3rd Prize: £50.00 - Nick Sargeant, Grantham, Lincs
THE CURRENT
I am,
hair in shape by my landlady’s comb,
a lodger.
I join the pigeons
for bread
in a playground.
By day,
I am a boring clown
as the children whirl,
my face
an aching sack on a maypole
in the dervish.
Might my heart
prolapse
from my bumhole? Have
one hundred optimum eyes lull
on the lollop
in my trousers?
: ‘el mayor bien es pequeno’
I try,
‘the greatest good is small.’
……………………………
By night,
facing the unimportant wall,
I sit
and reel up false fish
to lay on paper
And pick at my moustache
as though for lice.
and at the quiet end,
sat up deplumed in my chair,
I look
a sorry hen
on a clutch of bed eggs:
Thousands, my shrinking father says,
Thousands
on his education.