Poetry winner - Mervyn Peake Awards 2011

Ali Finlayson won the poetry category of the 2011 Mervyn Peake Awards, with his poem 'The Unstrung Violin'.

The Unstrung Violin

I've never known a bow-stroke, deft on tight-stretched string,
A sound exquisite, which is dreamt by those who'd have me sing.
It coaxes from the marriage of my timber curves and air
The tunes that tempt the dancer from the safety of the chair.

That chair will not relinquish its touch on silk-clad thighs
Unless, with strings, a violin sings, unfolding legs with sighs.
The stockinged skin, desire within, is yearning, keen to prance,
But hears no tune, though tiny hairs stand up and itch to dance.

Her dancing partner, and desire, await across the floor,
He struts and preens, his back to her, his face towards the door.
If only she were carried by a melody on strings
Her partner, too, might hover then, on music-gifted wings,

She'd prowl to him, and her soft feet they would no longer feel
The ground which then she'd need no more beneath her dancing heel.
They'd touch, they'd merge, no longer urge to whirl apart again,
Their feet would pay their dancing dues, their hearts have paid with pain.

I'm in that pain, for long ago, and once upon a time
I was to be a lover's gift, from him to her, sublime;
Though passion burned, his love was spurned, the chance was fled, of heaven
Was love, and dancing, gone for good - the gift, half-made, un-given?

Well, down the years one-sided tears have failed to dull the sting
Of weary, waiting, living lies – they've danced not; I don't sing.
The chair's still there, it longs to share with whirling throngs once more
Its occupant, and partner, too, no longer shown the door.

I can't undo for them what's done, but still wait in the wings,
With patient prayers to tune soothsayers, to gift me my first strings,
Who knows, if I could play for them, then this time it might be.....
With love I'm welcomed, not just offered, and their dance, from pain, is free.

By Ali Finlayson

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