The Academi Cardiff International Poetry Competition

Nigel Bird

Wet Weekend

You’ve got a face like a wet weekend
A bus’s back-end, Buster Keaton’s best friend
The Moaner Lisa, a soggy pizza,
No way on Earth to ever please ya’
Like tripe was served for dinner and tea
Like the mush escaped from the mushy peas
Could sink a few thousand ships I’d say
Send the single swallow the other way
Seven colours short of making a rainbow
A luminous thing that just won’t glow
A violin played with a cheese-wire bow
The bitter part of bitter lemon
You’ve died and been sent back from heaven
Someone’s read your secret diary
You’ve won, and there’s a steward’s enquiry
A cat who’s found the sour cream
Awoken from some hideous dream
About to face the dentist’s drill
Can’t afford the latest bills
Medusa got out the wrong side of bed
Like a bird’s just crapped upon your head
Aimed for the stars, hit the barn roof instead
Seen a ghost, got no post
Lost the one you love the most
The butter between the floor and the toast
Dragged through a hedge the wrong way round
Found a penny, mislaid a pound
Fit to scare the Baskerville hounds.
I’d like to make you smile, in fact
I want to put you back on track,
But I can’t, you see, it just might crack
Wherever it came from, you should take it back. 

Nigel Bird is a Special Educational Needs teacher at the Speech and Language Resource at Donaldson’s College, Edinburgh. He is the co-editor and producer of the magazine ’The Rue Bella’, which has been publishing collections of poetry and short stories from new writing talent since 1998.