Poetry and Creative Writing for All

The Top 5 Poems of the Month

April 2007

	Ann Potkins is now a Featured Poet! Read her biography and more of her poems

Remote Control

After all these years
you still have control

I’m powerless, listening
to your filthy, foul-mouthed rantings

I dare not glance away
lest you threaten to smash
my head to a pulp again.

Your lips curl with venom
as they spit more expletives

Fists clenched
eyes wide and staring
as you punch the wall

Shattered plaster drips blood
and I notice that hole in the door
needs filling

I want to run, but you’re faster

You goad me to fight back
but I’m numb, would say or do
the wrong thing

It used to take very little

A spilt tea-cup or forgotten
ingredient for lunch

Trivialities-but not to you

How is it I still want you?
Long for your weight on mine
Still desire those looks
that first drew me to you

then…

I am awake
steeped in sweat
my heart exploding
in my chest

You still wield control
Even from your grave.

Ann Potkins

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Here are the other four winning poems for this month.

Ode to the great poets

Here I sit
With quill in hand,
Trying to make sense
Trying to understand,
What makes you great?
What makes you tall?
What makes things you say,
Mean a damn at all?
What were you thinking?
When you bowed your head.
When you shook the world
With the things you said,
When you told you’re story
Of the things you’ve seen,
Of the people you’ve known,
And the places you’ve been.
I often wonder,
Now you’re gone.
Do you still see?
As your spirit lives on,
All the people you changed,
And the world you inspired,
Is this what you sought?
Is it what you desired?
Or were you just sitting with quill in hand?
Trying to make sense and understand,
Bringing the world a little magic and grace,
Trying to make it a better place.

Cheryl Nicholls

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April

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Rickety Raggedly Man

Rickety Raggedly Man
I see you sitting there,
Staring at a walk by world
as if you have no care
Did we walk the same life road
with you a pace behind.
So fortunes favours fell to me
But for you were not so kind?
No young sir the road I walked
was of a slower pace.
When hats were doffed to ladies
And meals partook with grace.
Streets were safe to walk upon,
And the village Bobby cared.
And no one really went with out
For what we had we shared.
The springs I knew were music filled
With the bleating of the lamb.
And autumn’s berry scented air
had the smell of home made jam.
Long and winding summer lanes
Led to a leafy river bank.
on long log fired winters evenings
home made wine and mead was drank.
Rickety Raggedly man,
That’s a world that’s long departed.
And all the changes you have seen
When do you think they started?
They started when I marched to war
Saw where my comrades fell.
When we bombed each town to rubble
There sounds a funereal knell.
It started when we pierced the skies
And gazed upon a lunar hill.
Walking man had started running
He now runs faster still.
But rickety raggedly man
Don’t you envy me?
With my big house and Porsche car
And satellite T.V.
My laptop and computer
DVD’s Videophone, Sat. Nav.
Rickety Raggedly man,
Tell me what YOU have!
I have no crippling mortgage,
credit card bills or vast H.P.
I have no gloomy office desk,
But I have the sun on me.
I have the time to sit and watch,
A flower grow from bud to bloom.
To see past times within the shadows
that dance around a room.
You have material wealth
You can hold within your hands.
Whilst mine, a bank of memories
Skimmed from times fast running sands.
Mine can never be devalued
Or by default reclaimed.
And when I die so shall they too
Be in the final casket framed.

George Speechley

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I don't know why?

I don't know why I feel like this
I don't know if you care
I wish that I could tell you
'Bout all these feelings that are there.

I know you think im happy
But trust me thats not the case
Sometimes I just feel dead inside
An utter waste of space.

I've got so many feelings
That don't want to come out
I wish I was more like everyone
That I to could scream and shout.

But instead I sit here smiling
'Cause I know that's what you want
I tell you I'm getting better
But the truth is I am not.

I want to go to sleep again
Where everything makes sense
But I can't seem to get to sleep
So I'm writing this instead

You see Mum I'm not like you
Although I try to be
I wish I liked the world
I wish the world liked me.

I don't know why I feel like this
There's no reason I can see.
And yet I cant seem to get better
Please Mum forgive me?

Stacey Orford

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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)