SWANSEA AND DISTRICT WRITERS' CIRCLE  
JUNE COMPETITION, 2026
JUDGE: PETER THABIT JONES

 

Poems 

First: Seagulls – by Nick Pallot
Second: The Blower – by Alana Beth Davies
Third: Gwalia’s Path – by Mike Everley 

SEAGULLS
(For my granddaughter)

In the park today we learn
a new word: seagull.
You lean back, looking skywards,
as I push your swing,
and above us,
with a tilt of fully extended wings,
with a subtle adjustment of primary feathers,
seagulls hold themselves steady
in a stiff sea-breeze,
and I marvel, on the coldest day this winter,
fingers white already,
how impervious gulls seem
to the icy currents they so glacially ride.

I reflect how nerve-endings, evolved
as bodyguards, as an early-warning system,
can torture in equal measure,
can break a will with intolerable pain.

On the back-swing,
as you climb towards the gulls,
you hang a moment in mid-air,
motionless,
before, reclaimed by gravity,
you swoop down then up again
to the opposite apogee.
I tell you they’re looking down on you,
just as you look up at them
suspended as if a mobile
floating above a cot.

Cold soon curtails the playground,
fingers numb by now.
I may have taught you a new word,
but still can’t share with you
my ineffectual discomfort
as we head for warmth,
mothers and children mostly at this hour,
a few grandparents like me.
I can’t explain how gulls
remind me of drones,
cold-blooded detectors of easy pickings,
how they’d leave behind craters
where now there are swings,
how they’d demolish the flats, the houses,
that we’re dispersing to,
targeting the infrastructure
that services them, its utilities, its transport,
the receptors, the nerve-endings,
of any community,
the aim of whose prolonged torture
would be to close life down,
to break our will,
had some tyrant held the magnet of his rage,
of his violent cartography,
to the mind
of a whole people, casting us
as their enemy,
folk just teaching children to be happy,
and above all, by example, to be kind.

(c) 2026 Nick Pallot

THE BLOWER

When I was small I’d sometimes wake
Before the sun,
When the room was dark and the sky pale steel,
And the chill was all around me still.

And I’d heave that greatcoat off me,
With its heaviness and its heat,
And I’d shiver my stockinged feet into slippers -
Or shoes, if it wasn’t New Year.

While siblings slept, I’d creep downstairs,
Counting, silent, listening for creaks -
Round the bend and into the hall,
Where the wind would whisper through a cracked pane.

And the room would be shadowed and stony,
Curtains drawn against the light -
A mist of fear in a room I knew well,
Unfamiliar and eerie in its quiet.

Then I’d see my mother, kneeling
Amongst the clinkers, head down, hands raw;
Humming, cheerful, clearing out and laying fresh,
First paper, then sticks, small coal, then lumps.

A match struck, and she’d blow, so gently, under the layers,
Till a glimmer, a spark, and more ...
She’d place the paper in front - a broadsheet was best -
Held by a suction of air.

The blower she would call it.
Some people had them made of steel, with a handle on the front.
But not us. The News of the World would do.
And she’d sit back on her heels and wait.

Then such a roar would go up that chimney!
She’d watch till she knew the fire had caught.
Then away with the paper, browning at the edges,
Scorching at the centre, its work done.

(c) 2026 Alana Beth Davies


Gwalia's Path

I walked the straight path
beside the Gwalia to the lake
as a small child in Tywyn.

I recall the clumps of rushes
and the squelch of marsh
beneath muddy shoes.

Green and brown hills
hung with white mist
breasted the skyline.

In the distance Cader Idris
rose in splendid anger
jagged against the sky.

The cries of water birds,
lapwings and skylarks
pierced the blue stillness.

This was our territory
to be explored on foot
or, if lucky, on tricycles.

Our exposed brown knees
bearing yesterday's scars
as badges of honour.

The path is still waiting
one day I will return
to walk with arthritic legs.

To feel again sun's warmth
as I step slowly towards
a second childhood.

(c) 2026 Mike Everley

Stories 

First: Childhood History – by Paula Montez
Second: This Knee – Simone Mansell-Broome
Third: Becker’s Children – by Mike Everley 

Childhood History

“Now then class, for today's history lesson we have Mrs. Jones to recount her memories. We’ve all read the textbook, but Mrs. Jones lived through it. Over to you Mrs. Jones, and thanks for coming today.”

“Good morning all. Although it was only thirty years ago, a lot of things are either hazy, or I've blotted them out. You learn to do that as you get older. Even so, I still remember the fear and the hunger vividly. The generation before me was used to excess, but I only knew rationing and power cuts. We’re lucky here with our constant solar energy supply. Anyway, there's one day that I can't ever forget. It was when the bombs hit the hospital. We saw it from the classroom window. My classmates screamed, but I couldn't breathe. Mum and Dad worked there. I never saw them again. Then a second bomb, closer. Glass smashing, and screams, and blood. I held on to my friend Elise. We were both unscathed. Teachers ran round and got us all onto a bus. Some children were carried on in blankets dripping with blood. There was no hospital though. I gripped Elise's hand tight, but the smell of blood on the bus was overwhelming. I was quietly sick under the seat. I kept apologising to Elise, but she just stared ahead in silence. We were taken to the Senedd and led to the basement. We never saw where the injured ones went. We must have been there for a few days. Communal living in an emergency bunker. The teachers looked worried but tried to cheer us up with songs. ‘Calon Lân’ still brings comfort to me. The singing made us feel less alone. Then came the evacuation. It happened so quickly and without a chance to see what we were leaving behind. I had to run to the rescue tank over piles of twisted metal and rubble. Then that was it, airport and launch pad. I’d never been in a plane before, let alone a space shuttle. I’d heard stories about the moon colony, but never imagined I’d be heading for it. I remember looking out of the window at the blue and white sphere, and feeling like a piece of me was falling away into space with it. Then I saw huge clouds engulfing the planet. The adults gasped. I didn’t realise the significance. Radioactive they said. No going back. So here I am, Earth refugee. I still dream of the lakes and the seaside, but I guess I have to be grateful for the virtual scenery that’s been created here. Anyway, have you got any questions?”

