Winners 2006 : Runner-up

Charlotte Geater, Westbourne High School

The Tower

The rope that ran the pulleys left them breathless
and roughened their palms. Some held hands under snow
watched steam rising from their mouths, their tongues,

children stood at the bottom and watched the workers
hauling stone after brick after wood ever upwards.
Couples observed the sky, thought it closer somehow.

When the lightning started they were dreaming
of a fog-free heaven. Stormbolts shook the roof;
started scorching blue flickers onto piles of slate.

Now the rain was vicious, undiscriminating. They woke to it
smudged in their eyes, streaming down their tanned arms;
looked into the sky and saw nothing else.

They remembered using words
but when anyone tried to speak they heard slashes of thunder,
the rumble of falling stone.

 

Other Winners 2006...