Poems for Hackney lovers on Valentine’s Day

Following our recent Valentine’s poetry competition, we present the winning poem, Cusp, by Eley Williams, and a selection of the best entries. The winner receives a bottle of Le Mesnil Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru champagne, sponsored by Aleksic & Mortimer, wine merchants.

Cusp

Going, as footprints must on damp February pavements;
Stepping over a calligraphy of train-tracks in the mist, steaming.
Fleeting
Through the sky, the sleeting; sweet thing,
He took apart a rose in order to describe it.
He opened a door, as I might open an orange into its segments,
And he spoke of your name into the late winter.
To turn back inside, I find my house
To be all latches, and the tiebacks of curtains.

By Eley Williams, winner of the competition, who receives a bottle of Le Mesnil Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru champagne, sponsored by Aleksic & Mortimer.

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Dusty Paintings of Lovers on Valentine’s Day

I’ll take a day to celebrate my dreams
Carried through centuries on the songs of poets
Twisted through the actions of a stupid desperate race
I’ll take a day to wish I’d been honest
To wish I’d torn the icons and idols from the temple

I’ll take a day to share my heart with you
Focussing, of course, upon myself
On how you make me feel
On how I make me feel when you do what I would ask of you
Paint your face like my childish fantasies

I’ll take a day to gorge on sensation
Love is mute, like the moments after orgasm
The freedom to silence, the evocation of death
When I am most absent from my thoughts
When my thoughts are gone away

A weak illusion made to scare my fears
A ghostly mirage to which we cling
Urgently willed into being
All the feelings of love have different names at different times
Indulging my hungry self in you

By Rob Hill

—

First Encounter

She stood there, motionless, the world turning on her axis,
His breath deep and distant, with serenity abound,
Doubt, What if she turns away, casts him away,
She smiles, face lit up with rendered beauty,
His heart pounding, her smile, it was always her smile,
The smile that makes me remember, love.

By Duncan Todd

—

Lovers colliding in space

A god in the void, bored and bored and endlessly bored of it all
Thick stale loneliness of self
Fevered terror dreams, sour sticky skin
Bedclothes sweet with endless nights of desperate sweat
Haunted by an image, taunted by imaginary form, a cruel joke by a  bitter hungry heart
Angel-headed demons, icons upon desecrated sheets
Profane incantations of lust for a ghost
Comes a shape through the mirage, unclear
Comes a voice in the mind, look what  I made for you
The goddess dances out of the deep deep void, unbelieved
To be stripped violently
Clothes torn by a half-blind god consumed in delirious frenzy
Forced by rough hands into ill-fitting  dress
Twisted into awkward shapes
And made to dance, made to dance, till her body sweats
Her heart pounds, her ears burst with the noise, the urgent crash of drums
I’ll be your god, you be my god, never seeing each other. I’ll be goddess in       your eyes
You get confused, I’ll lie to comfort you
A god and a goddess who never existed anyway
And two broken humans refusing to admit to blindness

By Rob Hill

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