Whispering Wisdom Autumn 2025 Poetry Contest Winners

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First Prize

Ghosting, 1929 by Elizabeth Robinson

No one calls it that. He simply stopped
writing — maybe the ink ran out, or there was a shortage
of stamps.

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The train left, a raft of steam and noise, an arm waved,
a hat was raised, and he was gone. There was only
birdsong, and a promise of return: soon, my dearest.

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The days hummed like trapped bees;
the postman came and went, but shook his head.
Each day rose, then night collapsed into my darkened hearth.

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My heart turned static, hope turned stale;
the calendar coughed up days, then weeks:
each page a thinner ghost
that I still chase, ink trembling in my pen.

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Second Prize

On giving away your Bicycle by Nuala O Farrell 

 

Spiders weave intricate webs in your once-silver spokes. Their unique designs glimmer and shimmer in the evening light; the R.H.A of arthropod delight. I hesitate to destroy such artistic endeavour. It gives me no pleasure to clean the dusty mudguards with my rubber gloves, my garden hose, my grey basin of soapy suds. I wipe the limp impotent black tyres, shine the rotating wheels, spin the memories of the years, suppress the tyranny of tears. I turn your thin skeleton upside down. Your racing gyrations cleave the vanishing air like revolving spirits yearning to return. I wash the faecal dirt from your black sticky chain and squirt some oily lubricant on your desiccated train. I turn you over with a bump. I leave till last the warm flesh of the curved handlebars, the soft leather of the saddle, moulded as it was to the shape of your muscular thighs. I can see the teasing laughter in your eyes. I pump up the bicycle with determined aggression. It is time for a different love expression. It is time for a live Gazan to pedal towards our improbable, perpetual, and very particular, Heaven.  

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Third Prize

A Life in Search of Poise by Kate Saunders

There you are

On the farm

Seven years old

Between first light and the next.

A dust mote hanging in sunlight

f       l       o       a       t       i       n       g

in beautiful strangeness.

A slip of early sun on the back of your head.

Later comes the rain

Slugs and beloved caterpillars arrive

gorgeously oozy and gloopy to the banquet of  green.

Butterfly eggs on nettle leaves, tiny pearls waiting for life.

Standing in a field of corn you raise your head

As you always will towards the lifting light.

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​Special Mention Poems (alphabetical order)

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Divine Embrace by Anne Walsh Donnelly

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On a rainy afternoon in an island cottage,

I light a turf fire. The sky sends sheets

of drizzle across the hills, rushes seek shelter

behind stone walls, sheep bleat in a nearby field.

I sink into the armchair by the hearth,

inhaling the smell of burning peat, close my eyes

and let the Divine embrace me.

What a peculiar thing it is –to allow a disembodied

love drape its pure wool shawl over your shoulders.

A love without skin, that might not be there at all.

 

 

 

Dorothy by Peter Finch

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On some other occasion, my Dad said to me,

‘Once you start to care for something, in the end it means pain.’

Did that stop him from holding you, three generations apart,

the softness of your perfect face against the long and twisted fingers

of his gently shaking hands?

 

There was love there already in his watery eyes,

as he looked into the camera,

a helpless, plummeting, abandonment to love.

This new life that ultimately sprang from him,

his children and his children's children.

There was no resistance, no holding back.

At that moment you were everything he had.

 

The last words he spoke to us as we left for the last time,

'Give my love to Dorothy.'

 

 

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Inheritance by Nigeen Dara

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My mother says I get my patience from her,
though neither of us has ever waited quietly.

 

She tells me to keep the receipts for everything,
love, especially, since it’s bound to fade or shrink.

 

We don’t hug much. We share weather reports instead:
how the rain’s coming in sideways again,
how the wind took down the neighbour’s fence
but spared the garden gnome.

 

It’s our way of saying we’re fine.
That nothing’s fallen beyond repair.

When I visit, she packs leftovers in containers
so mismatched they could start a religion.
Every offering, a sermon: Take this, it’s still good.

 

 

Paper Boats by Penny Sharman

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On this occasion no words were needed.

 

The couple sat on the shoreline

listening to waves, a steady rhythm

becoming a lull in the brain.

