At DWC, we’ve introduced a monthly internal writing competition for our members. Poetry or prose, 150 word limit.
The winner each month gets to set the topic and judge the next month’s entries.
Previous Competitions:
Theme for December
Tinsel won by Tricia
Theme for November.
Write 150 words using these four words:
Pinecone, peaches, intimidating, moonshadow
in a change to the usual format everyone voted for the entries. each vote counted as three points. Interestingly every entry had at least one vote.
However, Faith was the winner with this story:
The Pinecone Came From Above
The pinecone came from above. Its rather painful collision with his head interrupted Bear’s meal. He gazed upwards. Squirrel was giggling above him, not in the least bit scared by Bear’s intimidating stare. She hopped over to the next tree, out of Bear’s reach. Leaves showered Bear with red and gold. Bear sighed. He shook his great bulk, and the leaves wafted away as he sat heavily on his rump.
He looked at the food he had scavenged from the camp he had found that morning. He would need all he could find for his hibernation. Pawing through the goodies, Bear smiled, the moonshadow full in his heart. It was a lucky find. He took his time as he tucked into the haul of bright peaches, his paws and fur sticky with juice.
Penny came in a close second with her story:
Peaches Priestly loathed conifers, their static congregations in serried ranks radiating menace, a primeval echo of wolves long gone. The absence of birdsong scared her, with a stark certainty that beyond beech and solemn reliable oaks lay danger.
Now a dilemma. “Tomorrow, bring pine cones, glue and glitter,” Miss Brockley said. The project counted towards her GCSE art. She must deliver.
Wrapped in fleece and fear with mud grabbing her shoes, she reached the towering pines as night fell and a breath of air stirred their fingers.
“Don’t be a wimp, P,” she muttered, plunging ahead. Spongy ground crackled underfoot, but there were no cones. Stealthy with terror, she pressed on. Another puff of wind parted branches and clouds, casting moon-shadows round a pile of geometrically arranged pine cones.
The trees sighed. “Not so intimidating are we now? But hurry home, Peaches, hurry home before we close ranks around you!”
Theme for October
October – Val & Tricia– Clippings (joint winners this month)
Hair clippings – Val
‘Are you sure about this?’ the hairdresser asked as she paused her scissors beside Alice’s head of golden hair that spread over her shoulders and halfway to her slim waist.
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Alice replied, although that wasn’t really true, despite being assured that it would grow back as luxuriant as ever over time. But how much time? Her beautiful hair had always been her best feature, and she’d refused a mirror at the salon in case she was horrified by her new image.
Her two best friends at school had already had their heads shaved in aid of the cancer charity so Alice couldn’t back out now.
As she watched the bright clippings tumble to the floor, she couldn’t help feeling regret… until she heard the hairdresser’s murmured words: ‘I don’t like the look of this mole on your scalp. I think you need to get this checked out.’
Clippings – Tricia
Clippings of feet,
Hooves or high heels,
Out on the street,
Or dancing reels.
Clippings of paper,
For sharing of news.
Letters cut, for her
Ransom note cues.
Clippings from nails,
Clippings from hair,
In cauldron pails,
For witches to share.
Clippings from horse,
And also from dog,
Caught in the gorse,
But never from frog.
Frog has no fur,
Feather or nail,
The witch to lure,
Clip for our tale.
But,
Hear the click of his feet,
When he wears his high heels,
Out on the street,
Dancing in reels.
Theme for September
September -Penny – Whispers
WHISPERS
Memories sneak up behind you, tap your shoulder and turn you on the spot.
A pot of basil.
You’re back in Spain, staring across a table into loving eyes again.
A snatch of song.
Clad in denim and platforms, days are mad, young and long.
New love warms you through like sun.
Petrichor, the perfume of hot rain.
You’re striding pavements spattered with drops.
A bus stops, and he dismounts, but with another.
The foul breath of diesel smothers your heart.
As if it mattered.
You saw it coming from the start.
You were warned by whispers.
If only you’d listened and spared yourself sorrow.
You ran from the whispers,
But they follow you still.
The theme for August is Sunshine
August – Val – Sunshine
Little Boy
As they approached the city, dawn was breaking and soon the sky was radiant with sunshine. Not even a wisp of cloud in any direction. The men thought they’d never seen such golden morning light, or sky so intensely blue.
The moment arrived – cargo released into that crystalline air. Forty-three seconds counted down in trepidation. Would it fail?
A blinding flash as the plane filled with razor-sharp white light and the first of two shockwaves hit with such force the panicked men thought the whole aircraft must break apart.
Thousands of feet below, a cloud of smoke, dust and debris billowed. It burgeoned and spread until the whole sunlit city became a huge cauldron of boiling black tar. The men watched in awe as churning cloud consumed every living and non-living thing.
At its centre a gigantic mushroom cloud spiralled into the air. There would be no more sunlight.
The theme for July was Tarnished won by Faith
Tarnished He lay on his back, looking up at the gray clouds that threatened to break, but he would be unmoved by any rain that would fall. Although his neck was skewed at an unnatural angle and he couldn’t move his body, the knight remained calm. There was nothing he could do, and so he was resigned to his fate. He just watched the clouds drift and listened to the cries around him. They were getting quieter now. The battle had long since finished and all that was left were the whimpers of the near dead and the skittering of scavengers, human and otherwise. They moved between the wounded, ignoring the pleas for help, their hands nimble. The knight could not stop their desecration. He had lost. The battle, his men, his pride. His reputation would be forever tarnished in the history books. And as he lay there, his blood staining the soil, he was glad he could not feel. His end, however violent it had begun, would finish as quiet as the battlefield around him.
The theme for June 2025 Funny Peculiar Won by Tricia
Dad
Now you live as a stranger to this world,
exiled in the mystery of all you have lost,
or cannot recall.
In a world which is all your own,
your ways are difficult to explain,
very particular,
impossibly strange,
but all your own.
Each day we travel together,
through a fog of misunderstanding,
a haze of misplaced words.
Our own comical light skiff.
And we laugh, because,
through it all, I love you and you love me.
Even when your memory does not bring forth my name,
my definition,
who I am to you.
Even then you know,
I love you and you love me.
Through this very particular, impossibly strange, new world,
you trust me to navigate
for you, with you.
May 2025 The Legend of the Flood
April 25 Where he heard a wolf Jean Cooper Moran
Mar 25 Picnic with Mum Tricia Pillay
Feb 25 Fire Claudia Robertson
Jan 25 Brief Encounter Val Ormrod
Dec 24 Potted History Celia Harper
Nov 24 Snow winner Penny Kerr
Oct 24 Autumn winner Val Ormrod
Congratulations to the winners!
The legend of the flood
Almost every country
Has a legend of a flood.
Some say from nature,
Some say from God.
It tells of a deluge
Covering the earth
Wiping away all sin
Giving man rebirth.
Is it a fairy tale,
One to set aside,
It’s only legacy,
The rainbow flag of Pride?
Or a parable,
A cataclysmic warning,
Saying ‘God’s annoyed
And tribulation’s dawning’.
Is it a legend,
Or undisputed fact?
Science reveals planet earth
Is not firmly intact.
Reports have emerged, to say
Seismisists have found
A sponge-like layer, water filled,
Beneath the solid ground.
Is what seemed fantastic
Truthful after all?
Did ground rupture, flooding earth,
Causing life to fall?
Did the rocks of watery deep
Burst apart that day
And, with rainfall from above,
Wash mankind away?
Yet not all had perished:
The deluge left a few –
The ancestors of us today.
We’re family, me and you!