https://buzzwordspoetry.blogspot.com/p/buzzwords-open-poetry-competition-2026.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawT4S9hwZG9mAWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGM&m=1
I am delighted to have been commended in the Buzzwords open poetry competition with this poem:
Master of Female Half-Lengths
I’ve got my eye
on the three musical ladies
by an unknown Dutch artist
of the sixteenth century,
but I don’t know where it will go.
Not above the chest of drawers
which serve as a mantlepiece
for your oval mirror
with a chip in the glass
hangs there. Not next to
the table where the three
Bronte sisters used to hang,
the obvious place
had not Shirley’s butterfly painting
replaced it. Nor above
the settee where the pink snake
with a purple bird in its mouth,
designed by you but
embroidered by your mother
has settled. Above my bed
there’s your gift to your in-laws,
a picture of flowers.
Why do I want it, you might say.
It’s one of my earliest memories
of Cedar Lodge, where it hung
above the counter
not opposite, as it did
when you moved
to Queen Anne’s Drive.
It’s the second time I have been successful in this competition when Penelope Shuttle has judged it. I was especially pleased to have been commended as I realised after sending the poem that I had made an error in a detail in the attached picture.
