Poetry Competition Winners
First prize | Fintan O’Higgins for The Oyster and the Pint
The Oyster and the Pint
A pretty young oyster heaved a sigh
and addressed a pint of Guinness,
“How can we bivalves express ourselves
when our glory is cloistered within us”?
“Don’t talk to me now” said her neighbour
“I glisten and sparkle and flash,
but my brightness is swift as the wink of a fish
or the whim of a moth burned to ash”.
They liaised with the lava, consulted with night,
sent questionnaires to the blue.
One strove for vigour and depth to his light
and one for her light to shine through.
But there came no answer and wearily
the pint shook his creamy head,
but they spotted a poet sat down by a tree
“Let’s ask him!” the oyster said.
The poet mulled over the question,
he rumpled his brow like a duvet,
and his tongue lolled around with a slockety sound
like a gastronome slurping a cuvée.
“Your spark’s superficial and your glow lacks charm”
said the poet “because you confine them.
But your powers may bloom like a rose on a tomb
if you just have the faith to combine them”.
“But how can we meet” blushed the oyster
“when his glass and my shell come between us?”
So to aid what beset them the poet just ate them
(Like the Walrus – Odobenus odobenus).
The poet retired for siesta
while his friends settled in their new home,
and when they were fully digested
he woke up and wrote down a poem.
The poem was bright as the wink of a fish
but solid as Parian stone,
and it glittered with trickings and sparkled with wit
yet inly burned deep and alone.
And he thought of his friends with affection
offered thanks with a belch and a grin,
and went home with the sheen of the pint on his face
and the glow of the oyster within.
The Guinness is sought by the thirsty man
The pearl is sought by the rich
The hungry man wants the oyster’s flesh
But the poet wants his itch.
Second prize | Judith Flynn for Musings from Ballylongford (An Oyster’s Thoughts)
Musings from Ballylongford
(An Oyster’s Thoughts)
I’m the pride of Irish oysters
Of the mollusc fam-i-ly~
A fancied aphrodisiac
From the bottom of the sea.
As a wee spat my life began
With about five million siblings,
Sans head, sans eyes, sans ears, sans nose,
No arguing or quibblings.
We were farmed in shallow waters
Where we lived in an oyster bed,
Feeling extremely important
Because we were specially bred.
We knew our kin the Persian Gulf
And far Pacific Ocean,
Made wondrous pearls, precious jewels,
They’d fill one with emotion.
But we are A-One-Quality
Attractively laid out
Plump and shiny morsels
To go with some Guinness stout.
The posters say 10th Anniversary
A decade they celebrate
Of our flavour and fabled freshness
We Irish oyster are great!
Third prize | Victor Sheahan for Pucks and Pills
Pucks and Pills
As a Kerryman I offer my sympathy and do not snigger
At our unfortunate neighbours who have lost their manly vigour
Too much culture has killed their primal passion
Now buried by a swell of sophistication and fashion
They mass-produce Viagra to allow them compete
With the proud pucks of Kerry who have no need to cheat.
Now selling the surplus has brought great prosperity
And mansions were funded through erectile difficulty
But money alone won’t salvage lost pride
And this chemical reliance reflects poorly on Leeside
They need to rediscover the natural source
For restoring a man’s vital force.
So to de boys from de Banks I offer this advice
To be like the Kerrymen they must make a choice
Take the pure juice of Barley, the Guinness I mean
And ignore imitations, lay off the drisheen
Down some oysters and Guinness, that creamy black stout
And de girls won’t be faking, they’ll have reason to shout!
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