| Larkin & East Riding Poetry Competition 2011 Winner
Gwen de Mel
What is this Life?
When matters airier than sky
Require attention in my life,
My efforts to seize, to capture them
Serve only to squeeze and fracture them,
To bring to earth what is fine and high:
What is love?
'Please pass the knife.'
Neither lunch nor dinner is the time
For matters of existential weight:
'more tea darling?'
'Please pass the cheese.'
'are there any cleaner plates than these?'
The kitchen butchers the sublime:
What is death?
'These chops are great!'
If I were Aristotle or Pliny,
Shakespeare, Donne or a new Locke,
I'd toss up thoughts, not healthy salads,
Write, not school notes, but prose and ballads;
I'd wield my pen, throw off my pinny:
What is this life?
'Have you seen my sock?'
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