Poetry Prize entry

Just incase anyone’s interested
I finally got my entry in for that poetry competition I posted about a little while ago:
The Peter Dix Prize.
There were 2 Categories – Voices and Pictures
I entered 5 for Pictures and 3 for Voices.
For those of you who are too busy *coughlazycough* to look them up
I’ve thoughtfully laid them out below to remind you
because that’s just the kind of nice guy I am.
Gosh!

Anyhoo, I’m not really betting on winning or anything
but it’ll be nice/interesting to see what others make of them.
Wish me luck anyhow.

Will post more originals soon I promises.
Toodle-oo
B

-Pictures

Steps

Two little girls stood in the corner
Giggling, holding hands.
Birds chirping and the smell
Of ill-used petrol.

Iron bells clanged in the clock tower.
All the stones were crimson and gold
Sunlight.

The old man was still
Held up by his wooden friend,
Long since varnished with the worth of use.

And as a dog howled far off,
A wolfish impregnated scream,
The people hurled their gifts
Of blackened thoughts
And polished light.

Cut this.

In my head
I can see people fighting.

I can’t see their daces
Just their bare arms,
Their bloodied fists,
The odd speck of hard white bone.

And littering the ground
Like some god awful celebration,
Like funeral confetti,
The empty shards
Of their broken glass smiles

Push

The other day
I drew a face
On the bottom of my shoe,
On the soul.

It was a hard looking face
With a strong chin (so handsome – my mother would say)
And a stiff upper lip.
No tongue.

But there was a sad softness in his eyes.
A melancholy something
To his monotone brow
That made me wonder
How he felt
Getting stood on
Every day.

As the poet experiences a Multitude of Media

Silver and immaterial.
Two dimensional,
Like the flickering of a computer screen
Is my mind.
Ones and noughts.
Noughts and ones.

French women croon
And German couples dance
In their bunkers
And I am far away from where I
Should be.
But try as I might, I can’t scream it all away.

Black swans float by
Flush with a wall of nothing,
Scratching their nails.
Scritch-scratch.

Like nails on me.
Nails on amour.

Pride of place.

Dipping your fingers
In my eyes,
Like little pots of finger paint,
You painted the most awkward picture ever.
Such a dull brown colour.
And I still couldn’t see.

-Voices

Worry Some

I am Lord of the Tempest.
I am harrow hawk turner. Toil maker.
Redemption to the wild.
I control the winds.

With my wispy fingers I will
Rush you awake.

My roar shall not go unnoticed.
You will make haste
And take note.

I will break your glass.
I will tear your bonds.
I will spurn your light and set you into darkness.

Blow away.
Blow away.

The Long Cry

It was a long, narrow corridor
With many doors.
The wind came in through the cracks
In the old, paint-faded windows

And tittered and whistled and echoed
Off the walls, worn by fingers:
Generations of children
Sliding along,
Their faces black and white and silent.

And then the piano,
That music
So soft and slow and lilting; the beauty of slender Slavic fingers.
So steeped in woe as it was, I could barely hold back the tears.
And with my voice low and still
I began to sing.

Benjamin

Every time I hear
This certain song
I cannot help but think
Of you.

And right now
It’s bringing me some
Pain.

But I’ll bear the hurt.
I’d rather
Than to forget
The delicate lines of your face in song,
The look in your eyes
When from across a room full of people,
Those translucent duplicitous lips,
You called my name

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