Tiny Weeny Competition Winners

Winner

 ‘Open Day’ by Robert Warrington

I treat every day as a letter bomb
I open it slowly and only after I’ve cut the wires

Runner-up

 ‘The Swan’ by Catherine Edmunds

Commeded:

Wrinkles

by Rosie Breese

 

The land is creased in barrows;
years and years squinting at the sun.

‘Bowl of Fruit’

by Stuart Phillips

  

Entry 3

by Belinda Rimmer

 

Beneath your arm

is an empty space

 

full

 

of sound

 

Standing

against your frame

which sighs

 

with the weight of the forest,

 

I feel

 

as small as a button.

 

‘Plum Blossom’

by Catherine Edmunds

 

Gort Limerick

by Peter Goulding

 

There once was a poet from Gort,

Who left all his limericks short.

He never could end

The four lines that he penned.

 

 

In the empty stripclub

by Emilie Zoey Baker

 

In the empty stripclub

she unhooks her bra

anyway.

 ‘Dales Meadow’

by Catherine Edmunds

 

Stones

by Ray Morgan

Stones are lost buttons
Torn from the shirt of the world
In sudden passion

 

Open Day

by Robert Warrington

I treat every day as a letter bomb

I open it slowly and only after I’ve cut the wires

 

Forest Path

by Catherine Edmunds

 

 

Last One to Leave

by Robert Warrington

 

Would the last one to leave

please turn off

the orchids

 

 

Hailstorm

by Robert Warrington

Leaves are old

bits of bandage

brown with dried blood

 

The sky opens like an old wound

and delivers a carpet

of smashed teeth

 

 

Untitled

by Liz Martinez

 

I walk through Newbury, Sunday morning. Church bells strike: ‘9am: Costa Is Now Open!’ Sister Virginia brings a book to read in the queue.

 

 

Cutting Loose

by Anne Elder

 

I held your hand so tightly that when we were forced to take separate paths you ripped my arm right off and used it to wave goodbye to me. 

 

Plum Blossom

 

Hulme

by Michael D Conley

Underthesign
Thatreads
M NCH ST R
C TY F PEACE
Astreetlampsbluishblush
Reveals
Apairof
Batteredtrainers
Oneblacklace
Dangling
Fromthemouth
Of

a

stray

dog.

 

 

On Art (and Loneliness)

by Lamorna Elmer

 

I leaf through

a backlog of stills—

 

the stone-faced cottage

that seems to frown;

 

the solitary child,

head in hand,

drawing it.

 

 

Scorpion

by Graham Smith

 

I didn’t move for the scorpion

and it didn’t move for me

so I read my book

and it climbed my foot

and we both let it be

let it be.

 

‘Hidden Dreams’ by Michelle Pattenden - drawing coming as soon as I get the scanner to work

 

After the apocalypse

by Graham Smith

 

When they’re sure we’re gone,

Deer will explore the M1;

Running north in lanes.

 

Winter

by Kris Erin Anderson

 

 

Fog creeps up the Tyne

and softens the city as

crows land on bare earth.

 

 

Forgetting the Pain

by Michelle Pattenden

 

Grandad sighs, ‘My memory is getting so bad. I just can’t remember the future like I used to be able to’. We laugh and he forgets his pain.

 

 

 

Untitled

by Sarah Fitt

 

You lied for months

and when given the chance for truth

still ran

with deceitfully flowering tongue –

as a small boy,

behind his mother’s skirts.

 

 

The Beginning of Something

by Beatrice Murphy

 

Over burnt lasagne, he confessed adultery.