Erotic ironwork
curvy
flirtatous
black and lacy pleasure
peer through
the Victorian peephole
into a lost era
savour its saucy angles
its hard, horizontal lure
then act on impulse,
follow it out of town

Shelley McAlister I like Kevin's unusual view of the black ironwork of the pier and the many angles he has included inside the peephole.

Published in Sailing Under False Colours,
Arrowhead Press 2004.

Her Brighstone lad, newly wed, rolls over -
eyes turned to the window, ear tuned
like a cockle-shell to the shift of sea that flips him
from her warm pillow faster than a merman
reaching for an oar.

Walking the storm-worried child
candled in night, round and round, steps regular
as lighthosue beams she hears the scouring shingle,
fears the hurl of dead sailors against her Brighstone man.

Down sunken lanes, or primrose paths on windy days
when the woman sees the spring of teal from reed beds
by the creek, or whistling wigeon over Bleak Down
she knows the child feels the boom of surf;  she waits
for the day the maroon, louder than the screaming
gulls, will call him, like his father, to the sea.

Pat Murgatroyd

West Wight Class second prize
Island Voices competition 2010

On Hill Street Adaline Dallimore woke with a sore throat
was dragged off to morning service
where a sneeze of infection caught on the wind

droplets of death settling on the Harveys in the front pews
and over Bluey Charlo and Sabra Gentle in the rows behind
Virulent toxins ripped through the workmens cottages

on Albert Street -convenient for the cemetery
and along Spencer Road to the lower end of Union Street
where Walter Egerton, heavy with bull’s neck

kept selling his fruit and veg. Sarah Godfrey innocently
carried sick cells to the two teachers at the Catholic school
and to her fellow pupils the Fitzgibbons and the Toniolis

The brand new school at Oakfield
came to a close for lack of well children
and mourning colours prevailed at the School of Art

Ma Gardner had seen it in winters past, set up a croup tent
for Baby Eli and Mary the scullery maid. Kept nursing them
til the end, when her own windpipe jammed

The baby would have wailed but his voice box seized up
He mouthed silently in the cot where, for as long as she could
Mary rocked him with one limp hand

Shelley McAlister

Published in Winning and Commended Poems
The 2010 Hippocrates Prize

Who called this Down, Bleak?
What eye berated
these grey green undulating fields,
the dips and falls of country sweeping out?
Trail the Yar river springing
near the parish church in Niton.
Pass farms like Lavender, Eastview,
Appleford and Bridge
and see not bleak but bountiful.
Not the dark overhang of Bagwich Lane,
but bright gold God-given gorse and
blue sky. And at night,
not interrupting town light,
but stars.

Felicity Fair Thompson

Island 2000 winner

Flowers on the wire, high over ripples of glass,
all movement slurred, hushed : a ponderous ferry,
pulled on invisible ropes towards shore, casts
a slim line of wash to touch banked pebbles;
sun slides below massed towers of cloud,
spotlights a dedication, ‘I’ll miss you, always,
wherever you are’. Above the sweep of downs
light dies, too slow to measure, forsaking day.

Storm winds will flare unbidden, rip farewell lines,
snatch flowers away. By the slithering cliff no witness
to a life, a death. Just sucked-in breath each time
footsteps pause near the wire, an echo of distress,
just seagulls swerving on the gusts, floating free,
lost souls daring the air, flouting the sea.

Camilla Lambert

published in The Interpreter's House October 2009

Time thickens.  Rain.
Layers spread.
I am the shadow underneath.
Land tilled, cock crows, larks rise.
Brading cows
hoof home and home again,
their milky breath rising over fields
their dung flopping
on centuries of worked earth.

Time spreads.  Rain.
Layers thicken.
New generations climb
the Down, blackberrying late.
love juice on lips.  Braided hair.
Bridge back two thousand summers.
My eye gathered purple grapes from vine,
trailed silver Yar, followed tidal beach,
saw Venus hurl her morning star.

Time thickens.  Rain.
Layers spread.
Dust settles.
Deep as ocean whale, my siren song,
echoes in another sphere,
mirrors memories in future genes.
The foundations of Rome
leak up in coins, small cracks of cups,
a legion rise of grails. New finds pull you down.

I can hear you digging.

Felicity Fair Thompson

Winner Roman Voices competition 2009

We return as we always said we would.
White foxglove path climbs through sweet honeysuckle,
slips out onto open hill.
The stone stands still; another summer breathes around it;
sea gazer, sky searcher, earth dweller.
We stand and let the stone absorb our fingerprints.
Timeless, shadowy travellers
lay gifts of flowers on creviced flanks.
Horses keep watch, while rabbits scatter in the dusk.
We leave the ache of a nightingale's song.
A fine dog fox gives us good night.

Shore Women Group Poem