schools

1st Place - Across the Water - Aileen La Tourette

We sashay off the trains, half-dressed at best,
flashing our boobs in tubes that barely hold
the nipples back from sticking out their little spouts
- one day we'll sit home,
weights attached to them, we've seen the Hoover-
suction in those tiny lips, dented cheeks
draining blue-veined lead balloons.
Why wouldn't we swashbuckle in skirtlets,
let neon dress our thighs in rainbow tights?
Why would we wear coats? One day we'll be coated
in cellulite, spare tyres, one day we'll sweat and swelter
with the Change. Think we don't know?
Why wouldn't we swill ignorance, trance to music, snog
like there's no tomorrow, clack back down the pavement,
swaying, drown out every nutter on the late last train?

1st Place - Sorry for the inconvenience - Paul Eccles

Sorry for the inconvenience

Un-white cups

The last of instant coffee,

Un-blackened with powdered milk

A falsehood.

I begin to say

‘It’s been difficult,

you know,

since-’

-We split

the bill.

After all,

we probably

wont meet

Again, I start:

‘I’m sorry, if you

could just -’

‘-See,

it’s getting near one’ she says.

I sip the dregs.

Instantly unmemorable

But for a bitter taste

That lingers along the linear

Of my tongue.

She continues,

‘I really need -’

‘- you back in my -’

‘- boss will notice soon’ she says,

looking at her watch.

She rises, turns clutching her-

- hand I plead:

‘Please, for-’

‘- the best, it’s for -’

‘- Give me another chance,

I made a mis -’

She - takes her hand

from mine. ‘I have to go’

‘It’s been nice seeing you.’

A falsehood.

My apologies

The broken toilet

An inconvenience.

Instantly unmemorable

But for a bitter taste.

1st Place - Locked Ward by Karin van Heerden.

Locked ward

The nurse takes my handbag

and leads us to a barren room.

bloody bitch you call me, your

eyes impenetrable like pebbles

and you spit in my face.

The flowers I picked in my garden

as an offer of hope seem garish now

their sweet fragrance obscene.

You push them aside.

When you try and attack me

they lead you away.

The nurse says she is sorry.

She isn’t very well but we are

keeping her safe, she tells me

as she hands me my bag and

lets me out in the world.

...........................................................................................

THE FORTH WINNING POEM - SEPTEMBER 2008

1st Place - Route 66 by David Hall.

Route 66

A Geordie only my age coaxing
His juddering Ford back home, pumping
The faulty brakes,with manic eyes
Fixed on his future's gaunt high-rise,
His wife expecting their second bairn,
Forgivably he missed my 'turn'.
The rep. (He wished he'd worked at school.)
Who, as we passed through dank Walsall,
Looked at me accusingly --
'The world's your oyster with a degree.'
A Welshman's khaki anecdotes
From Cardiff to the indolent coasts
Of colonial dependencies,
From seeping alleys to banyan trees.
A raconteur of perennial glee,
'They couldn't pin it on us, see.'
A conjuror, a magician, words
Fluttered from his mouth like birds.
The blonde whose nylons zipped erotically
As, dipping the clutch she glanced at me.
'Do you like sticky buns,' she purred.
My mumbled answer went unheard.

A stallion in a field somewhere
Near Stoke with its electric canter
Provided an epiphany;
From the slip-road I could see
A heard of cows in the field adjacent,
Chewing their daily cud, complacent,
As black flanks glistening like molasses
The volted stallion poured across
The headlong field, as if it denied
That its energies could be circumscribed.

Abroad, Cahors, just after rain,
Lit fields extending their green champaign,
A twilight worthy of Daubigny,
Rinsed browns and olives, numinous scenery
Edged with a preternatural white light;
The sky was prodigal with stars that night.

Moving at dawn through Orleans
And the person the place the moment gone
And forever whether it's
Orleans ,Wakefield ,Biarritz.
And then that feeling late at night
When the tarmac glistens and it's quiet
And lights shine out chaotically
From places you will never be.
Shadows fall across closed shutters,
Water frets in lonely gutters,
And what you want are words and company.
Experience? What would happen next?

While it happens let it last.
Shades of the prison-house et cetera, et cetera.
Admittedly this is base nostalgia
But another week's come to an end,
Another week of getting to spend.
Starlings like bits of black paper flicker
Like a silent film, bicker
On vertiginous ledges overhead,
Cars yawn past exhaling lead
And the lights of the Las Vegas blaze
With the malignant intensity of a madman's gaze.
There must be some way out of this.
Give me money. Give me shelter.
Give me nineteen sixty-six.

We are proud to announce that the fifth winning poem in our ongoing

competition is Summer by Karin van Heerden.

Summer.

He plays Vivaldi on the cello,

scratches it he says, while I am

cooking green lentils for a salad.

The shadows lengthen in the late afternoon

and from the sun drenched garden the smell

of thyme enters through the open kitchen door

where my cat Lola sits and watches

the gentle breeze sway the cone-like

flowers of the buddleia

from my daughter’s room I hear

a voice singing in Spanish about

freedom and truth and happiness.

The Poetry Kit