1.
NORMAN NICHOLSON
Clouded Hills
Though you can’t see them,
You know that they are there.
Beneath the Herdwick fleece of mist,
You can feel the heave of the hill.
You can sense the tremor of old vulcanoes,
Tense with damped-down fire.
Under a white meringue of cumulus,
Or behind the grey rain-break of a winter’s day,
You are aware of the pikes straining high above you,
Spiking up to an unseen sky.
2.
BRIAN BILSTON
Love Poem, written in hast
(with Autocorrect left on)
O brave new worm that has you in it,
my Darjeeling, my one true love –
you make the Starbucks twinkle
and shine down from the Sky Sports above.
For your beautician is like no other –
how it sets my heart on fir!
You stir up my emoticons.
You fill me with dessert.
To gazebo upon your lovely Facebook,
your petty mouse I’d love to kiss,
your Bluetooth eyes like limpet pools –
it makes me feel such blisters.
Love is in the airing cupboard,
it’s all a roundabout, it’s everywhere –
so be Minecraft tonight, my angle,
just say the Wordle and I’ll be there.
Brian Blige Pump
3.
PAMELA GILLILAN
The Dogs
In a country that had been terrorised
and overrun, the carnage suddenly stopped.
People crept from hiding, incredulous, cautious,
and began to walk in the streets.
But always on the far pavement, like dreamcreatures,
stood the moonfaced large dogs of that land.
They had been given no shelter, but their fierce eyes
and flowing pelts had saved some of them
from death and cold. Their flanks were taut,
remembering the gunbutt, the shone boots.
They would never again approach an offered hand
or come to a man’s heel.