Lucy Vickery

Dark thoughts | 28 August 2014

issue 30 August 2014

In Competition No. 2862 you were invited to submit a poetic preview of when the lights go out.

Submissions were impressively varied this week, and kept me thoroughly entertained. Honourable mentions go to Katie Mallett, who had Betjeman in mind (‘Fetch out the candles, Norman…’), and to Sylvia Fairley, who was in double-dactylic mood: ‘Jittery-tickery/ Grid electricity/ won’t last for ever, you’d/ better beware…’

The winners, printed below, are rewarded with £25 each. Alan Millard takes £30.
 

And will the lights fade one by one,
Fade one by one,
As each man’s dwindling day is done
And dark descends,
A world where every waning light
Brings others, waxing, into sight
To burn until, in turn, the night
Their daylight ends?
 
Or will the darkness come about,
Ay, come about,
When every light at once goes out
And all is gone,
No time for penitence or prayer,
A sudden end with all wiped bare
And not the faintest glimmer where
The sun once shone?
Alan Millard
 
Where are you going to, horrid humanity?
God’s in his heaven and man is in hell.



















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