The Wigtown Poetry Competition

Third Prize £500

Odysseus and the Sou’Wester - Jen Hadfield

Odysseus and the Sou’Wester

I caught and oxtered it like a rugby ball,
a bloated bell of beating leather,
and for weeks I nannied the bloody thing –
on my lap, mending sails,
in a papoose, to climb the rigging.
When the boys got steamed on Aeolian wine
I cuddled my squirming supper of winds,
let no-one spell me for an hour’s sleep.
From Aeolous to Malea was a waking dream.
Fat kingcups wobbled like boxing gloves.
With open eyes, I dreamt of home.
I clicked my heels in the blinking squill,
pillowed my skull on my second head,
and the boys said
            oompa-pa
        oompa-pa
                             Rockabye baby!
as I dandled us home
on the sweet vesper gale.

*

Now the low brown island strains on tiptoes,
and fences are strung with trembling streamers,
and the sea’s mad as milk.

And my cheeks are scored with milky tears.
And like a puffball breaks the bag of winds.

And there’s the Sou-Wester,
a rising loaf of shuffled feathers,
struggling from the haversack
like a furious swan.

Jen Hadfield

Copyright
The copyright of each poem remains with the author. The authors of the winning poems grant the Wigtown Book Town Company the right to use the poems in publicity material for one year from 3rd April 2006, and the Sunday Herald the right to publish them for one year from 3rd April 2006.

In association with the Scottish Poetry Library
and the Sunday Herald