 

Crabs, a silent scuttle, dolphins far out

of reach, as she pulled out two squares

of paper, folded again

 

and again, pressed each line meticulously

like angel wings into a small boat, then

another, a complete replica,

 

each fold, each crease holding love tight.

Their simple act of eyes meeting,

a palmer’s kiss, then the boats set adrift

onto water, a prayer sailing the unknown.

 

 

 

Rings by Jo Tilley

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An oak grows slowly, its rings
Widening over time, over
Seasons
Damp and drought
Expand contract

 

A soul grows slowly, heart rings
Widen over time, over
Seasons
Love and loss
Expand contract

 

One day my rings will be
Seen, counted
And you will be there, your
Indelible mark
Around my heart

 

 

 

The Dip by Madeleine Deacon

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There’s a dip in my bed from where I used to sleep alone,

right in the middle,

limbs in a star.

 

I used to say I liked my space,

slept better alone.

 

But I don’t.

 

Now we roll towards each other, drawn into the dip,

meet in the middle,

limbs in a braid.

 

You always say we should get a new mattress,

fix the dip.

 

But we don’t.

 

 

 

You root in me                           by Eithne Lannon

   

though where, I don't know,  

nor which tendrils that touch my inner skin  

 

are yours, are mine. Your coiled buds    

are my tongue, your leaf-veins    

 

my fingers, you travel through my hands   

like a map of lost things.    

 

In you I move as dark earth moves,   

through the island of my soul,     

    

your eyes rise in me, reach    

the deep blue of my body, your light  

 

and your shadow are my song.  

I laugh and bend with you like grass ripples,  

 

your mouth is my wound,    

is my prayer. 

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JULY 2025 WINNERS

First Prize:

Arboreal - by Bex Hainsworth

It was my first time taking the bus to school
and the 662 was late. Half-carried into the aisle,
I was a squat shrub, crowded by a canopy
of strangers. My sapling arms reached up
for the swinging vines of the grab handles,
but I stumbled as the bus rounded a corner.
Sunlight was swallowed by anoraks, blazers.
And then I felt the elderly woman beside me
shift the soft branch of her arm around my waist.
The sequins on her mossy cardigan shimmered,
both of us undergrowth, but her roots were deep
in the floor, her walking stick like a tree stake.
She anchored us, bud and trunk. It was the safety
I’ve been searching for, all my life.

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Second Prize:

Softening the stone - by Maggie Davison

I practise the phrases of love:
je t’aime, I love you, ich liebe dich.
They glance off a stone, shimmer

in the dawn-light.

                            And then you come
and flood my soul with a language 
I’ve not heard before. I drown like a rock, 
can’t hear the sounds I knew.
                                              

 Now I pick 
them up: aime, liebe, love. They crackle, slip
away in the half-light, verbs that have lost
their object, words that weep with the stone.

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Third Prize:

Perfect Day - by Diana Sanders

I heard it yesterday, the first time
in a long while. For a moment
I was back in Maple Street with next door
singing along really loud to Lou Reed’s
Perfect Day over and over, a bridge
to the past —I can smell Caribbean samosas
from the shop down the road, see
flashing lights from the Goose Fair,
and you taking the stairs two at a time
with your bass guitar. And there
in my room was a transfer of light
from windows to walls, from your eyes
to mine as we spoke our first words
in a lifetime of conversation.

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SPECIAL CATEGORY - FYLDE POETS

First Prize:

Daddy's Girl  - by Eleanor Broaders

Blue eyes twinkling like fairy lights
Under the bosun’s cap.
‘Did I give ye a fright?
Come here child, you’ll be grand.’

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Hands big as shovels
Drew me up the tall
Mast of him and sat me
On the spar of his elbow.

 

I felt the flutter of his heart
Against the taunt sail of his shirt,
And the scrape of his bristled chin
As it tacked across my cheek.

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And I was grand.

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SPECIAL MENTIONS GO TO THE FOLLOWING POEMS (alphabetical order):

Accretion - by Tim Taylor
It has adhered to me,
this carapace of driftwood
picked up as I wandered through the world;
things that piqued my curiosity
or merely stuck as I passed by.
It has no plan or structure,
a tumbleweed of people, objects, places
and yet, as it has formed itself on me
I too have grown to fit my jagged shell
till I have come to learn
that I can live no other life
than this conglomerate
of stories stumbled on
while on a search for something else.

