Poetry and Creative Writing for All

The Top 5 Poems of the Month

June 2007

	Clive Atkins is now a Featured Poet! Read his biography and more of his poems

Urban Housewife Werewolf

Each day offers a brand new twist
Wiping the venom from your kiss
Skirting ‘round the elements of bad taste
Indifference and resistance, what a waste
Camouflaged feelings hidden inside
Unfinished arguments left to ride
Picking up the pieces day after day
Surely there must be a better way
Melodramatic departures acted out each day
Like actors in a second rate play
An awakening of love real strange
You’re spitting feathers and beginning to change
But, I can see what’s hidden beneath
You’re growing hairy and clenching your teeth
And when the evening comes you’re full of charm
Commonsense tells me I should be setting my alarm
I cannot leave; I’m charmed by your spell
But, I’m on another journey to a living hell
Set me free before it’s to late
Set me free before I become your bait
You’re an urban housewife werewolf lady
And you’re driving me, driving me crazy

Clive Atkins

Top

Here are the other four winning poems for this month.

Global Warming?

Our world is getting warmer
That’s what we’re told today
And if we do not mend our ways
An unknown price must pay.
For oceans will get larger
As the ice caps disappear
Then seas will rise and swallow up
Our land and homes we fear.
The polar bear will be no more
For there will be no ice
And lots of far off native folk
Will pay a fearful price
We say, we can avoid all this
By not using fossil fuel
Then our world will be a better place
A clean, and shining jewel.
But, if we are so certain
And our ways so good and true
Why is there war and pestilence
Famine and hatred too?
Perhaps this global warming
Should give us food for thought
And to address an unfair world.
Where life is cheap and bought
Hunger, death, and cruelty,
Are rife in many lands
Yet still we go our selfish ways
With heads deep in the sand.
For as we eat those foreign foods
Or drink good vintage wine
That cost is borne by the world’s poor
And they’re running, out of time.

Ian A Morrison

Top

Soaked and Left

Top

Autumn 1969

Elms are flared with yellow;
Oaks turn bronze;
Mist swirls along the furrow;
The year grows old.
And the beech trees stand
Root-deep in discarded gold.
I, squirrel-like secrete
About the hollows of my mind
Jewels
To hang upon the world
At other times
When all within
Is uniformly grey,
When poetry fades
And reason
Faces the light of day.
But words cannot retain
Such images;
Only their ghosts remain,
Reminding me how
Through the autumn mist
I prayed involuntary prayers
Of gratitude
To gods that did not exist.

Daffni Percival

Top

Innocent Love

Nothing more than innocence
Flowing white drapes from her skin
Flaxen hair relaxing on her shoulders
Eyes the deepest blue of purity
Lips the darkest of rouge

Waiting – ever waiting
On that mere mortal
Who holds the rusty key to her dreams
So full of etiquette
So full of compassion

It’s funny-
It’s weird-
How amazing one
Person can make another feel

Just by their smile
Their touch
Their smell
Their taste

This innocent girl -
She’s been waiting years
Just for him to come along
To make her feel alive
A mere human being
To give her everything
Anything-
She doesn’t want roses
Or Chocolate
Or a handmade poem-

She wants to be in every beat of his heart
In every breath he takes
The hand that he holds
Her fingers entwined with his-

No, Wait –
She doesn’t want him, she needs him
And secretly – desperately …
He needs her too

Anne-Marie Sane

Top

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)