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January 15th, 2026
United Kingdom Poetry Contest #1 – First Place
by Stuart McFarlane
The night is iron ore, the sky as black as flint,
and stars, like sparks of silver, innocently glint –
time, itself, mysteriously transforms,
its vital essence tamed by these strange forms.
Beneath an opal moon where, like lava flowing,
the desert sands ripple, orange embers glowing.
Triangles eternal – shapes cut out of the night –
each like a prism absorbing a beam of light
that inculcates unseen sinews of stone,
down a deep shaft that threads the inner cone,
until, slowly, revealing a once secret room,
an ancient burial chamber, a pharaoh's tomb.
Perhaps,like Tutankhamun, his face a mask of solid gold.
To imagine, conceive of? Yet to actually behold?
Bold amulets and jewels, all red, blue and green.
A chaos of colour – how they glitter and gleam!
Or his chariots, his magnificent treasure –
a moment so precious would be beyond measure!
Now the light's dimmer, quietly leaks away,
throwing a dark shroud over the place he still lay.
The beam retreats along the shaft to now return
to a dark sky where a few stars still faintly burn.
Soon the sands grow brighter, the sky a sapphire blue,
and, as if all the myths were suddenly come true.
A golden sun rises, a new day dawns –
and the pyramids now are burnished bronze!
About the Poet
Stuart McFarlane resides in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Read the poet's biography and Wax Poetry and Art publications
on Stuart McFarlane's Artist Page.
This poem is included in Poetry World #14, published in the Wax Poetry and Art Library.
Keywords: secret, burial chamber, pharaoh, prism
Previously published in United Kingdom Poetry Magazine:
Not Merely Monuments
by Stuart McFarlane
UK Poetry Magazine is part of the Wax Poetry and Art Network.
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