Competition

Third Prize

Looking at Life
by Josephine Kaye

Sitting in silence interrupted
I want a new sound
Music would be a better distraction but I’m stuck here,
(My teacher is quite strict.)
I don’t want to play quartets
I want to socialize and text
I’m bored, I’m bored,
I’m really quite bored.
People walking by, mini skirts and tights
People sitting together but alone
I want to be running,
Running on my own
Slight mutterings,
Turning of pages
Go away, go away.
Let me travel through the ages.
Let me see the galloping horses,
Knights astride and maidens fair
Let me see the pyramids constructing,
Pharaohs ruling ridiculous whims of the selfish mind
And let me see,
What I could be
If I knew you loved me.
But I can’t travel through history
And I know,
I know you do not love me.
So I have decided to sit and stare
At the strange people here.
And listen,
Listen to monotony.

Highly Commended

Road Kill
by Kirsty McCormack

Crushed against the harsh hot gravel,
A bag of bones, feathers and flesh
Encrusted in crimson tears
Like a once-beautiful red rose withered.

Smashed skull bones protruding,
Brain, now a melted murky brown pond
Seeping over its jagged banks
Onto tarry hills.

Beak bent like a dislocated limb
With that sickening twist that you can feel
A slip of tongue lagging out
Like a forgotten….afterthought.

One wing cracked behind its head
Bone and socket unjoined
Ripped out, a crusty red coating
Adding to the gore.

The other, limp and useless
Spread-out, Christ-like
But a pointless death rather than worthy
A mocking reminder of past glory.

Pale white ribs stick out
Cracked, broken, pierced through the heart
A heart now smeared across;
A red wine stain on black carpet.

Haunting eyes, glazed, black
Frozen in time, untouched
The look of shock, fear, death
Impressed eternally on its brain.

The congealing blood merges
With the black and white feathers
That once proudly flapped across the heavens
Now a smudge across the earth.