The winning poem was chosen by a panel of Mike Haines OBE, Founder of Global Acts of Unity; Imogen Russell Williams, Children’s book critic and poet; and British-Cypriot poet Anthony Anaxagorou.

Motley Crew

Our backs stick to the bus seats
as we’re suspended midway.
Exasperation festers in the heat,
many-hued voices intermingling in the humidity.
“Yes, I’ll be late,”.
a woman grates as our gazes meet,
the briefest exchange of mouth twitches
acknowledging mutual discontent.

A man in his seventies, garbed in tweed,
simmering red,
rises, cane denting the gum-strewn floor.
“My granddaughter’s just been born!”
Flurries of applause,
contortions of lips in half-smiles
and back to screens.
A baby is wailing and
all look wearily out of the window as
a boy swings pendulum-like from
yellow handles.

At last, the engine revs,
wheels slapping
braising asphalt.
Two men joke in Polish,
thump each other on the back.
A woman mutters relief in Kurdish,
whilst a bunch of Spanish

tourists cheer from the deck above.
We arrive, descending onto the pavement,
and I watch as we disband,
London faces, never again to meet.