Neville Southern

President's Cup       - Best POEM in Standard English - subject matter open
Th' Owd Tay Caddy - Best ENTRY in classes 1 - 5 from a competitor who is not a previous winner

NIGHT  SHIFT
​Wednesday morning is not halfway
 To the next earned rest they treasure;
Last Sunday seems an age away;
Folk’s lives all work, not pleasure.

These night shifts come from drudgery,
Where gas-jets light their lives,
With hearing numbed by machinery,
They return home to glimpse their wives,

To cooling beds in empty rooms,
 As wives and children trudge away
 To desks and mills and weaving looms
 To start their own work day.

 Night shifts wake later in the day
 For the all too brief reunion:
 Eating, talking, love and play
 In family communion.

But they live dislocated lives,
Like ebb tide and the swell.
Though their hope still gamely strives,
In the end, all may not be well.

They do not look for sorrow,
They know that joy is never sure.
Today will always end tomorrow
But all may hope as they endure.
_____________________________________________