Competition Update

The deadline for the Voices Poetry Competition has now passed. Thank you very much to everyone who has decided to share their poetry with us. We really appreciate your kindness and support.

Please do not worry if your poem has not yet appeared on the Voices Blog. All poems that we have received prior to the deadline, will be considered for the competition.

There was a very large volume of entries during September and we shall continue to display poetry on the blog.

The shortlisting and moderation process will now begin and we shall post another update towards the end of the month.

Thank you again for your interest in the competition.

Dancing Queen – Elizabeth Train-Brown

the world is a stage and the speakers are on

It is very special to celebrate the life someone special through the medium of poetry, and Elizabeth Train-Brown remembers her Nana, who ‘spent her century-long life dancing and teaching others’, in a magical way. We are very proud to present ‘Dancing Queen’ in the blog. Having had experience working with cancer charities, she was very keen to support this project. Elizabeth followed her parents into a life of performance, becoming the ‘fire breathing Phoenix on stage’ and has also pursued a career in writing. Find out more about Elizabeth at: Dancing on the Knife Point. Thanks again Elizabeth for sharing your exceptional poetry.

Dancing Queen

(for Violet)

Her legs are stiff with age; it’s been so long since she danced,

Twirled and chartered the floor, chanced

Each night with a new man on her arm

Now, she’s stuck in a chair, blanket warm

Over her knees and the sky went dark hours ago.

She’s been dreaming with her eyes open, you know,

Gazing at the wall with a smile on her face as music drifts

Through the air and partners fly around her like swifts

In the sky. There’s a band in the corner, playing louder and louder:

Sax and bass and drums and voices shower

The dancefloor in streams of light, bathe the room in

Tangible ribbons of sheet music. Her lips part to sing

And somewhere, in another life, her voice echoes

Through the room and not a soul dare go

When their ears catch those fluttering notes.

Here, the air circles with lazy dust motes

But there, the world is a stage and the speakers are on:

I’m here! She cries into the mic. Did you think I was gone?

Their whoops and cheers carry her like stretchers

Through the crowd, each brush of skin electric with embers

Of song and dance and excitement in her veins again.

She’s dancing the foxtrot through torrents of champagne,

The waltz, the jive, the rumba, the salsa,

The tango, the jitterbug, the cha cha cha—

Her legs are alive after an age of rest,

Awake and electrified and the best

You will ever see from all around. She’s whirling and spinning

Across the dancefloor as if she never stopped; she’s finally winning.

They’ll cry, she knows, in that other life

Damp on their cheeks, hearts of strife.

But one or two will smile, spare a grateful thought

That up there above, heaven has a dance floor.

Elizabeth Train-Brown

Did you enjoy this poem? Why not visit Maggie’s website at: Maggie’s Centre Nottingham to find out more about their exceptional work and/or make a donation.

Do you have a poem you would like to submit to Voices? Feel free to do so by email at: voicespoetry@outlook.com or via the ‘Contact’ page on this site.

The Decimation – Xavier Coughlan

under the guise of playing saviours

We are extremely grateful for the talented Xavier Coughlan’s offering to Voices, and we appreciate his support. Xavier is a student who often chooses to address the theme of mental health within his poetry. Eloquent, profound and thought-provoking, we are very fortunate that he has decided to share ‘The Decimation’. Thank you Xavier.

The Decimation

Berkshire. A high-security psychiatric hospital designed by architect Joshua Jebb to accommodate Britain’s most elusive and intuitive.

An assembly of ten,

unburdened by morals,

gathered one fierce night

to float suggestions

of a solution –

to fabricate subtleties

in catastrophe

and solve

what makes you man.

–

These mighty ten

had been convened

by fate and a sectioning law,

and together round a table,

crafted by Joseph’s son himself,

the group disputed your future.

–

The Richest clanged

for an annihilation;

the demolition of a continent

blessed not by wealth,

but by culture,

and all the economics

heritage entails,

under the guise

of playing saviours.

–

One proposed a decimation

and advocated it by tying a noose

and swaying from the hands of

Our strongest

and jiggling to the pain of their

blood-crossed hands.

–

We were subdued by two thoughts

in watching him dangle:

admiration for not being formulaic

in not using the flush of lighting;

and the eulogizing of his manifesto

in watching its flair unfold.

–

He was right.

That night, we shared his Lithium,

grinding the pills

into equal amounts –

complying with the cadaver.

Decimation was the future.

The decision had been made.

They bid farewell and set off

to tackle the execution.

Pax vobiscum

Xavier Coughlan, Pewsey, Wiltshire

Did you enjoy this poem? Why not visit Maggie’s website at: Maggie’s Centre Nottingham to find out more about their exceptional work and/or make a donation.

Do you have a poem you would like to submit to Voices? Feel free to do so by email at: voicespoetry@outlook.com or via the ‘Contact’ page on this site.

