Poetry and Creative Writing for All

The Top 5 Poems of the Month

June 2006

	Simon Staff is now a Featured Poet! Read his biography and more of his poems

Saviour from the Skies

Just as I thought that all was lost, the fight to live was gone
He stepped down from his spaceship and told me I was wrong
Smiling down upon me, so tall, eyes dark as pools
Said quitting is for losers and doubting just for fools

He said I am your saviour; your life from now will change
For I’ve been sent to rid this world of hate and greed and pain
He took my hand as though a child and led me far away
I smiled and uttered quietly that I knew he’d come some day 

Each burnt out stump he brushed against, grew and sprouted green
The rancid pools he knelt beside, became so crystal clean
I stared into my saviours face with eyes so full of awe
A million questions in my head, but still he showed me more

He laid his hands upon the brows of dying in the street
At once their illness vanished, rose quickly to their feet
Rivers flowed where once were none and bluebirds soared the skies
People gladly sharing food, no babies’ hungry cries

At last his work was over, a heaven created from hell
I asked him to explain to me, I needed him to tell
What is it you would ask me, he said with smiling face
I asked if he were Jesus, why he’d come to save this place

Who I am is unimportant, don’t look to heavens above
See what has been and what could be with just a little love
A world that’s full of anger and hate, will eat itself away
A world which is loved, with a people that care, will see another day

My time with you is over and very soon I’ll leave
You all must carry on this task, spread love and self-belief
For every heart you touch with love, a hundred more will shine
This world will become a true paradise until the end of time

Then just as quick as he’d found me, I turned and he was gone
He’d left us a garden of Eden, air filled with evening bird song
I nervously looked around me, saw a thousand smiles so wide
I knew that we really could finish the task, of our saviour from the skies 

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Here are the other four winning poems for this month.

‘The Living Will’

I am a 13-year-old Iranian, and I’m crying because I haven’t died yet.

My friends have advanced; my family tortured, 
But there is no time to grieve.
I must fulfil the ancient promise; defend the faith,
And achieve the justice I believe.

For religion is my tuition, 
And God shall embalm my soul,
For it’s his work I’m carrying out, 
In this otherwise perilous role

In search for deep salvation, 
I must burn brighter than a star in the sky,
Like the brothers who have fallen before me, 
I am living on the promise to die.

For death is but a journey, 
And we always fear what we cannot see,
But it’s not death I fear, it’s living,
And this sacrifice will set me free.

It is this incessant quest for justice,
That haunt’s my heart and steer’s my soul,
Through innocence and suffering;
And through lives I’ve already stole

For life is but one empty grave,
Languishing in the death of belief,
You don’t care about spirituality,
Thus death is the only relief. 

As daylight fades and leaves a blood red sky,
I am lit and am ready to blaze
As I prepare for the glimmer of goodbye,
I reflect on my foreboding phase

I am neither a preacher nor a priest, 
Nor a sinner nor a saint,
But a body with belief
Chained by religious restraint 

For no matter what beliefs we espouse,
We’re all on our way to somewhere else
Guided by our own gates of grace
We will find our own resting place

I am the dark shapes’ in the clear night sky, 
I am the weeping wind that cries.
I am the shadow less figure in the sun,
I am the river that no longer runs 

If you look deep into my blemished blue eyes,
You will see where faith resides
Not in the body or the mind,
But in the spirit I have left behind

When I am left to the scrutiny of the grieved
Understand it was justice I tried to achieve
A child cries because he hasn’t died yet
Will soon become too easy to forget

I pray to be at piece with god

Ross Macmillan

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Confessional

I left her there, her
face followed me home.

A ghostly face, invaded
my peace; a bottle of red
could not wash away 
the guilt that returns

day after day, 
each ending the same.

Her veined, gnarled hands
beat my chest, saying
‘please take me home’.

I couldn’t , but I wanted to.
My heart, sore and breaking,
a knot in my throat,

I turned my back and walked away.

She died, alone, in that place.
The hurt burns through me,
and so it should.

Beth Belshaw

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Ride the Wild Carousel

Last week I buried my husband, 
and divested myself of a lifetime’s adhesive baggage,
leaving me tremulous, funded and free.

I now have voluptuous liberty 
to think unacceptable thoughts, and glorious freedom
to behave anything other than my age. 

The decades of wearisome colouring 
have been washed from my hair, and I emerge 
hallmarked in a cap of pure shining silver.

I know reincarnation as a true child of obstinacy,
with the absolute right to ignore at long last
whatever the neighbours might think.

I relish the nocturnal fantasies
of exotic, sweat slipping lust; and the bizarre waking, 
alone between suburban sheets.

My desire to run a stick along the railings, 
is poetical and paramount, but I stride alone, 
stickless and unencumbered.

I feel a deep yearning towards purple, 
but after a life time of sensible beige, I know 
I must take on a scarlet persona.

For red is a power
and in those black lonely times of wretched self doubt
when beigeness squirms back, trying hard to re-assert

I lipstick my lips
and go to the fair; and I ride the wild carousel 
with my hair flowing free.

Anne Rhind

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A Special Place

This is her secret place,
that's offered her solace,
where no one comes but her,
and strong emotions stir.

She hugs herself and dreams
and stifles inward screams,
wipes teardrops from her cheeks,
lets no one see her weep.

She's cried a million tears,
surmounted all her fears,
but hides it deep within
that still she thinks of him

She misses his soft touch
and oh it hurts so much,
to think of all those years
he filled her life with fear.

A moment's tender touch
a grasping jealous clutch,
a ranting, raving finger
if she should stop and linger.

That's all behind her now,
which makes her wonder how,
he's got beneath her skin 
and still she thinks of him.

The pain is easing now
and life's improved somehow,
the sun smiles on her face
in this her special place.

Patsy Goodsir

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To submit a poem to the Online Poetry Competition, email inbox@forwardpress.co.uk (Enter Top 5 Poems of the Month in the subject line, including your name and postal address)

Or post your poems to Top 5 Poems of the Month, Forward Press Ltd, Remus House, Coltsfoot Drive, Peterborough PE2 9JX (Write your name and address on each piece of work you send)