Poem of the Week: ‘Theory of Strings’ by Dan Davis

“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”

We say it every week, but selecting just one winner for our Poem of the Week is never an easy task. The more people know about it, it seems the more intense the competition becomes. After plenty of umm-ing and aah-ing, we’ve managed to whittle it down to just the best three.

3rd Place
‘The Story of Something’ by Rachel Henley

There is a poem in you somewhere,
between the freshly inked rose and your rockabilly pose.
Your core once rested between my index and thumb,
I should of known the sound of your happy goodbye was-
the sound of a starting gun.

The transition from a Werthers original to a Ferrero Rocher-
swooped the hipsters into pastel shaded tornadoes,
and now the party goes wherever she flows.
Underneath your sweet layers I know there is a crunch-
where the aesthetic really does not matter all that much.

They say the language of the lovers is in the books-
but for my sake, I pray it’s in your venomous dirty looks.
Now the warm city glow is just the amber in a-
dysfunctional traffic light and I know there is no
direction left for me to make this right.

In a darkened club with leather sofas covered in vomit-
there’s a piece of paper with my name scribbled on it,
and there was once a girl who clamored with excitement-
to find a vodka rinsed pen,
that same girl erased those numbers and never dialed again.

It broke something when she declared herself busy-
the girl who could not help herself to once miss me,
debated with myself where it all went sour-
but sometimes you can be on time for something
and still be late by the hour.