Poetry

1. 1st Place
2. 2nd Place

1st Place

‘All We Ask’       

Dana Byatt

Give us Pleiades

placed on our out-

stretched palms

on the summit

of Slieve Loughshannagh.

Give us chocolate

chunked like an

oceanic ledge, shelved

between toffee tectonics

and raspberry ruptures.

Give us wine, 

plum plump,

primed to burst

from seams of

animal skin regimes.

Give us strawberries,

seismic, encrusted

with caramel, rising

on crystalline surf,

falling like silence.

Give us permission

to unfold the Irish Sea,

plunge toes in fluid

gold, gild prohibited

passageways.

2nd Place

‘Blossom’

By Jackie Brown

Soft and silky it fans the trees, a mass of pink and white,

May is here, birdsong calling, lengthening days till night.

Dancing, twirling, gently falling, seductively hugging the ground,

A fragrant garden, a carpet of petals, settling without a sound.

Caught on the breeze with a gentle sob, it starts to float away,

Wisps of scent slowly dissipate, all gone by the end of today.

Apple or cherry, it doesn’t matter, the end is just the same,

When spring has passed and summer looms, we can say the blossom came.