I won a competition. Yes, I did. My fingers
drew a poetic Fall, all red and gold decay.
I know the debt I owe – Keats’ ode still lingers –
but my creation was, in its own way,
worth fifty quid.
Chaotic interlinkage. Velcro hooks of words,
confusing as a froth of wasps stuck in a honey pot.
Some end up barbed wire bundles, spikily absurd,
or limp on, split and wounded. I’d be the first to spot
my writing sucks.
Yet sometimes words escape, their goal the blooded page,
and go home, battle-weary, on figurative legs;
they mesh like lovers meeting, no griping war to wage,
and fit like Lego bricks or halves of Easter eggs,
a greater whole.
Yorkshirewoman Louise Wilford is an English teacher and examiner. She has had around 50 poems and short stories published in magazines including Popshot, Pushing Out The Boat and Agenda, and has won or been shortlisted for several competitions. She is currently writing a children’s fantasy novel.
William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has published three critical studies and several collections of poetry. His work has appeared in many journals. He has taught writing and literature at Emerson, Goddard, Boston University, and Keene State College. His new poetry collection is A Black River, A Dark Fall.
Robert Pelgrift practiced law in New York City for many years and is now an editor for a legal publisher, working in New York City. His poems have been published in various anthologies and in The Lyric, The Rotary Dial, The Galway Review, The Foxglove Journal and The Waggle.
Foxglove Journal 