Nothing Is Ever Still – Emma Loftus

The old me is in here somewhere

The relentless pace of modern life takes its toll, and we are sure you will relate to Emma Loftus’s fantastic contribution. Despite being a busy wife and mother, Emma loves painting and gardening. She is also an avid reader with a deep appreciation of literature. We are very thankful that Emma has decided to share her poetry with us and enter the competition.

Nothing is Ever Still

Nothing is ever still
The exhausting whirl of my inner panic stifles and isolates me
The old me is in here somewhere, somewhere
but I don’t miss me.
The important people are still here is that the problem?
some days I can fake it till I make it, some days, some days.
Other days are just other days.

Emma Loftus, Birmingham

Did you enjoy this poem? Why not visit Maggie’s website at: Maggie’s Centre Nottingham to find out more about their exceptional work and/or make a donation.

Do you have a poem you would like to submit to Voices? Feel free to do so by email at: voicespoetry@outlook.com or via the ‘Contact’ page on this site.

Global Warming – Allan Thomas

the air around us has changed

We are sure you will appreciate this very thoughtful, thought-provoking and topical poem from Allan Thomas about climate change. Allan is a physicist who hails from Teeside, and very kindly decided to enter our competition. Thank you for taking the time to pen this poem Allan which reminds us all of the urgency to respect the environment.

Global Warming

Fifty years ago we thought that that fossil
Fuel was a finite resource which would run out.
That which burns never returns.

Since then improved technology has helped
And enabled us to extend founts of energy !
North Sea oil etc seemed to be an answer.

We now know that gases from coal, gas
And oil have a detrimental affect on the atmosphere
Unfortunately the air around has changed in a profound way!

Greenhouse gases Methane and CO2
Are the villains of the piece and adding more
And more adds more to the flame of global warming.

Recent research points to a maximum tolerable rise
Of 1.5 deg C .More than this will produce catastrophic changes !
Yet this does little to engender a collective response !

Allan Thomas, Teeside

Did you enjoy this poem? Why not visit Maggie’s website at: Maggie’s Centre Nottingham to find out more about their exceptional work and/or make a donation.

Do you have a poem you would like to submit to Voices? Feel free to do so by email at: voicespoetry@outlook.com or via the ‘Contact’ page on this site.

Purple Flowers Bloom – Darran Cosgrove

I offer a hand that should be strong

Thank you to Darran Cosgrove for his moving offering to the Voices Poetry Blog and competition. The sight of flowers conjure up a myriad of emotions for us all: loss, romance, grief, happiness, hope… Darran is a student currently residing in Bathgate who ‘enjoys writing whenever he can, mostly on the train or when essays are overdue.’ We are sure you will appreciate his excellent work.

Purple Flowers Bloom

Purple flowers bloom, their sight is succor to our forgotten,

Who’ve aged years before their time, stricken fast by cruel chance.

They battle the body, showing spirit beyond ken.

What drives them I cannot know.

Fear or family, faith?

My own fate is simply to watch. I offer a hand that should be strong,

It shakes with the shame I fear I show.

In their eyes I see resolve, a burning vigor no disease can slow.

They break the grip and stand steady,

They’ll bring me to the garden when I’m ready.

Darran Cosgrove, 21, Bathgate

Did you enjoy this poem? Why not visit Maggie’s website at: Maggie’s Centre Nottingham to find out more about their exceptional work and/or make a donation.

Do you have a poem you would like to submit to Voices? Feel free to do so by email at: voicespoetry@outlook.com or via the ‘Contact’ page on this site.

Skaters – Max Scratchmann

Your spirit glides like a skater

Skaters

a fictional life of the poet, Charlotte Mew

Sometimes life’s most fleeting moments leave the largest impact. Vivid and haunting – Max Scratchmann’s offering entitled ‘Skaters’ conjures up a variety of potent and mysterious images. Max is based in Edinburgh and is a highly regarded writer, poet and illustrator who also runs the performance group Poetry Circus. Find out more about Max at his website: www.scratchmann.co.uk. Thank you for your kind contribution to ‘Voices’.

Shhhh!
Cobwebs spangled with pearls greet
the approaching dawn.

In a lonely room a television still
bleats and flickers,
While in the night air that is neither
dark nor morning
Your spirit glides like a skater
on the frozen Thames,
Glimpsed in the red glow of
a chestnut vendor’s coals
And then like some fairy thing,
gone. Gone.

Max Scratchmann, Edinburgh

Did you enjoy this poem? Why not visit Maggie’s website at: Maggie’s Centre Nottingham to find out more about their exceptional work and/or make a donation.

Do you have a poem you would like to submit to Voices? Feel free to do so by email at: voicespoetry@outlook.com or via the ‘Contact’ page on this site.