The Winner of the Poetry Competition 2021

1st Prize

Anne Lawson

Sunstruck

I see you are checking whether
Vincent was accurate. My bonnet – this
tangle of tossing bracts – crowns
my glory, my dazzling mane: kissed
by Helios, it coronas the burnt
umber of my face
like a solar eclipse:
wild, untamed.

Yet all Fibonacci saw
was order: Leonardo by name (how apt), he
discovered the magic sequence,
his Golden Ratio – another gilded coincidence? –
in the depths of my face. Fathom
and fancy that! Vincent did and sparked
his Midas touch: first in Paris
(I was Helianthus prostratus there, no fields
en plein air in the 9th arrondissement); then
to Arles,
clumped in a jug, a profuse
jumble of heads tumbling
this way
                            and that,
        a riot of
unsequenced
                    disorder.

So composed.

Picture
the paradox; I am
Still Life.

Please excuse me if I turn as
you ask your questions: I have
the sun to catch.

 

Anne Lawson lives ‘up north’ and loves hilly landscapes and rugged language dotted with humour. The successful fledging of her youngest son has allowed more time for research and writing, with fewer feelings of guilt. She is a founder member of Phoenix Writers, Horwich, and has won a few prizes sparingly sprinkled over several years for flash fiction, short stories and humorous poetry. She is currently working on her first novel and enjoying the thrill of being in talks with her great-great grandmother’s family and a nineteenth century murderer.