Poetry and Creative Writing for All

The Top 5 Poems of the Month

December 2007

	Margaret Pedley is now a Featured Poet! Read her biography and more of her poems

Racing the Train 1955

Two dusty schoolboys sit by the railway tracks,
School uniforms the worse for wear!
Stolen hours on a summers day!
"The train’s coming," shouts one,
With one accord they race down the embankment,
Out of sight crouched under the bridge they wait!
The train is almost upon them,
The deafening roar in their ears obliterates all else!
Billows of smoke descend to the ground in the windless air,
Holding their breath the two emerge and the race begins!
Hearts thump, adrenalin rushes through their bodies.
"Yes, yes, yes", they shout waving their arms,
The driver waves an angry fist!
All too soon the guards van passes them,
The train disappears!
Exhausted and exhilarated the boys sink to the ground.
They roll around laughing until their sides ache!

Years later two old men sitting on a park bench reminisce,
‘Racing the train,’
In those beautiful years!

Margaret Pedley

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Here are the other four winning poems for this month.

Train to Simla

The train is a heavy-headed cobra, haunting
Moonless miles of Punjab. I am numbed
Sleepless by the bench’s wooden ardor,
My desire still an on-going journey through
This unfathomable foreign infinity.

Travelers are stacked in cramped compartments,
Bulging like soft baggage, faces sweating,
Creased as damp punjabis, fingers flickering
Like the insects they brush away. The night
Porter passes, torch in hand, a phantom
Surveying his own somber realm.

Here, night never sleeps. It’s dawn’s
Scarlet tracks that halt the hours’ progress.
As I follow the fleeting silver wing
Of the new day, mind turns inward toward
Shaded paths of thought.

The Himalayan landscape rushes by,
A legend in dark green, punctuated
By sharp commands of fire, a flash
Of bright-feathered silk, a moment colored
With brilliant petals, the forest ephemeral
On earth’s ever-grinding wheels.

The engine heaves it weight up the mountain,
Village after village quaking on the steep slope
Where no eye can fasten and breath’s arrested
By the ice-bound air. The tracks precipitate beyond
The senses, splintering the traveler’s experience,
Confusing the image of what I’d hoped to reach.

Here, I am a nomad, my true condition.
I have no destination. I live in a world
Of motion and distance. The train stops
At Simla, terminus, all change.

Sara Brummer

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Shadow People

I feel the fear as I step through the room,
the goose-flesh on my skin I sensed before.
The dark discloses now impending doom –
no chance I could take flight through open door.

These shadow folk don't have a human face,
But in the twilight or the witching-time
they loom unbidden, with no thought of grace
or mercy, only menace or a crime.

They float from wall to wall, not seeming real –
the male with hat to hide his eyeless shape.
A cloaked companion glides, her form surreal.
I quiver as I gawp with mouth agape.

Oh Lord, preserve me from these silent frights,
or furnish me with exorcising rites.

Christine Bridson - Jones

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Commuter

Hear the chugging coming, Shuffle foot to foot,
Stand patient in the line, finally pushing coins into a Slot.
Poke a ticket in a hole, let free through iron arms,
Rushing down a stairway, that one got away!

Puffing in tired and weary, doors slam open wide,
Push in with cold slabs of meat, like sardines side to side.
Feel raw breath upon my face, and meet the lion’s glare,
Swinging on the cold bars, returning the hostile stare.

More robotics entering, pushing in squeezed up tight,
Rigid faces set in stone, carcasses of flesh and bone.
‘Next stop Holborn, change for the Central Line’
Wade through converging tunnels, shuffle with the zombie line.

Step onto the stairway, motionless to the right,
Wonder at the Orangutans, flying past and out of sight.
Feel fresh air upon my face, as rush hour is sustained,
Back among the human race, until tomorrow comes again.

Susan Vango

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Lexy

The angel-dust falls from my sleepy cherub as she stirs

She stretches out her arms and casts one of those spells of hers

A cheeky smile breaks out across her face

And I know the naughty fairy has taken the angel’s place

She tumbles out of bed and shouts the house awake

It’s only five o’clock, whoops her mistake

She has no need for clocks, she wastes no time

Every second invested in mischief and infant crime

Drawing on walls and smearing herself with paint

She is my little angel but she is no saint

She doesn’t have time to walk, she’s on the run

In a world which is always pink she needs no sun

Dolls to dress and puzzles to make

She glitters and sparkles and giggles and shakes

Out in the garden she spreads her wings to fly

A brown-eyed corkscrew-curled butterfly

She does a dance for me and I applaud

I could watch her all day long and not get bored

Under her arm she clutches a much loved friend

Spencer Bear is there each day at start and end

As she snuggles up to me and tweaks her button nose

I watch my sleepy angel take off the fairy’s clothes

I kiss her beautiful olive cheeks goodnight

I know the other angels will be watching her tonight

Jenny Avery

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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)