Bonfire Night Poetry Competition

When I looked at you,
I thought of love.

When I looked at you,
I felt the blue touch paper of my heart,
Flare Roman Candle-like into the night time of the future.

When I looked at you,
I saw all my tomorrows,
Like shooting stars, oohs and aahs.
Their incandescence blinding me.

When I looked at you,
I saw luminescent wedding rings.
Pin wheels spinning, sparks fizz gigging,
Raining gold to match Apollo’s flaming might.

When I looked at you,
My love intensified, multiplied,
Cascading rockets to the sky
Volatile, ephemeral, as fleeting as an Icarus flight.

When you looked at me, you walked away,
No love for pyrotechnics in your heart.
You snuffed the light, you doused the fire.
Leaving me impaled on St Catherine’s wheel of vicious spikes.

Slumped in a pushchair salvaged from the tip,
his dummy stuffed with newspapers and straw,
Guy Fawkes proceeds past post-office and store,
his tortured body buckling at the hip.
Behind his chair two ragamuffins skip,
touting for currency, despite the law:
'A penny for the guy' will serve no more
to satisfy their bogus salesmanship.

Guy Fawkes, half-dead and broken, must have thought
he'd paid the price of treason to the full.
He little knew that centuries on he'd haunt
November streets, still be maligned in school
and press. Nor could he sniff the bonfire-sport
where traitors burn until their ashes cool.

Shortlisted
Entries shortlisted to final judging stage in the Bonfire Night poetry competition were from: Catherine Brown, Torre, Torquay; Ruth Collet-Fenson, Witcham, Ely, Cambridgeshire; Mac Dowling, Ferney Voltaire, France; Stephanie Ellis, Sholing, Southampton; Caroline Gill, Tycoch, Sketty, Swansea; Ena Glogowski, Leek, Staffordshire; Lesley Groves, Denbury, Newton Abbot; Michael Hayes, Litchard, Bridgend; Sue Liddington, Banstead, Surrey; Mary E Stamper, Baiter Park, Poole, Dorset; Margaret Webster, Rowlands Gill, Tyne & Wear