We had nine poems submitted in response to the photograph above by Ariba Ahmed, and after the anonymous reader vote all author’s names have been added and I am delighted to announce that the winning poem is Delicate Spring Flower by Anita Pinto. Many thanks and congratulations to Anita and to all the poets who bravely submitted poems this week. This was a difficult subject, sensitively handled by all the poets who entered. In second place was Shay Crinkle’s poem Son of Atropos.
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Please read the poems below and choose the one you like best. The authors names will be added after voting is complete. Just vote for one poem and please don’t vote for your own, it won’t be counted.
Votes to be in by Saturday 22nd February 10am please.
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Poem 1
A Child Under The Stars
You cannot hear me scream
you cannot read my thoughts
everything is falling, falling
The moon is wailing
as the camera snaps
the silence in my heart
Eileen Carney Hulme
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Poem 2
Delicate spring flower
Petals trembling
In morning dew
Waiting for the noonday sun
To warm its heart
Help it grow.
Suddenly
An ugly black caterpillar
Climbs the stem
Eats its leaves
Destroys the petals
One by one
Taking over its soul.
O help us God
Bring back
The Paradise
That once was ours.
Anita Pinto
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Poem 3 – removed at poet’s request
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Poem 4
Guns
“Mine’s bigger than yours,” Davey said
When we played in the field with our wood
And plastic guns. His was a gorgeous thing;
Polished to a shine, the barrel glinting
In the sun with promise. Accuracy and poise
In the game where you had to play dead
Till you could rejoin when someone said
Or tend a wound as long as, hurt, you turned aside,
Counted to a hundred, took no one’s side.
In Africa, in killing fields a country wide
Boys and girls can’t turn aside
From real guns; gorgeous, shining,
Polished to death and promising
In the game the Lord’s Resistance Army
Makes them play. No one to tend a wound;
Dead behind the eyes. Accuracy and poise?
The difference between us and these girls and boys
The size and cost of their toys.
Michael Docker
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Poem 5
Son of Atropos
The boy still soils himself
At night
Trained to applaud violence
By day
Now
His beautiful eyes sparkle
As they seek out fleecy animals
Regardless of what
They may be stuffed with
Hands
Fragile and small
Building strength
To grip and control
A spoon? A fork?
Perhaps one day
A pencil
But
Already
He has the potential
To pull a lever
A trigger
Of a metallic death stick
The length of his body
Its power disguised by its
Size
With fresh soil
Comes the Gardener’s true
Art
To plant in the human skull
The seeds of ‘duty’
The bulbs of ‘delirium’
Watered by blood
Fed by the light of seduction
A Sauceror’s concoction
To create a sprout
Fresh and vigorous
Enthusiasm and vitality
Bursting at the seems
With a heart
Blackened and polished
By the blood thirsty
Mouth of its
Creator
With no option
But to thrive
To strive
To survive
And to end
The lives
Of others
And only
Through true contribution
He will fulfil his purpose
Lead them to their final fate
Continue the tradition
To poison
And reduce Earth’s population.
Shay Crinkle
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Poem 6
Sweet little boy, holds on to his toy,
his little heart bursting with joy
All the grown ups look on and smile
at the lovely little boy who in a short while
will be older and bolder in the blink of an eye
perhaps..
with gun holder on shoulder..
preparing to die.
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Poem 7
——-to live by the gun…
a poet once wrote:
“the gun that killed Hitler
was a beautiful gun.”
This is my gun,
THE GUN
that killed our dictator.
ADHD, Damp and Tourette
we had it all.
DAD was a military man,
a believer:
LOYALTY to royalty
know your DUTY,
your place.
PUNISHMENT is love,
ART a perversion.
This is a crime scene
with MY instrument
of LIBERATION.
PS
We take care of our own,
so our brother killed
his wife and kids too.
Reg Fallah
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Poem 8
The Birthday Present
On his first birthday, not only did he take,
His first steps, he also received his first rifle.
The other kids envious, watched how
He torn the wrapped silver and blue paper.
One little girl ran over to pick up the discarded paper
Excited by its metallic colour, couldn’t see anything
Interesting in the rifle.
His mother remarks, ‘look how he puts the top
Of the rifle in his mouth and watch’, she points
With a trembling hand so dirty, with eaten finger nails
Giggling she turns to the other rebel fighters
‘His face, he doesn’t like the taste’?
Through the course of the birthday party
She marvelled, how he tripped over the rifle
Told him not to be a big baby when he cried
She had cooked a special tea after all.
Her superior son had saved them, born at the right time.
Johanna Boal
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Poem 9
They were not the ones
They were not the ones
Who ordered the trees to be silent
Who gagged the spring birds
They stand in the glow of the rising sun
Worrying about what will happen
Anna Mickiewicz