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CHANGE OF PLACE- to my mother - by Jacky Ramage
You...Mopped tears and fears
         Mended insecurities
         Encouraged a future
         Exclaimed at success
         Bought the best party dresses
         Taxied ubiquitous
         Welcomed quivering suitor
         Wept at the wedding.

 

I ... Pull cot sides up; bedjacket down
      Fuss over the dose-box
      Spoon in monotone mush
      Sit through “Carousel” – again
      Remind you gently it’s Sunday
      Grieve at a one-roomed life
      Keep your specs as a memory.

 

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Crossing paths - by Ted Gooda
A stroll just before dusk finds a stag beetle stuck
on its hard shell back. Mighty horse-pincher
gallops furious legs, the going soft. Late May,
days only since the oak ox chafed away from years
of larvae-life burrowing in decayed wood. And now this.
I suppress my shudder at dark, scuttling things, curb
Tiggywinkle instinct to sweep it off the track with the broom
of my foot. Instead, reach down to right the creature,
flip it over and set it on its way. It rears up on hind legs
in salute, I think at first, then see it’s poised for attack.
Absurd down there on the asphalt path, little thunder,
ready to take me on with inch-long antlers. I can’t help
but admire its pluck. I step back from pincers, laugh
that I sought thanks from an insect; forget
that bitumen stole his woodland, made it human.

 

 

Dogs Who Have Left The Building - by Tony Peyser
Whenever a dog dies, his name
Can still be used to summon
Memories he created but open
A door and he’ll never come in.

These names, damn it, find a way
To simply become archival
And never result in the beloved
Canine’s immediate arrival.

I say my new dog’s name, she comes
So happy she seems enchanted:
This simple call and response is now
Not something I take for granted.

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Im Abendrot (At Sunset) - by Peter Devonald
In morning shadows of vibrant light she emerges,
a baby, a daughter, giggling and laughing, playing,
half-visible features elongate eloquently, a toddler,
chuckling, playing peek-a-boo, there but not there,
here but not here, child grows up so fast, stretches
into a teenager, shy now, holds many secrets within,
feels such angst, just morning obscurities flickering,
a lady, a lover, a Mother now, holds her mewing baby,
who giggles and laughs, Mother grins, deep lines criss-
cross her forehead, sadness, struggles, survival, another
love, a joyful Grandmother now, back aches and arches,
turns against her, a blur of last bright light caught in
sunset silhouettes, all roles, characters, fleeting, fading,
over horizons in bright morning light, emerges a baby.

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In the Space Between Heritage and Heart - by Melanie Jenibert
Through my ancestors came our colours, designs, and food,
The rules, the weight of expectation that varies—
A girl? A boy? A lady? A man?
Connected by blood—but am I?

I wear their gold, their coverings, speak my mother’s tongue,
But I follow a Western life, think in a stranger’s tongue—
Of what is ‘fun,’ what is ‘proper’ for a girl.
I am your kin, but do I follow your steps,

Or follow my heart?

Have I broken the connection with my desires,
Or is it still there, in blood and history?

So many questions. So many blurry lines. So many unwanted standards and
rules.
Like a cell, these thoughts trap me—
Are they truly mine, or echoes of those around me?
I am still their kin, through the differences. But am I?

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Mothering Line - by Macey Lynch

In the twilight of my room
I reach out to touch the glass face
Of my mother staring back at me.
My women-hood finds itself at home,
Transgressing into the form of her creator.
The same reflection of time
Has cupped her face,
Has gently stroked the grey into her hair,
Condensed the stories onto her skin,
To comfort her in the knowledge,
That our passage was always predictable.
This my mother is familiar with.
For she too has touched the glass face of her mother.

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OFF THE A350 ROAD - by C.P. Nield
The geometric universe reels
beside the motorway –

this Lammas night,
a measure on the harvest sway

of ears, a murmured song,
a lullaby from spheres

of leaf-green light,
breathes circles, petals, stars,

makes rough bristles
collapse suddenly as one,

and, while the lorries pass,
the pattern’s spun.

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