Voting is now complete and you can read all the short-listed poems (10 from a submission of 26) with their creators’ names added. The winning poem is Poem 9 – Renovation by Sam Payne. Congratulations to Sam, a new name I think to the challenge.
Poem 1
Grandma’s Allotment
I stand on the allotment
Looking at the shed.
The paint around the window
Peels back to show the red.
The stripe around the door frame
Is peppermint and white.
My grandma likes a mixture
Of colours, nice and bright.
She spent a happy hour of two
Planting peas and beans
Heaping up potatoes,
Picking winter greens.
In winter smoke would circle
Like a halo overhead
As grandma raked and tilled
Till all the weeds were dead.
The flowers were her pride and joy,
The roses, peonies too,
She’d cut and bring them in the house
For Gamps to have a view.
She’s dead now,
Dear old grandma
And now the shed is mine.
What colours shall I paint it?
Shall I grow a vine?
No, I’ll grow another peony
Some mint and feverfew
And keep her memory living
With another rose or two.
Rachel Thompson
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Poem 2
Vanessa
too close to the light
she floated wanting so much
so much too soon
Diane Jackman
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Poem 3
The Fall
Autumn heralds the end
Mission accomplished
Their short life over
Buffeted by the breeze
Somersaulting they twirl
To a final resting place
Decided by fate
Even as they die
Vibrant colours remain
Their final gift to the world
Carol Mills
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Poem 4
All Too Short
Georgie boy is first with a toy
champagne glass glitters
golden liquid waterfalls
over rich fingers.
Thin lad who taunted terraces
hypnotised the thousands
held the Stretford End
on puppet master threads.
Hips swayed, left, right
minimum effort, maximum effect
Irish wit, snake charmer
Bobbie and Jackie watch on.
New society girl giggles at the drunk
she will sleep with you but not keep with you
coma deepens, charm fades…
butterfly
immediate
bright
fast
fading
Andrew Scotson
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Poem 5
Fissures
In the ice puddle
is a clear, shabby lunchbox
with endorsed cracks too.
Johanna Boal
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Poem 6
Why try to make sense of it
dissect, measure, cut it to size
to fit the box you’ve chosen.
Some things are what they are
complete in incompleteness
all they ask is to be seen
a blue-green mystery
a silent shout
‘see me for what I am’
Jenna Plewes
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Poem 7
a conversation
do you see
only the darkness.?
the blackness growing,
reaching into corners,
searching for the unaware you,
spreading, insidious, a power, a weight,
over powering,
weighing down?
you must search for the light,
put the colour back in,
choose to find
the other half of the picture, the part
where you can breathe again.
search, search,
I can help you,
I have been there.
write the words,
share the pain, acknowledge
the bleak blackness
the paper will wait,
it is there for you now
when you are ready.
Angie Butler
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Poem 8
Haiku
Beauty in abstract
Like love’s deepest mysteries
Beyond description
Martin John
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Poem 9
Renovation
My father lent us
the deposit and from yours
we got paint brushes and the
words, it’ll take more than
just paper over those cracks.
Paint was heated, melted and
peeled away, layer by layer, we
scraped and stripped but for every
crack we found and filled,
tiny fault-lines began to appear
within the foundations of us.
I grew tired of the paint scraps
in my hair, you grew tired of the way
the dust settled everywhere like a thin layer
of discontent and sometimes
I’d see you nodding your head like you were
agreeing with someone I couldn’t hear.
Sam Payne
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Poem 10
Path through Quest
Forlorn hope left me too,
I lay still in a dark abyss of dejection,
Realisation ceased to dawn.
Time rushed, when a beam of light smilingly flickered, signing me to crawl up, troubling thoughts stood silent.
I climbed,to reach a peak,
Lanterns of choices in diffusion gave me calls, I wore a smile on my naked lips, grabbed the tiny choice, to start to end it big, to live again.
Denim Deka
