Poetry and Creative Writing for All

The Top 5 Poems of the Month

October 2006

	Barbara Sanderson is now a Featured Poet! Read her biography and more of her poems

Nightscape

As the hidden sleepers float away
On silent wings, to dreamlands beyond the stars
Dark fingers steal across the land
Clad in gloves of softest velvet.
To cast a spell of ancient magic
Bringing life to the shadow-world
So night's shaded garden blooms once more.

Bathed in moonbeams, a silver ribbon weaves
It's time-washed path through enchanted lands
A sepia tinted canvas, where every colour sleeps
While midnight's veil is drawn across it's face.
This frozen image captured forever
In shades of monochrome vision,
From deepest silky black to gleaming white.

And the hushed tones of a wandering breeze
Drift over wind-blown moonscapes,
Echoing the nightbird's sweeping flight
Across a diamond studded sky.
Travelling onwards in search of morning's light
Through the icy beauty of a moonlit, starfield night.

Barbara Sanderson

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Here are the other four winning poems for this month.

Dreamworld

Oh blissful night descend on me,
and take me to your valleys deep,
where I can romp in autumn leaves, 
and dance all day in daffodils.
Where fairies come to play with me,
and show me wonders, all for free.
Purple skies and peppermint trees,
tangerine grass and scarlet seas.

Where I ride bare-back, in flowery fields,
upon a snow white unicorn.
With jewelled horn and golden hoof,
he gallops through this magic land.
Where rainbow birds swoop overhead,
and fishes flash like silvery darts
in waters warm, and crystal clear,
and gentle winds caress my cheeks.

Oh mystic land, place of my dreams,
where I am free of mortal cares.
Where I can see and do such things,
can be whate’er I wish to be.
See sights unseen in waking life,
be hero, child, or fairy bright.
Sail oceans wide and cross the sky,
and still be home by morning light.

Susan Wilson

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Yesteryear’s World

Yesteryear, it beamed with emanating sun-kissed light,
Sunshine wooed adversity with radiating might,
Her warm embrace intensified, she flirted with the earth,
Forget-me-nots and blooming petals witnessed tender birth;
A vision born of nature’s bosom milking life on land,
As Fathers of the sacred skies, had from the onset planned.
Yearly budding bulbs of growth, and ever-shedding trees,
Whiffing airs, so purified as scented harmonies.
Yet through the calm serenity, a frail, withered flower
Shyly hid and cowered from a new, destructive power. 
Invading foreign armies came to maul and desecrate
This, a slumbered worldly peace they wished to dominate.
Fast and furiously, struck a human urge to smother,
Suffocating innocence, with need to harm another;
Detrimental persons driven by their poisoned cause,
Ignorantly devastating former earthly laws.
Once, the lambs had proudly danced upon their nurtured throne,
Now these alien corteges occupy their home.
Sea bed creatures' drowned entrails sinking deathward bound,
Paving way for rotting flesh on virgin battlegrounds.
Planet Earth laid hope to rest, and tumbled to its fate; 
Fallen, as a crippled spirit torn by war and hate,
Thirsty, were the predators that bred atrocity,
As horror spread like venom over vulnerability.

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Rosaleen

Like chestnuts in autumns fire
her silken locks set me ablaze,
cascading flames that softly glow
in the suns first autumn rays.

Yet summer sapphires sparkle blue
such jewels, her smiling eyes,
mystic pools, two twinkling stars
so clear, so fun and bright.

She beguiles my breath away
veiled in dancing candle light,
and I bask, a gasp in the radiance
of this beauty shinning bright.

An enchanting nymph so lovely,
wandering in a restless dream,
born surely in Avalon,
Rosaleen the fairy queen.

Mark Sheppard

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The Precious One

If peridot and emerald leas
Stretched out, beyond one's sight,
To onyx cliffs and turquoise seas
That sparkle in the light -

The dark delight of sapphire sky,
The bright blue topaz noon;
The amber sun which by and by
Gives way to opal moon -

If all were gathered in a case
And set beside your son,
'Twould look quite dull beside your face -
You are the precious one.

You're beautiful beyond all light,
My heart is dark as hell -
Despite the gulf so infinite,
In me you chose to dwell.

The brightest gem shines through my flesh
And moves me mile on mile,
And when unjewelled, you refresh
My strength, my song, my smile

I long to see your eyes, Oh Lord,
And look into your face -
That beauty deadly as a sword
But for your ruby grace.

Then all the undeserving saved
Will bow before the Son,
And hearts in tune, the song that's raised:
'You are the precious one'.

And stars will sing of glorious grace,
And galaxies will hum;
The universe a joyous place,
And you, the precious one.

Tanya Roddie

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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)