Poetry and Creative Writing for All

The Top 5 Poems of the Month

November 2006

	Elizabeth Davies is now a Featured Poet! Read her biography and more of her poems

The Flower Exile

She lives in exile on a lush green island,
An island that’s always leafy, always wet;
Where new leaves push out the old,
And great fleshy flowers of orange and red
Rest on beds, on cumulous clouds of green,
Of viridian, emerald, and forest green,
Of green striped and spotted and splashed
With gold and cream, as if a profligate god
Had whirled and danced, and thrown gobbets
And streaks of tinted liquid with his eyes closed,
Laughing wildly against the sun.
But she will always yearn for the spare baked spaces
Of the high plateau of Africa, where, after a harsh dry spell
The weather turns, and against the gray lace of bare branch
A faint stirring comes. Among the eddies of dust
Small pale bells push through the ends of drooping wood,
And suddenly, along the street there comes
A heavenly cloud of lilac, hiding branches, shimmering
And multiplying in fallen reflections on the ground.
The people stop and stare, their eyes grateful for this change,
This outpouring of beauty in a dry land, and she measures her exile
In jacaranda seasons.

Elizabeth Davies

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Here are the other four winning poems for this month.

Gobby

He’d shuffle slowly down the street
Dragged along by the tattered lead
That tied him tightly to his friend
Who scampered round his feet.
We taunted him and names we’d call 
Though little of that I now recall
Except of how we made such fun
Of that sad, poor, lonely man
With his grubby coat and battered cap
And the dirty rag that he tightly clasped
To hide a face so badly formed
But whose visage meant nobody harm.
We despised him for the dirt he wore
Like a shield to hide his open sore
That gaping mouth with its sagging jaw,
The painful cross which this loner bore.
Many times we mocked his pain
Though deep inside it caused me shame.
We should have learned from that dirty tramp
Whose only friend was a mongrel scamp
For rejected by his fellow man,
Cruelly hurt and put upon,
He worked to earn his daily bread
By carrying coals, though it was said
He only worked to feed his friend
Who loved him loyally to the end.
The two of them were so well matched,
That shattered man, ill-clothed and patched
And that mongrel dog with its tatty hide
Skipping fondly by his side.
I’m not ashamed to say I cried
The day I saw that poor dog die
Damaged by a passing van
Driven by a thoughtless man.
Gobby cried there in the street
With his only friend lying at his feet
And tears now washed that dirty face
Whose grime I know was no disgrace.
Nor were those tears a cause for shame
As his silent sobbing shook his frame.
He clutched his comrade to his chest
While all around felt his distress.
Sorrow filled that shame-faced crowd
And I’m sure that grown men cried out loud,
For in his sorrow all now saw
The man they’d all ignored before.

Steven G. Pryor

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Fastiduous rain

Fastiduous rain spits in fits from the sky
soft bullets gleam in the teeming dark
Dense with your touch on its panting breath
this volatile shroud, child of such tender nectar:

That shy supporation, the dreamy might of the rose,
But its sweating, indignant, pallid, splendor-less hush
Is a dominant haze on these stone steps
and subdued is all that blazes

Ariel enslave the ocean,
its frosty throat caress for me
A jaw line in rapture of loves cool solution
The shape of the bay evermore will I see
and aide me to judge with less piety
This moments imbalance of wanton devotion 
that ripens in starlight and silence
Each pulse of clarity; each rippling melody
fore saking its promise and soothing: A lotion 

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Fortune

Whenever she looked back
Behind her life's cyclorama,
She saw the wires and cables
Of tangled living.
Lessons taught had firmed and toned
Emotional muscle.
When once the sun's glare had made her cry
Now it lit her life like gold.
Weary rain of previous days
Now softly watered and sustained.
Her eyes once downcast, saw what was,
Not what might be.
Unsightly scenes of mayhem imagined
No longer ran their hourly torture.
Real life becomes her.
She has left her stage behind.

Helen Garnett

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From the Ashes of Grief

When in the depths of deep despair,
Lift up your head and see me there
With arms outstretched and pleading eyes,
Beseeching you to hush your cries.

I'll help you stand up tall and straight;
With head held high, confront your fate.
Equipped with courage, strength of mind,
You'll see through eyes you thought were blind

You'll once again begin to hear;
No longer feel a sense of fear
As words of hope, you'll speak out loud,
And those who love you will be proud

To see that you have overcome
The mental pain that struck you dumb,
As from grief's ashes you will rise,
A stronger spirit, brave and wise.

Wendy Wilson

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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)