Poetry and Creative Writing for All

The Top 5 Poems of the Month

September 2006

	Chris Campbell is now a Featured Poet! Read his biography and more of his poems

Light Fades

Reflecting the now fading flashlight’s glare the
Windowpane lay sealed between its yellow frame.
With one small flick, he plunged the room to darkness,
The torch escaping his numb fingertips.
In shadow, camouflaged between loosened bricks,
Spindly legs poked through gaps like wooden toothpicks.
One dripped; then down each wall came another, like 
The falling drops of a leaking tap. 
He Felt the room tighten, his stressed body expand,
Restrained and helpless as if held on remand.
Through cracks they scattered and tingled within
Like pins between pores in his delicate skin
The walls compressed, he gasped for every breath, 
They crunched and churned and chewed his body dry 
Feeding on moisture, he felt his body drain
Unsealed unlike the solid windowpane.

Chris Campbell

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Here are the other four winning poems for this month.

Rebirth of Dawn

Oh, what shall I do
When the light withers
Against the evening pall
When even shadows quiver

The sun, dying in the horizon
Conceding to the forces of night
As heaven dons its velveteen cloak
And sepulchral blackness swathes the sky

As I lay in the maw of darkness
Reaching futilely for unseen stars
A lonely, desolate solitude
Tries to tear my fragile soul apart

So cold - sans lights, sans color, sans form
Cruel deprivations of the hours
A harsh reminder of bygone time
Of dying hope, in fading pallor

Towards heaven for salvation I search
But see only tombstones of fallen dreams
The distant knell, so scornful in tone
Ghosting through the air, on demon wings

But still a candle I shall not lit
To mitigate the vitriol dark
Even when no clemency is spared
As cold rejection shatters my heart

Nor will I ever take shelter from
Jeering voices of the kneeling wind
That exacerbates the lonely days
"Love" and "Kindness" - not heard, not evinced

Because even in the deepest night
A gossamer beam will always shine
Through callous darkness, a molten gold
Bringing hope and love and joyous times

Fear not, grieve not, but await new dawn
For the brilliant sun shall rise again
Vanquishing the ephemeral night
And caress the earth with loving hands

Mary Wu

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My Eyes

These eyes, 
never to look askance. 
Your soul undressed,
but 
by a fleeting glance. 

My eyes,
lead life by the hand, 
with wonder and allure. 
My hope incarnate;
holding
something quite pure.

Truly seraphic, 
they elevate me beyond worth. 
Awe-inspiring, 
is the mercy in power, 
...a first cascade of rain, 
in a fluttering shower. 

Where eyes moisten, 
to die for, here; 
their shoulder. 
Love their compassion, 
be mindful though, 
beauty be in the eye of the beholder. 

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ONCE LOST

NOSTALGIC PATHS ONCE LOST,
WIND BACK TO BURIED PASTS.
TUMBLED RUINS OVERGROWN,
HERE ONCE THE BOY LAID REST.
ANCIENT TRYSTS, SLOW RUSTING SAFE,
IN FRIGID MOULDERING EARTH.
ENMESHED BY SNAKINGTANGLED ROOTS,
WHERE YOUTH CHOKED LOVE TO DEATH.
DENIED, FORGOTTEN NOW EXHUMED,
DANK DRY A FOOLS REMAINS.
AN ENVELOPE OF HEART SHAPED SEEDS,
UNBIDDEN HERE CONTAINED.

MISGUIDED AUTHORED YEARNINGS
TOO DESPERATE TO SEIZE.
VAIN UNREQUITED POURINGS, 
REPELLENT WOVEN PLEAS.
A MISSIVE, CORNISH COFFINED,
“LOVE SEEKERS FIND REGRET.”
VAIN ROMANTIC GESTURES,
ENTOMBED HERE TO FORGET.
LONG LOCKED AWAY EXPUNGED,
WHAT NAUSEA INSPIRED.
RUST WELDED YAWNS REVEAL AGAIN,
WHAT WISDOM BID EXPIRE.

FALLOW FIELDS COME THAWING.
SOIL YIELDS TO THE SPADE.
APRIL WEAKLY WARMING,
THESE ACONITES ARRAYED.
YOUTHS HIBERNATION’S ENDING,
BENEATH THE HOPEFUL TREES?
COBRA FRONDS UNFURLING,
AMID LEAF-LITTER SEAS?
THE UNPOSSESSING SICKNESS,
REFLECTED AS A GHOST.
WHO HAUNTS FORGOTTEN PATHWAYS.
WHERE LIES A ROUTE ONCE LOST.

Robert Evans

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Atomic afternoons

I see the mushroom cloud
Can you see the mushroom cloud?
Remember, walking, talking,
dead streets in wasted
pasty Sunday faces.
From the radio cold and clammy came
this morning’s nuclear warnings;
wind dropped, crickets stopped.
 In cloistered towers church bells rest,
where blue white Wedgwood silence reigns;
stillness plays with whispering trees;
cumulus nimbled, rainwater thimbled
uranium’s silver leaves to the soil below.
Cracked and dirty lanes
were the realities we made;
traffic lights illumine,
changing, patient, awaiting traffic.
Feel....the....howling.....calm.
Touch the pallid dead.
And
I can see the mushroom cloud.

michael auty

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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)