“Miss, Miss! Do you think that could ever happen here?”

“Well, that’s why history is so important. You need to know what led up to it all. I remember the teacher saying that we were always on repeat. I don’t know what she meant by that, but we only have the history data from 2040 onwards, only 20 years before it happened.”

(c) 2026 Paula Montez

This knee

This knee has seen eight summers. This knee throbs, stings, smarts. It is precious cargo. I am supporting it, cradling it in my palms, my fingers laced: It hurts when I bend it. This knee is bloody, witness and victim again to the violence of a child.

I am sitting on a polished, dark wood bench outside Sister Mary Monica’s domain – the sick room, the consulting room, the battlefield confessional. She will not be surprised to see me.

This knee has endured, endures and will endure pain. It throbs. My dress is torn. My shoes are scuffed. I am dirty and covered in scratches. Bruises will follow, and not only those to my dignity. Why? My brain poses the question, but I know the answer. Since I arrived as the new girl, she has taken against me. I’m finding my place in the only way I know. I don’t fawn, have no desire to join her gang, am content to take my time, to observe. She’s a classroom disrupter, a creature of fire and chaos, of malice and cruelty, with a cowed court of hangers-on. I’m small for my age, an easy target. I haven’t said anything though, haven’t confronted her as such…

The door opens and I hobble in. Grit is extracted with tweezers; my cuts are bathed in boiled, cooled water and patted dry with a clean white linen cloth. I’m anointed with iodine. Sister Mary Monica is gentle, thorough, methodical. I let myself cry at last. She’s seen it all before.

I ask her why and she tells me what I know already. My nemesis is jealous of me when I do well in tests, when I’m asked to read in assembly, when I do anything that draws attention away from her and towards me.

‘You have a way of looking very directly at people. Some don’t like this.’

She’s right of course. I should avoid eye contact, should steer clear of expressing even silent dissent. I haven’t. I don’t. I won’t.

I plead for my mother not to be told. She’ll see for herself soon enough anyway. I plead for no sanctions to be taken against my attacker. That would only make it worse. The nun checks me over once more, tells me to wash my grubby hands and tear-streaked face.

Someone has brought my packed lunch. I’m to sit for a while, have my sandwiches and then, sometime later, my knee and I will return to the classroom. But not just yet.

(c) 2026 Simone Mansell-Broome

Becker’s Children

The violin hung still and silent upon the study wall, the spotlights picking out its delicate contours and rich hues against the white staccato plaster. Taut strings trembled in anticipation of the touch that would release music from its dark chamber. Beneath, rested the bow that had conquered the world’s concert halls. 

Albert Becker sat motionless. Enveloped in the leather armchair, he surveyed the objects that had played important roles in his life: The violin and the volumes of mathematical texts, through which he had wrestled with man’s reason. Becker was a giant of the modern Renaissance. Yet, it was the roar of excited audiences that remained in his inner ear.
          He sank back into the chair's rich embrace. Exhausted by memories. Women had never concerned him. Except as a challenge. He had been spared that Achilles’ heel. As with critics, it had always been the reluctant ones that attracted him. Then, at the moment of triumph, interest had waned.

          He was old now, a stone worn down by unrelenting tides. Before him, on the cracked leather desk sat a white form. Beside it, upright in its holder, stood the pen. Only his signature was required. 

He had been a sperm donor for many years. Women, from all parts of the world, had queued eagerly to perpetuate his talents. He was the clinic’s star performer, a vicarious stud in exile. Little wonder, in the evening of his life, that they had sought permission to continue offering his semen after death. It was a cold sort of immortality.   
          On reflection, perhaps the coldness suited him best. Images of endless rows of glass tubes, each bearing an exact replica of his own DNA, filled his mind. Banquo’s children shall write Becker’s epitaph.

Safe in the seclusion of his study, Becker glanced down at the erect pen, the ink waiting to be released from its prison. He was ready.

Something fluttered in a corner of his vision. Movement disturbed the stillness of the occasion. Becker turned his head and caught sight of the fly, struggling against the transparent barrier of the windowpane, unable to pass into the world that lay beyond.
          Bile rose inside him, bitter and intense. The fly beat its wings hard and furious against the unyielding pane. Becker smiled, deep furrows of pleasure crossing under the features of his face, then with slow precision he crushed the fly beneath his fingers. Smearing a red stain upon the glass. 

Returning to his desk, he quickly signed the form and folded it neatly, almost mechanically, into the waiting envelope. It was comforting to think that his line would continue. Preserved and duplicated by his children and his children’s children. Their images stretching towards infinity, much as his reflection had once between two angled mirrors.

 The flaw of flesh and blood remained upon the glass, out of the old man’s sight. The fly’s struggle had ended. For Becker’s children, an infinity of possibilities remained.

(c) 2026 Mike Everley