Highly-Commended, 2019 Robert Burns Poetry Competition - Published Poets section

This is what I yearn for

Be it so much trouble

So much time

So much money

So much what if I die and haven’t left a will

So much who gets the house

And will they fight

What I yearn for is pie mash and liquor

With sawdust on the floor

Same recipe from ages

Memories of a cold face

Smallest in the cubicle

Dad warming my feet

With his cup of tea

I drank from the saucer

Pilgrimage

From Harold Hill

Home of Mum’s lot this market

Dad’s mob’s over by the river

And the trains, always chadung chadung, chadung chadung

And arches

And fruit piled high

And same faces

Generations yelling from the stalls

Different now

Upset Uncle Albert

Speaker at his school

Isle of Dogs

Not one white face

And Auntie Ethel

Tucking in my vest

And fur clad Auntie Doll

She had my ticket

Little Cow she said

Twinkle in her eye

Gold lamé dress and no knickers

Living by the sea

Cousins and brothers

Sisters and friends

Bricks and roads

Trees and weather

Light and sounds

These I crave

And know it’s the last

For I know

Seventy two hours flying

Takes a toll

On my sixty year old flesh

And here my home

More home than there

My paradise on earth

Without everlasting life

Whaka oho rahi Broad Bay

Sated till the plan to go

Touch of earth

Of my birth

My England oh my England

My trains chadung chadung

My Mum’s grave

One over from Dick Turpin

And the Krays

Dads’ plot disappeared

Green-lawns in Surrey

My sister’s in Holseworthy

Never yet seen

My Helen

And pie and mash

And Sarparella

With Paris and Venice

Thrown in

Big bash for the olds

Last fling

Last trip

No more

I yearn to go

And know

This is my last time home