Winners of the Creating Reality 2nd Open Poetry Competition
First Place
Displaced by S. Clough
Jurassic spine dissolved in pelvic rock,
Secrete DNA where no one will look,
impervious to evolutionary theory
like mud and breast milk.
My bloodline is glacial, thawing fresh meat
preserved on peaks with no passes.
True north dismembered
in continental drift.
Beyond moon junk I seek asylum
biting starlight umbilical, severing vertebrae.
Lot’s salty wife foraging seismic fissures
for news of survivors.
Born in India, S. Clough is married and has lived in Ireland for over twenty years. She is a mother of three and a freelance writer. She has been writing poetry since childhood and this is her first major poetry prize. She hopes to self publish a collection of her poems next year.
Second Place
Navigation by Adrian Bishop
Tacking slowly to weather under a louring sky,
I set a prescribed course
across the sea’s hypnotic boil.
The coast, another country now,
air blurring into landwashed sea.
Out here, anything you can’t put in a logbook is useless.
Like the way you snap your fingers in perfect pitch,
clear across the bar,
never quite catching my eye.
Precise as a line n a nautical chart, I was straight with you –
but on land, everything’s blind-wrapped.
No handbooks on perils and lighthouses,
no outlines of shoals, no horizons for calculating latitude,
no markers.
across the blurred landscapes of our lives.
We navigate by guess and reckoning,
always variation and deviation.
Two charts of slightly different scales,
our courses mis-aligned.
Adrian, 47 was the former Editor of Poetry Life Magazine for 11 years. Adrian's first published book under his own Poetry Life imprint “Out of the Box" received rave reviews. "I like this stuff. Very cool." Benjamin Zephaniah. He gives about 5-7 readings a year around the literary festivals. Recently, at Wells in Somerset and a lot in London, mostly with Farrago, one of the "bigger" alternative poetry promoters. Writing is a continuing passion.
Third Place
Pretender to the throne by ‘Fearless’
I saw Elvis today,
jivin’ down the street
in blue suede feet.
He looked all shook up.
Curious, and mindful
of local history,
I surmised an identity crisis –
the picture of himself,
clutched in trembling hand,
confirmed it.
My street-scene analysis
floated away with grey clouds
as he strode towards
his rightful place
on The Kings Road
It rained, as did he.
Fearless was born on a Friday the 13th in Reading, thirty three summers ago. He is fascinated by people, places, spaces, ideas and ideals, explaining both his wanderlust and encounters with secret policemen. His poetry has appeared in Aesthetica issue six, and two anthologies, 'Summer Remembered' & 'Mixed Emotions', by the Anchor Books imprint of Forward Press. He was a finalist in the Shortfuse Poetry Idol contest in November 2004 and continues to be an occasional performer there.
He has two collections, 'Ballads & Blues' and 'Stimulus: response' ready for publication. His thoughts, musings and poetry can be found at http://fearlesslyrics.blogspot.com/
Runners-up
Neonatalia by Anthony Watts
We have followed her star to the neonatal ward
where three weeks premature, she lies in state
of innocence – a warm jewel in its box.
Here there are vestals in nurses’ uniform, a stoup
for the purification of the pilgrim – a flushing out
of assassins that gather under watchstrap and fingernail –
and here too, sensed but not seen – the poem
would have it so – her guardian angel
(O pure genderless being,
protect the light bones in their mushroom-tender
swaddle of new flesh)
In the hush of a lifted wing
we peer at the tiny sleeplocked face,
emergent
from its chrysalis of wool.
She will not know such peace again.
Forceps have left
the ghost-bloom of a dark fruit on one cheek
and raspberried her nose – the fading lovebites
of a rough-and-ready welcome –
but the ear is whole.
into its intricate small cup,
drop by tender drop,
we shall feed her the chosen name
that is soon to become her.
Meanwhile – the dormant miracle –
Selfness itself
curled like a frond under the warm brow
Anthony Watts has been writing seriously for the last 35 years. He has had several poems published in magazines and a number of competition prizes, including 3rd place in the first Creating reality Haiku Competition. He also has two published collections: Strange Gold (KQBX Press) and The Talking Horses of Dreams (Iron Press). He has lived most of his life in rural Somerset and has no plans to spend the rest of it anywhere else.
