2008 SWUF Poetry Competition

During September and October 2008, SWUF held a poetry competition on the theme of ‘Healing and Recovery’.

We are pleased to announce the winners and highly commended entries and to bring you the poems in full below.

We have also developed a leaflet which you can view here. This will be sent to all GPs surgeries within South Warwickshire for display in waiting rooms.

First place: From Black to Grey to White
By Shelley Groves

Highly Commended: Duel with Depression
By Cathy Whittaker

Shattered Glass
By Jonathan Ratcliffe

Other Commended poems: Feelings from Nowhere
By Pat Bidmead

New Beginning
By David Clinton

Laptop
By Stephen Peat

Win, Win, Win
By Dominic Mulgrew


The Overall Winner

From Black to Grey to White

The colours inside my brain
Are changing
From Black to Grey to White
It’s alright –
I no longer fear the light
Breaking through my unwashed window
Or the hollow in the bed
The stark reminder
Of the numbest days
Spent in a paralysed haze
The colours inside my brain are changing
From Black to Grey to White

Shelley Groves

Highly Commended

Duel with Depression
By Cathy Whittaker

DUEL WITH DEPRESSION

I have to tame him.

I have to allow him
to lazily breathe
through my lungs.

I have to follow him,
across fields of bone
into red-eyed night.

I have to name him
so he becomes small
as a fledgling.

I have to believe
spring will come
and he won’t eat my life.

I have to be patient
when stone-hours
fall on my eyes.

I have to know
he will leave and will not
come again for a while.

I have to choose
to live through fire
and survive burns.

I have to write him,
nail him in sentences
chain him with words,

tame him.


CATHY WHITTAKER

Highly Commended

Shattered Glass
By Jonathan Ratcliffe

Shattered Glass

Shattered glass, shattered life
High mood will you be my wife
Trudging roads that seem to lead
To years in which I will be freed

From shackles fastened to the mind
Nulling my vision, making blind
The inner eye of mind’s perception
Freeing constraints of connection

Moods, which would seem to me to be
A mental lock without a key
Bruise my brain year after year
In cacophony of hope and fear

Riotous feelings, intense fears
And mood swings blent with bitter tears
I have not cried because I feel
Beyond it, when will I be healed?

Feelings of ecstatic fear
Confuse the mind when youth’s dry tears
Bleed bloodless, blood but not blood.
Staining these words, red salty flood.

Christ, my saviour, come and save
Me from this wasteland that you gave
To that, that, by sorely testing me
I in heaven as well could be

I long to find the hidden rose
Of Mary, whom I sense and froze
In ecstasy that did not last
I long for days like this that passed

Memory torments me in my leisure
With images of former pleasures
But I can never sense again
Those glories that with madness came

The illness is a complex maze
Which threatens to make me lose my way
But rituals are born with which I cope
With thoughts that almost make me choke

Mentally, though tired with the ceaseless task
Of resisting thoughts like splintered glass
My fractured mind seems made of steel
Its liberation is my appeal

Jonathan Ratcliffe

Other Commended Poems

Feelings from Nowhere
By Pat Bidmead

FEELINGS FROM NOWHERE

Doubt sits at the bottom of the stairs,
A spark from the latest rejection flares
To ignite any remaining confidence.
But still no one comes
And all that is left is silence
Without insight
Sleep that should bring pain relief
Also has teeth that bite,
As eyeball to eyeball nightmares scream
Till fear crawls out of the screen
And into a daylight dream,
From your mind delete thoughts of flight
Back into the inky night,
Wake and shake off fear and misery,
Let your hand meet mine
Grasp it tight and come with me,
For I have been this way before
Passing through pain
To find life again.

Pat Bidmead


Commended

New Beginning
By David Clinton

New Beginning

Each day there’s a new beginning or though it could
Have started last night each and every moment is like
Like too bright
Every new beginning is like you winning
Or maybe just
Grinning that’s alright.
Each moment is now before and onward
And every moment is a miracle
Where do you put it?
All
Forward March

David Clinton


Laptop
By Stephen Peat

LAPTOP
The brains a telescopic wonder
Its boundaries ranging beyond the stars
Nature’s computer of immense proportions
That downloads what we are
But if your hard drive has a breakdown
Its keyboard stuck by misery
Unable to find the connection for happiness
You loose a server of normality

Dysfunction often gives no warning
Thoughts twisted inside the tower
Short-circuiting every nerve ending
You crash inside each mindless hour
It makes the brightness of your screen fade
While you stare into darkest indigo blue
Sounds turn into whispers that wakes your log of
As the mouse on the mat starts biting you

Once I entered this inside outside inside world
Depression E-mailing Fear in virtual realities land
Overloading mobility drugs created virus monsters
Cancelled living on planet earths broadband
Then St Michael’s skill reached an understanding
Updating systems from yesterdays cure
Switching the modem inside my head to function
Password Christmas miracle retuned on line once more
S H Peat 08


Win, Win, Win
By Dominic Mulgrew

Win, Win, Win

I have got my body armour
A charmer
Going to stop being a self harmer
I am going to start eating
This illness I will start beating
Mix with people
Pleasant and greetfull
Leaps and bounds
Health found
Success in your story
You have turned out adoringly
Was you like this before
Tremendous keep it up more
More

Dominic Muldrew