|
Top
100 Poets 2005 Edition £3,000
Winner: Alan Millard Buy
This Book
£8.99
Top
100 Poets 2004 Edition £3,000
Winner: Angela Cheyne Buy
This Book
£8.99
Top
100 Poets 2003 Edition
£3,000
Winner: George
Coombs
Buy
This Book
£8.99
Top
100 Poets 2002 Edition
£3,000
Winner: Lorna Meehan
Buy
This Book
Top
100 Poets 2001 Edition
£3,000
Winner: Alan Chesterfield
Buy
This Book
Top
100 Poets 2000 Edition
£3,000
Winner: Gary Jeffery
Top
100 Poets 1999 Edition
£3,000
Winner: Sally Spedding |
 |
Previous
Top 100
Winning Poems
2005
Winning Poem
by Alan Millard
Insomnia
Midnight strikes
and the ball is over;
sleepless I wait
for that panther, panic,
to pounce;
disconnected thoughts
distorted by night’s hall of mirrors
flit around the room like butterflies
refusing to be netted;
the mattress is restless;
the pillow will not relax;
yesterday fidgets beneath the bed,
tomorrow sits
like a dead weight
on the duvet;
the silent alarm
flicks luminous digits
relentlessly forward:
one o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock,
four . . . and somewhere,
not too distant,
dawn creeps stealthily
around the planet
planning a fresh assault,
a surprise attack
launched with lances of light
fired through chinks in the curtain,
cheating me, once again,
of another night’s sleep.
Top
2004
Winning Poem
by Angela Cheyne
Urban
Scene
London wiped its eye
And the glistening roofs of the metropolis
Shone like new-rubbed brass from a zealous hand.
A pigeon stalked on the shiny tarmac of a housing estate
Arching its back and pecking in a murky pool of water.
The stalls in the street market festooned their wares
Under rain-splattered polythene, and a Bengali child
Was crying behind a curtained door.
London blinked
And the sun came out behind a city block
And beamed on the face of a typist late for work.
Someone rang the bell and the bus lumbered to a stop
And a shaft of light met the surge of passengers
Streaming into the roar of traffic;
And a feather drifted down.
Top
2003
Winning Poem
by George Coombs
White Flowers
White flowers
I bring
Recalling hours
We spent together
In laughter,
In tears.
White, pure
Like the gift
You gave of
Yourself, flower
Of your personhood
Unfolds now
Beautified in memory.
Seasons turn,
Warmth and calmness
Touch me here
Where you rest in
The heart of holiness
Reaching me
Quietly and in peace.
Top
2002
Winning Poem
by
Lorna Meehan
Eustacia's Heath
(Her presence brought memories of Bourbon roses, rubies tropical midnights - Thomas Hardy - 'The Return of the Native')
And you sit and watch your sand run out,
With fragile dreams of faded grandeur.
With your hair like ebony evenings,
Your eyes blindly searching far and wide.
Your hollow rooms sigh with your solitude
And their dark corners offer no place to hide.
Gluttonous freedom,
Starved suffering.
A prison without bars
And secrets,
Too many secrets
And so little time.
It's not your fault the lovers love without love,
That you had a map to infinity and never found it.
It's not the fantastic flame's fault,
If the maddened moths must dance around it.
And you're desperate to remember the scent
Of your shattered glass roses.
They whisper cruelly with wonder,
And say nothing at all.
He built you a pedestal to a soft, safe heaven,
Do you expect him to catch you when you finally fall?
Will you fall through his insecure promises, lost goddess,
And the fat black night and its blood will choke you.
And what an irony that you asked it to come,
And stain all the good you've ever done!
And what a tragedy that it could never tame you,
Wild lover!
Your silent serenity scratches his thin soul,
He sees his future and it hasn't happened yet,
And though your compassion lets him forgive,
Your passion will never let him forget,
And never have you looked more beautiful
Burning fire child,
As you do now in docile death.
Top
2001
Winning Poem
by Alan Chesterfield
Cold
November
I remember when the buses stopped.
Big Ben would toil eleven strokes,
Bared heads would bow to hide the private tear
And nothing moved. The fallen rose
Put wounds aside, for full two minutes
Lived again, until the volley of the guns
Beyond the Binyon epilogue;
They shall grow not old…
Who cares, I've heard it said;
it's all a load of crap, ceremonial
to glorify the hollow victories of war,
and anyway, two minutes is far too long;
too long to waste on stiffs from history.
Progress dictates time's money, mate;
white crosses are just marks on debit sheets
where currency, in punts or pounds or lives,
is tippexed at a stroke.
So, nothing stops.
The buses rumble on past busy stores
Where, rank on rank, till bells sing, and
Musak raps sour litanies of Rights.
With the going down of the sun…
What worth the Rights the fallen earned?
What value placed on generations' loss?
A grateful nation's grief expressed
In donkey jackets at the Cenotaph.
Top
2000
Winning Poem
by Gary Jeffery
The Last
Whale
I wish I'd never heard your song
for now its eerie phantom swells
to fill the chambers of my mind
with liquid dizziness.
Your yearning knowing melody
confronts me with its loneliness
and punctuates my consciousness
as if a sound could kill.
The weight of my belated guilt
cries down as crashing waves break through
the brittle surface of the sea
that glimmers with deceit,
as sunlight sinks through solemn eyes
into the ocean's drowning depths
of black and oozing tides that choke
your warnings with contempt.
Directionless migration guides
your grieving song through barren plains
to washed-out shells and shipwrecked bones
that trawl the desert sands.
While empty echoes answer back
your muffled funeral dirge translates
into an ushered hush of myth
lamenting ignorance.
Top
1999
Winning Poem
by Sally Spedding
Cowhand
Through the muck he ran.
Soft dung pats sucking
His rubber calves
To that wide mirror
Of sky grey water. And his cow
Heavy with milk.
He'd seen the pretty toy town train
All lit up
Fall like a dying firework
Into the threshing flood.
He pulled again. Uncomprehending,
Calling his lover's name,
Rhiannon. Who gives the living sheep.
But now too deep
To take the dead.
Small window corner above the torrent.
Frail. Man-made
A flimsy tomb
For those who'd paid half price
For the pleasure
Of its cold embrace.
A best night-dress folded
Round a pouch
Of lavender.
Fish food. Out of reach
To the propellered flock above
Scouring the shadows.
Hovering. Stirring his hair
And haunting at night
His slurried sleep.
Top
|