The Monkey Puzzle Tree by Jacob Rollinson
We stepped outside, Maria and I,
Stooping to accommodate the sky
Whose furies boiled ocean blue,
Wept shadows on the distant hills;
She told me trees have flowers too
Only they are difficult to find;
She put her hand in mine.
‘The house is where the crimes are kept,
The cat, she sleeps outside’
To the monkey puzzle tree we stepped,
Stopped beneath the rain spat boughs;
Rain clung and dripped and pooled
Beneath the bows, the rain spat vows
Neither taken nor kept
And:
‘Beyond the monkey lies the puzzle,
Beyond the puzzle lies the urn’
But I was not listening;
Behind the wall, the bay tree glistening.
And would I not venture a promenade
To the ice-house arm in arm?
I would not;
Sickly green and yellow lost
The bruised pears in the orchard,
Blue in the blue pall of the evening;
Sweet refusal in the evening,
Sorry as I am.
Rosemary leaves between my fingers
The scent of Maria lingers.
Jacob Rollinson is 20 years old, He grew up in various places, most recently near Belfast. He has recently finished his first year at The University of East Anglia where he is reading English with Creative Writing. As his father is a gardener, he has always lived in or near big gardens and estates, which is where his idea for this poem came from. He likes to write poetry because he feels unable and unwilling to write anything with a coherent narrative structure.
Requiem at Scapa by Don Nixon
The wolf note wind whines keening on the sea.
And moonlit waves shatter in the foam flecked light.
The Causeway breakers boom into the night
And growing prowl around the headland’s lee.
Red genuflecting buoys mark tirelessly
The wreck below. The seabirds in their flight
Cry out brief requiems for the shattered might
Of twisted steel: rusting finality.
Now all the sights and sounds of war are gone,
The anchorage a stretch of empty sea.
An iron tomb with seadrift overgrown
Moulders beneath. The grim reality
Of men sealed in – concurrence of stripped bone,
Bleak testament to wars futility.
Don Nixon is a semi retired academic living in Shropshire. He started writing poetry and short stories about five years ago when his daughter persuaded him to get a computer and he discovered word processing. He has had some success too with several poems and short stories published and a number of competition wins. His first short story was published in the crime anthology -`Birmingham Noir` (Tindal Street Press) and in 2004 he won the ‘A&C Black Writers and Artists Year Book’ short story competition. Don began writing free verse but more recently has developed an interest in formal structures, in particular the sonnet form, which he thinks provides a discipline while at the same time giving one great freedom. He is very fond of the modern crime genre in fiction and is currently writing a crime novel and continuing to experiment with the sonnet and villanelle forms.
Highly Commended
Desdemona Confesses by Kitty Donnelly
Before the pillow robs me of my light,
I must confess
for I have lied
of your perfection.
Captive in your damaged childhood
you concealed your cards.
I needed clarity.
Hid your eyes when I pleaded
for darkness dissolved.
Darling, tear-salt cannot sustain me.
From your selfish pride
you would not turn.
You could not see me
wither, coil and burn:
worm scorching in the desert of your cause.
Do you forget that,
Siamese twins,
our roots have mingled?
To sever mine
you’ll have to slice through yours.
Let my white garments
blacken your remorse.
I am done
prizing nails from your palms.
Kitty Donnelly was born in Oxford in 1979 and grew up in Oxford and West Cumbria. She studied English at Goldsmiths College and then worked in various admin and secretarial jobs in Cumbria, Chichester and Swansea. She is currently living in Oxford, where she works as a medical secretary for the NHS. Kitty hopes to begin an MA in English Literature in September. Her poems have previous been published by Forward Press and in several poetry magazines, including Acumen.
Valediction by Janette Griffin
You can tell when they’re ready to go,
When the nose hooks down towards the chin
Across the concave toothless mouth
And they shout ‘mother’
And in their confusion,
You become their most cherished loved one,
Hovering by the bedside ready to greet them
Unable to destroy this last illusion of life.
Instead, you begin to sing softly
And prepare the bed bath.
Born in Leeds in 1955, Janette has been experimenting with creative writing for the past ten years.
Currently a member of local writing and poetry groups, she enjoys ‘playing’ with words and trying to express the vast range of human emotions. Aware that she has a ‘dark side’, Janette feels this is where
the strongest emotions lie, producing her deepest creativity.
To see the work of winners from our first poetry competition click here.