were the two poems I submitted to the National Memory Day Creative Writing Competition: Earthquake We had already experienced active faults, grandparents who were victims of age assaults, unable to name the rumbles and shakes of dementia earthquakes. And then we noticed your primary waves of forgetfulness, distance and those days when you disappeared behind […]
Tag: Unsuccessful
Honesty
In spring, at the end of my grandparents’ Otherwise tidy garden, I gazed for hours At scruffy clumps of white and purple flowers: Granddad called them honesty, Which puzzled me. I watched their pretty petals perish, Leaving brown paper parcels of seeds, Waiting to be buffeted on a breeze Whose windy fingers would peel away […]
6 am
Six o’clock is muted; A few birds mutter tentatively As if morning is disputed, Unsure of their internal clocks Due to the absent Crowing of the neighbour’s cock. The sky is opaque with autumn mist The colour of an old vest. Hanging from the pinch of plastic pegs, Limp washing drips. Silence sizzles. And then, […]
Awakening in January
Well, the winners of Writing East Midlands’ very first Aurora Poetry and Short Fiction competition have been announced. I submitted this poem but it wasn’t even commended. Better luck next time!. In the small hours, Winter skies are clear and vast; Countless clusters of stars Span present, future and past. On the first morning of […]
January Blues
Another unsuccessful entry, this time in the Interpreter’s House Open House Poetry Competition 2016: With a defiant seagull’s cry Salt-scented memories fly In mid-winter moody sky Drenched with wintry light And seascape hues Of January blues Pinned by a star Like salvaged scraps With the delicacy of old lace Beach-combings of shells and stones Brittle brine-bleached […]
Putting the Sun to Bed
A poem that was unsuccessful in the Prole Laureate Poetry Competition 2016: Last night I watched Frayed threads of day Unravel in dusk, Filling the vast sky With clouds And silhouettes Of trees and birds, Tearing asunder An unseen seam Where day’s glowing coin Slid into the slot of night. A final fanfare of […]
Helianthus
The third unsuccessful poem In a covert patch Amongst cornfields Flowers of radiant yellow Turn buds skywards Tracking the sun From east to west September And yellow-rayed faces Of fibonacci spirals No longer teased By bees Face only east They are short-lived Growing heavy-headed Threatened by the distant Thrumming of birds That swoop […]
A Seaside Sonnet
The second of the three unsuccessful poems I dig my toes in shifting grains of sand, Eroded rock, disintegrated shell, Let shingle drift away from palm of hand To land in foaming lace of ocean’s swell. By increments surrounded by the tide, That ebbs and flows and rises to my thigh, I am enchanted by […]
Unsuccessful yet again
I have just found out that the three poems I submitted to the Cinnamon Press Single Poem Prize were unsuccessful. ‘A Poet’s Truth’ has already been posted on this blog but I am reposting it, along with the two other poems. A Poet’s Truth A word is struck and bursts forth from a spark, Ignites […]
writing in north norfolk 