Here are the top three entries in our 2023 open poetry competition.
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Third place
Mirror by Louise Wilford
There is a world in there, between the scalloped wood that frames the glass –
just round the edge where I can’t quite see, you sit in an armchair, shaking out
the creases from The Times. Your lawn is barbered, a number one trim;
on this side, grass grows like hair round scar tissue. Your fence is creosoted,
weatherproofed.
Your face is thirty years older than it was – but still, you’ve kept your muscle,
never run to fat. I bet you still do marathons. My twenty-minute yoga workouts
on the Wii-fit-plus would not impress. The greying of your hair is barely noticeable
– your hair was always nondescript. Not still that old brown sweater? Some things
stay the same.
Oh, look, there I am, reading Flaubert on the decking, in the sun. I can just
make out my knees, my calves, blue flip-flops dangling off my toes, book resting
on my lap. My foot is fidgeting. The herb table’s still there, but tidier – no dead mint.
It’s quiet there; here, old movies sometimes seep into my afternoons. You hold the paper
like a shield.
Here, I hold my breath. You never wanted pets – there, your carpet is unscuffed,
your chair unhaired, while here the table leg became the black cat’s scratching post.
The other me, the might-have-been, the never-was, stares at you now and then
behind her Ray Bans, but you never recognise that look she has – like Emma
Bovary.
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Second Place
The Cold Plunge Pool in the Georgian House by Isabella Mead
The Master keeps a cold plunge pool below stairs,
tucked between the kitchens, the pantry and bells.
Servants scarper at the sound of his step,
the cough and candlelight, signs of descent
away from the drawing-room, the fawning guests,
the curlicued chandeliers and cabriole chairs,
the rococo frippery and dipped calligraphy
of picture-frames and dressers, away down here
to this milk-white cavity of rough-hewn stone
gouged from the ground: a dream of Rome.
The process: the folded towel, flexed toes,
the slap of bare feet down cool stone steps,
deep breath, and in. A gasp at the touch.
And then the rush: the clasp of ice,
the crushing, hostile, ruthless clutch,
the vicious, forceful exfoliation
until he can feel it dissipating:
that incessant, clinging, hot irritation
of a thousand sugar-grains wrestling his skin.
There are nights he has had to hold himself in
from suffocating on so much sweetness.
A convulsion of water, swish and under,
he bursts to the surface, gives a sharp howl,
shakes back up the steps, swipes the towel,
before dressing swiftly, turning in.
In the hallway he might steal a glance
across the shadows to the second kitchen.
He knows it is used as the laundry-room:
the mangle on the table, its pristine wooden rollers
facing the fireplace and roasting-spit.
Sometimes his pressed white shirt holds a trace
of chicken-fat or flecks of ash.
A trail of damp footprints silver the floor
as he retires to the bedroom, settles there.
Already his skin is stippling again:
cake-crumbs, candle-smoke, dust from the stairs.
The Georgian House in Bristol was built in 1790 by John Pinney, a slave plantation owner and sugar merchant.
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First Place
The Blacksmith’s Cormorant by Trish Wilson
Captured in an unguarded inquisitive moment
I pause briefly at the bizarre display –
your stillness disturbs my comfort.
There is grace, certainly, a light sleekness,
a proud sweep to an elegant neck
and a neat black fluted plumage.
But also a battening down of passage
in inert wings hooked and splayed
round the lean curve of a rigid back.
You were smoothed and tamed to the jangling beat
of the blacksmith’s lashing discriminating hammer
smashing through the tension of time’s constraint.
In the fire you must have plummeted with giddy swiftness,
twisting and tumbling with increased acceptance
till cooled and manacled into taut submission.
You seal the faithful mockery of a cormorant’s freedom,
a seared patina enhancing your condition
as appeal for the attention of this passer-by.
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Fosseway Writers 