This poem recently won the Stella Whitelaw Ruby Writers Award, August 2006Fragilityby Hugh O'Donnell (29/07/2006)
Apoplectic buzz
against a perspex lie
I empathise with your struggle,
your inaudible cries,
little butterfly.
(Now, what is this growing gloom -
this darkness
at noon, now tangible
and to which you cling?)
A fleshy cave
divines a route to safety,
seance-like, delicate
airborne porcupine. And to an open
sky you are presented,
encouraged on by a gentle
pout.
Drunkenly,
you lift into the foul-
fresh ether, tortoiseshell
kaliedoscope, under a growling
orb, high above the choking
brine.
Night-time.
Our course funnels
an artificial galactic outer-edge
that paves
the Northern 'sphere.
