The challenge for week 6 was to write a poem in response to this intriguing black and white image by Steve Aukett. Thanks Steve!
Please vote for your favourite by e-mail. You can join in too if your poem is included here but please don’t vote for your own as it won’t be counted. Votes to be in by Tuesday 3rd December please (10pm) Results will be announced on Wednesday 4th.
This is the final batch for voting from this forest phase of the challenge. We’ll resume with a brand new photograph on Saturday December 28th.
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Poem 1
A grey coat
In a grey coat, leaning on a bench, collecting dispersed thoughts,
Nietzsche was terrifying once, with remote grandeur.
Power overcomes weakness.
Now it is just a Dionysian fairy tale on the glowing screen.
A silhouette darkened by fog will leave a mark in the flame of memory.
Power overcome by weakness.
Anna Maria Mickiewicz
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Poem 2
Snapshot of a droplet
Snapshot of a droplet
Close up of a flea
Don’t know what you’ve got yet
It could ‘ave been you but it was always me
Kneel down and shoot
Money shot and keep the loot
Filthy and tired
Passion gone feel wired
Flash spent
Face down on the damp floor
Don’t know were the time went
Three bloody hours more
Could a’ sent David or Julie
But it ended up bein’ yours truly
Face down on the wet floor
Wonderin’ what I came for
William Jones
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Poem 3
The sixth sense
Objects surround us, but for memories
the eye defines objects.
Complexed by triggered senses like touch
and even the movement of air for the ear.
Yet amongst us exist the unsensed,
the unseen and unheard,
untouchable nano-particulates.
Almost invisible
to all but semiconductors and silicon,
recording the world in digital detail.
Celebrate the electronic eye,
our sixth sense.
Michael Summers
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Poem 4
Taking a Photo of Hell with a Digital Camera
With all this computer technology
Kneeling closely at this frozen puddle,
Between the cracks, the jagged ice,
Ice-covered leaves and crystallised soil.
The sophistication of my camera
Will take a picture of the underworld
The busiest of my camera, zooming,
Adjusting of the light, clicking, snapping away.
Hundreds on my USB stick, all downloaded
On the iPad, mobile phone, laptop and TV.
The Goole searching for the add-ins;
A pitch-fork glows against the fire,
Lost souls travelling in despair,
The Devil seeps in fury against the backdrop
Of ice and leaf.
Johanna Boal
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Poem 5
As Time Goes By
He’ll be waiting for me
Beside the Roman coin collection.
Is he feeling as nervous as I am,
clenching and unclenching
my hand on my shoulder bag?
So many years have passed.
Have the people we once were
been changed beyond recognition
by marriage, divorce, health?
Am I being daft?
There’s still time
to turn back, act my age.
Then I see him,
scanning the crowds for me.
And I know we’ll be
in bed all weekend.
Di Coffey
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Poem 6
Scale or Focus
The universe becomes a planet
The planet becomes a nation
The nation becomes a city
And the city a street and then a building on the street.
The warehouse at the end of the road contains the photographer
Lying on his side focusing on the still drop of water on the cold damp floor
He is watching the swirl of the oil film,silver,blue and green.
Trying to capture the fragility and stillness of the moment.
From this angle he can see the curve of the water and the slender layer
sliding on it’s surface.
Then the snapshot becomes a slideshow
The slideshow becomes a movie
The movie becomes a life
And the life becomes eternal.
Andy Scotson
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Poem 7
Looking glass
Bubbled air
let loose on a window pain
a mirrored splash of a split second
an ornate semblance
depicting a shadow of an unknown artist
a sculpture of a white marble hand
doubled sideways
a hidden strap in fingers waiting to play
a sonata near a moon in a black sky
a thumb upturned
insinuating a perfect surface and the intricate
light a gift.
Audrey Arden Jones
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Poem 8
Smoke and Mirrors
Fingers shell around a camera,
lips set, intense, the man who hopes to catch
the image that his eyes have seen.
A mirror image in a solid plane
reflecting back, cold, hard-edged
like frozen water leaned upon.
What second does he hope to trap
at speed of shutter light? What replica?
Does he even know that he is subject,
a pawn in chess; at any moment
game upstaked to Russian roulette,
one shot the echo chamber to his heart?
Angela Platt
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Poem 9
Covert: One Last Photograph
Now the horizon
feels as if it’s slipping.
Now reflection
feels more real than me.
Yes, you say you’re leaving
and yes, I will forget your face,
I know I will forget your voice
so, I focus on horizon
shoot into reflection
listen to the soft, soft click
no one knows this.
Chaucer Cameron
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Poem 10
Reflecting
Uncle wore a suit
on Sundays
more to please my aunt
who tired of scrubbing
his colliery clothes
He was a quiet man
and after mass
would walk across
the rich fields
that narrowed to the river
Swapping his piece box
for a camera
his miner’s hands
captured wild flowers
in shades of grey.
Eileen Carney Hulme
