A bit of preamble here: This was my entry for the National Poetry Competition 2009. Obviously I didn’t win anything, otherwise I wouldn’t be allowed to share this here. But the competitions loss is someone’s gain…or something else equally consolatory :) Anyway, here it is – I hope you find it enjoyable in some way. I quite enjoyed writing somethign a little bit different.
—
It was gloaming when I woke.
Scattered about the lawn were the beaten night-owls,
trading places with the prey which, triumphant,
hid among the garage creeper.
Dense leaves betrayed the presence of the mice,
but only by its stillness in two-tone light.
The rodents rejoiced,
and it was the falling feathers I spied next.
Some caught among clothes I’d neglected to collect,
and the washing line was taut,
where before I’d left it limp.
The clever imps.
Jumper-wrestling was suggested
by quill-pierced wool.
And so the plot unfolded.
Bleary-eyed, I viewed
splinters of the owly coats
Still falling through garden air.
Yet must I despair,
or just think these events slightly curious?
Certainly, without backing,
such visions might be spurious.
And as my ears found no inkling of sound through glass panes,
What I was seeing had no support.
…In spite of the washing line
which I hadn’t left taut.
Unsure of action
I lay back down, thinking of owls.
Tripped and fallen in tawny gowns.
But proof arrived, of rodents who contrived,
when the day came.
As through those self-same windows I glanced,
and noticed, hidden among the plants,
Not the now disappeared night-owls.
But the half-camouflaged foxes, come for them.
Pierced upon spiked trowels.
