Win Roses for your Beloved

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, Ian McMillan asked you to write a poem dedicated to the one you love.

He picked the best ones and read them out on air in the company of Sean Rafferty on 14 February.

The winning entry and the nine runners-up appear below.

The Winner: Two Mugs, by Allison McVety Corned beef chunks and tinned spaghetti heated over a primus stove on the concrete floor of our new home. The cistern's blocked, there's no power and someone's filched the door handles. We have a mattress, a toothbrush, the two mugs we fetched south with us in a banged-up wreck. Tomorrow the removals van will bring the rest, but tonight, you say it'll never be better than this, your breath, a white noise fuzzing the sharp air.

Runner Up: Rob Clack The slipper comfort Of pensioner passion Still needs the teetering lunacy Of bright pink heels. And magically, you're both, Valentine!

Runner Up: First Day in the Rehab Centre (Valentine for E.) by John MacInerney As we walk round the rehab centre to work out The lie of the land you've come to sojouurn in, you pause (To give your Zimmer frame a rest), and through the wide Window that runs the corridor's length survey the oddly Sloping quadrangle brick and glass enclose. Out there, Two birches, leafless under cold grey skies, lean sideways, For all the world as if one wooed the other to Turn and join boughs in a perpetual rooted dance.

Runner Up: Tail Lights by Claire Best Driving behind you in fog, not quite day, I'd have imagined you up ahead if I didn't know you were there. My right foot pulls me forward - the lights come brighter, haloed, red - so I fall back leaving distance, cat's eyes, broken lines between us, focus on whiteness, rime-frosted kerb and grass, no sight now of your lights in freezing air - and I tell myself to tell you later I've not known grey so beautiful, half-light so open, raw, winter so radical and tender, I've not followed lights through fog like this before.

Runner Up: Larder for Mr E. by Gill Learner In case this cornucopia runs out, I'll set something by: fire a drum of applewood to smoke split kisses; seal your voice in shiny tins; string private jokes and dry them; press a bunch of your best anecdotes. I'll hoard memories of Cornwall layered in salt; whispers distilled in tiny bottles; vacuum packs of secret looks; nights simmered in honeydew, poured into jars and stored where the sun shines through.

Runner Up: My Wedding Ring by Jo Bartholomew This golden shackle, this bright band Symbol of endless love and allegiance Dimmed by time, worn down by daily chores Bright romance dulled by darkling nights listening to grunting snores. Yet slide it back over roughened knuckle Turn to reveal the hidden inner gleam of gold Burnished bright, skin to skin, soul to soul Shining with kind thoughts, sweet words and caresses.

Runner Up: To Pat by John Holland I remember the rain and the smell of the rain on your skin and your hair as we kissed in the fur of the cinema's dark and forty years later as we kiss once again I remember the rain.

Runner Up: That Day by Kathleen Kummer A kind of delousing: hours later, I'm still finding rice and confetti in your hair, but no trace of the cobalt-blue, vermillion and burnt umber which dappled your face and your dark, hired suit, as the sun streamed on us through the stained glass windows. And that cascade of notes - 'Handel', you whispered, I was proud of you for knowing and didn't let on I knew.

Runner Up: Valentine Flowers by Marion Glasscoe Because they increase year on year I planted snowdrops for you where they clump in thickets of green February spears. Now you have gone, but your returning flowers are here - a complete white-out, sweeping clean through winter's mulch of dead leaves. The air is sharp; their beauty the more clear.

Runner Up: On Waking First by Sandy Newlands Don't wake just yet, my darling, you look so radiant in the morning's gentle glow. Me and my big mouth and the bottle said far too much as usual before bed, So yet another day was laid to waste. Last night's mistakes cannot now be erased, teach me just to cherish you once more. Don't wake just yet, love, let me just adore.

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