Proms Poetry Competition: Ian McMillan, Jackie Kay

Inspired by Steve Reich - Vermont Counterpoint

We’re in the half-built house

in Vermont – me and the man

I nearly marry, but don’t – unroofed, holes

where windows will fit. In sleeping bags

on untreated boards, night falls and fireflies

arrive – a quickstep, a certainty, a flute added to

flute they synchronise. This was the dreamtime,

the simple time, that time between schooldays

and real life. Do you remember such a time

of firsts? We were living hand to mouth –

dollars counted into palms,

money soft as moth-wings.

In those days we went looking

for what we didn’t know was there.

Our reward: fireflies without borders –

un-tame, a coming-together-last-minute plan.

We watch them sandpaper the sky, they jerk for joy,

they jagger, god’s own migraine. In lightning-tongue

they sing to us Forget your sad cities of light, we are

our own ferris wheels. Now the roof must be on,

the forest cleared for lawn, each patio slab

a square of extinguished light. Anytime I want

I can catch them there, fireflies in a jar –

a torch-full of past, banging at the sides of this glass.

Inspired by Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture

a breath, and the notes fall on dark water,
hesitant at first, but then sailing, like pale

adjacent bodies rising on the blue hips of a
young girl. I think of this girl’s heart, hollowed

by the hands of that man, careful as they carve it
to a canoe pushed out on to this ocean. Quavers

like geese follow as it skims, blemishing the
stillness for only a second, bending the air, a

perfect house made out of water. Somehow you never
think anything can hold you this tight by the ribs and

still breathe. In my mind I think of the couple, spools of
song pulsing beneath their boat, stellate and wet

against eyelids as it makes tracks like stains on my
skin, a journey with an end best left unsaid. I think of

that tiny fistful of love, of blood feuds, of that
girl running in from blue coldness, only to meet

her crescendo, accelerando,
fine.

Inspired by Paul Dukas’ ballet La Peri - Poeme Danse

After an age one bird does cry out above this place

one in a rush passing over the aftertaste

is a pull of breeze through summer branches

and me I’m sat in the ribcage of this gutted

roasted whale of a god house sat on the side

where the bones are shattered

where all I can see of piety is a celtic cross

a crying face where charcoal fragments

ash and scorches have been air-brushed

the altar chapels and tracery windows

have taken on wildflowers here is air

and shadow patterns spaces for the unexpected

aerobatics of swallows

hate far off burned

another church a creator noticed

saw the black char as emblematic

ripe for hanging from puppet wires ripe

for hanging like an explosion held

at the midpoint of its moment devoid

of sound and weight dark light that beacons

beckons one to spear a thought

Inspired by Ralph Vaughan Williams - The Lark Ascending

I know this piece. I can recite each beat;

Time signatures I grasp but, even so,

These accidentals took so long to know,

And I have learned each triplet, each repeat.

I've practised long, would not admit defeat;

It does not matter that I will not shine;

The boring hours are gone, this piece is mine;

My fingers numb, my knowledge is complete.

This hall is silent now, and every eye

Is on the baton raised. Pause. Begin,

And deftly, quietly, launch this small bird's flight;

The melody surrounds me, fills my sky;

The lark ascends, the gentle sun pours in;

Discard the page: the day is filled with light.

Inspired by Mark Simpson - Israfel

She is dying,

She can feel it, quick and sudden and far too loud,

She is running –

Run, little girl, run –

Faster, faster, faster,

Skeleton soaring, bones come to life.

Her heart is pounding –

Run, little girl, run –

Death is chasing you,

Death is catching you.

She can’t slow down, never slower –

Run, little girl, run –

I am here, I will help you,

Just don’t stop moving.

A twig cracks beneath her –

Run, little girl, run –

She is looking behind and death’s

Red eyes are gleaming.

She is tired, throat is closing –

Run, little girl, run –

You will be clean, I will wash

My hands in your blood.

She is close, closer, quickly –

Keep running, little girl, keep running –

You are here; you have escaped.

Inspired by David Bowie - Ashes to Ashes

I stumble through Tokyo alleys,

With the sound of mid-life karaoke humming

In the narcotic night nitrogen,

Sinking into effervescent coma

Induced by Japanese Geishas in neon bliss,

Prosecco pouring from my earholes,

As ascension elixirs enters my saturnine veins,

And emerald halos cycle the crows

While they pick on tie-wearing carrion;

I shake with pre-meditated self-grief,

Glass teardrops pirouetting at my transparent sides,

The Dawn shattering through my Bakelite eyelids;

Falling to my knees, I, unravelled and extinguished,

Drift off to inner space writhing

And whispering. ‘Mother, I’m sorry.’