Poetry

Question 1

Nil Nil (1)

Answer 1

1. The Zenith
2. Detaching like bubbles
3. Fifty-year slide
4. Ballooned over open goals
5. Bald tennis ball
6. Biting the bullet

Question 2

Nil Nil (2)

Answer 2

1. It’s all done
2. Pitch sharing … Highland division
3. Name check in Mondays obituaries
4. Skelly Assurance … then nobody
5. Ten years of dwindling

Question 3

Ferryman’s Arms (1)

Answer 3

1. Half-pint of Guinness
2. Like a moth
3. A coin in the tongue
4. Dusty green cowl
5. Screw back the globe
6. Immaculate clearance

Question 4

Ferryman’s Arms (2)

Answer 4

1. Unpotted colours
2. Small miracles
3. Physics itself becomes something negotiable
4. As black as my stout
5. For next time
6. Without breaking the skin of the water

Question 5

11:00 Baldovan

Answer 5

1. First time ever
2. The bus will let us down in another country
3. Streets that suddenly forget their names
4. Our voices sound funny
5. Sisters and mothers are fifty years dead
6. Are ye sure? Are ye sure?

Question 6

Waking with Russel

Answer 6

1. Face to face like lovers
2. Four day old smile dawned on him
3. Not my old hard-pressed grin
4. True gift never leaves the giver
5. Waking amongst men
6. Pledged myself forever

Question 7

The Circle

Answer 7

1. My boy
2. He’s all the earth
3. Nothing’s what we meant
4. In one great heavenly design
5. The whole damn troposphere can’t cure
6. Look at the little avatar

Question 8

Rain

Answer 8

1. Sits alone beside a silent telephone
2. Along their fatal watercourse
3. Darkening a hung-out dress
4. Dress lies ruined on the grass
5. None of this matters
6. Streaming down her upturned face.