Open Poetry Competition

For millennia he has slept below
the earth. Now he pushes through, his sleep done,
like a seedling trying to reach the sun.
Life has faded to a stagnant shadow,

blood and skin have dissolved into the clay.
An x-ray is all that time has bequeathed:
fragments of cranium and several teeth,
a femur, three rib bones, two vertebrae,

stained terracotta red with the tarnish
of twenty thousand years in Devon dust.
I remove the centuries-old earth crust
as if picking at flaking nail varnish.

With great care I lay him on the table,
bone by bone. He lies scattered, naked, cold,
and I feel a stab of guilt as I hold
the fragments of his hand. Loathe to label

and plastic bag him, instead I lean close,
stroke his forehead as if brushing back hair,
graze the eye socket and caress the bare,
jagged cavity of his once-wide nose.

His skull is cool beneath my warm fingers.
How poetic, how personal, to touch
another in this way. This is so much
more intimate than sex. A tear lingers

on my cheek at the thought of his brave death,
in the dark of the cave. But at least now
he’s not alone. I gently kiss his brow.
Perhaps we will meet after my last breath.

It starts with an unseen shift,
a something in the earth’s molten heart turning,
churning crimson, bloody, dark.
And then the howling of the dogs,
the hiss and crackle of water in the well,
yellow punch of sulphur on the tongue
giving you the prophecy of pain.
Whilst all the time beneath your step
layers of ancient rock, tectonic plate, buckle in the shock wave,
tremble your flesh to stillness,
for you cannot see it coming, nor do you know
which way to run, where to hide till the slow storm passes,
if it passes,
and your body no longer a temple or rich familiar sanctuary
but a lesser mineral not worthy of the trusting.
Still the power of it drives you;
glass shatters, the fragile light bulb sways, rocking wild shadows
across the floor’s new-born instability,
stone and brick tremble, scattering red and brown dust into shimmering air.
It chokes you, filling your throat and lungs with the secret touch of soil
until every breath burns fear and longing into pale flesh.
Now the land itself groans, splitting stone from stone, great chasms
opening like mouths into the hidden hell of earth,
Acheron, Phlegethon, Styx,
The river to the splintered depths roars in your ears now
speaking strangeness, words that twist your heart, tempting you to plunge
into its rainbow darkness. You cannot outrun it;
it will swallow you, drag you to where a part
you cannot bear to look on longs to tread
and you know, so sure it’s like rock on rock, a tsunami of truth
crushing your blood to water, that soon, one day,
what’s left unsaid will be the words you say.

Shortlisted
Entries shortlisted to final judging stage in the Open Poetry competition were: Rhymed Poetry Category: Dennis E Bryant, North Baddesley, Southampton; Roger Dunn, Burton-upon-Trent; Averil Farrar, Denby Dale, Huddersfield; David Griffiths, Long Whatton, Loughborough; Peter Horsfield, Bitterne, Southampton; Gerry McCullough, Conlig, Newtownards, Co Down; Don Nixon, Albrighton, Wolverhampton; Robert Scott, Belfast; Evelyn Stoddart, Chelmsford; Sheila S Thompson, Sunninghill, Berkshire; Wendy Webb, Taverham, Norwich. Unrhymed Poetry Category: Averil Farrar, Denby Dale, Huddersfield; Pam Gidney, Andover; Sarah Jane Goss, Leeds; Wendy Holborow, Corfu, Greece; Kaye Lee, Muswell Hill, London; Angus Livingstone, Largs, Ayrshire; Doreen McPherson, Ipswich; Jo Meredith, Gloucester; Jackie Mitchell, Laleham, Middlesex; Molly Sadler, Hastings, New Zealand; Rosemary Thody, Weasenham All Saints, King’s Lynn.