Cardiff International Poetry Competition

Second Prize-winner - Christopher Simons

C. E. J. Simons is a British-Canadian poet, born in Canada in 1975. He is Associate Professor of English Literature at International Christian University, Tokyo, and divides his time between Japan and the UK. His poems have appeared in U.K. publications including the Times Literary Supplement, The Independent, Oxford Poetry, Isis, The May Anthology and The Wolf. In 2003-4 he held the Harper-Wood Studentship in Creative Writing at St. John’s College, Cambridge. He holds a D.Phil in Literature from Lincoln College, Oxford, and is former Editor of the Poetry Book Society. He is currently seeking a publisher for his first collection.

Pink Dog

He's dying alone
on the streets of Penang.

I'm watching him cling
to his last afternoon.

In the heat of this day
he'll die.

With no shade, nowhere to go
he'll pose for photos.

This is the maximum
love he's got left-no one will touch him.

His fur's completely gone.
He wears disease and sunburn.

Shuffling at me for a stroke,
he stops as I back

off. Even the flies
refuse his sores.

He's six years' dead,
but I'm not rid

of the pink dog of Penang
and his drawn-out dying.

We traded immortality
and some other infection:

he stands shivering away
on my Malaccan rug.

He won't obey
though I beg

lay down in the shade, boy,
lay down.

Through every pleasure and joy
from glimpse to glimpse

tinting my nights and days
the pink dog limps.