THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.

Night chimed and bells rung,

As the knuckles of a knightly crusader crushed it into smithereens.

Heaven grasped becoming disfigured and unsettling.

Her heavenly charm and hellish smile beguiled the mad-man.

Made madness a want and monstrosity a need.

For, though she felt in love she had chosen death.

Heaven adored her cataclysmic presence and harpers were all so stiffen,

Clouds soaring, swinging amidst the beauty, turned their heads to a sight.

Of a Wondrous, deleterious and murderous being.

Bleak, delicate and fragile she made herself seem, with

daggers in her bosom hidden and paranoia in her lap, lurking.

Posterity could have witnessed a fall or seen her prosper.

For she had found love and chosen death.

Had she been a master of her mind, as she engenders the perfect crime.

To be a humming and, as such suck the flower dry,

Indeed, she did! Erroneously all was venom.

Hence, today the flower blooms, she does not.

Like an enchantress she moved making thousands her martyr,

Made wild by her demonstrative chanting, her spell!

Fertile and insidious, lapidary and filibustering her explanations.

Yes, yes! She was another Helen of Heaven.