Poetry and Creative Writing for All

The Top 5 Poems of the Month

January 2008

	Michael Bryant is now a Featured Poet! Read his biography and more of his poems

Shipwrecked

Sailing swift I ride the pride of my fleet,
Feels like I’m a legend swept off his feet,
Like I’m an admiral to them all but my heart sails to one,
My pride sails faster and funnier than it’s ever done.

Smash-Crash! Her hull tears with a crunch,
Crushing wood like Jaws at lunch,
Splash! She drowns in memory’s sea blue,
I’m tossed off, old pancakes for new.

Heart thrown out into a frantic blender of a sea,
Behind my ship’s memory goes under without me,
Leaving me to struggle up and down dodging waves,
As my fleet cares not for the loss of their braves.

Fading out into that twilight zone,
Grieving that I’ll soon be all alone,
Body fades out like a lamp at dawn,
Heart wishes it was still safe- still unborn.

Then finally I’m thrown out of the whale’s mouth,
In a land not mine, not the North or the South,
I peel myself up off the beach like sunburnt skin,
To find no one knows the first thing of my name or kin.

But my eyes find one comfort in the sky’s dome,
The lighthouse in the rocks looks the same as in my home,
So I run blindly to what stays the same,
To what may still, even after all, know my name.

Michael Bryant

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Here are the other four winning poems for this month.

Buy your Side

Lost confused bewildered
In a world without a care
That same familiar person
Though the spark’s no longer there
A smile of recognition
Scarcely lingers on their face
The memories of moments past
Are lost without a trace
You live in hope that someday
Things will be just like before
But you see the light diminish
With the shutting of the door
And that someone that you love
Is not the someone that you knew
The face is still familiar
And they look like me or you
But the moods swing like a pendulum
From happiness to rage
And you feel that you’re the villain
On the thrillers final page
As you watch your world unravel
Feeling helplessly alone
Till you find the help and lifeline
From somebody on the phone
Who understands the problems
That you’re facing every day
And can offer some assistance
In a sympathetic way
Whilst your loved one lives regardless
In their world content and safe
Sometimes back for just an instant
Loving smiles upon their face
And the tears you keep well hidden
Can’t stay hidden anymore
And you know your love’s unboundless
And you know what love is for
Never ceasing never ending
Taking each day in your stride
Hand in hand with your emotions
And Alzheimer’s by your side

David Whitney

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Moon/Radiator

A defrayed moon swings far out from the earth
On an oiled hinge, soundlessly into a
Flotilla of planets interloped between the sun
On new moorings; it's grey lunar dust
Cutting through our window's blinds slices our skin
Into ivory and grey divisions, into bands that
Wash over us in bed, backwards and forward
As the TV flicks its ashened pixels at us,
And Belsen's cruelty is inaudible in the set.
The trees outside are with wiry glints
And stand impervious in the frost
And hale, imprinting shadows on the ground
Too cold to bear any sudden movements.
The night's sky is sutured by constellations
Even the scantest knowledge can inspect,
Though their terrible forecast on history's fate
Is a silent enigma. The trembling stokes of the stars
Under the open arras are only partly diminished
By the queer orange streetlights and the signature
Of paint distinguishing its schemes on roads.
We turn the radiator on and listen to the alien metal,
Inside the casket the ruptured heat reaching
Through the heavy vacuum as it darkly moles
In and out of the grills inoculating the air with its
Slovenly gas, enough to pull us apart in bed.
Light is expanding in the heat burning the bastard
Salt from us all night until birds can be heard
Re-entering the forest's unbarred prison
And the trees trail their own shadowed angles
As the sun heads over the sky.

Stephen Hughes

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Grumpy old Christmas

Dark fog in short blank days
A season to be cheery within religious haze
Even in November the brain wash begins
Shop till you drop to cover your sins
Gifts for feelings and gifts for love
Good deeds are required from those above
It’s on the telly in a commercial frenzy
Not being kind is not very trendy
On through December gaining thrust
Glittering trash and spend till you bust
Not me now I tell myself
Leave the presents unsold on the shelf
I’ll just sit at home with no decorations
I can’t be deceived then with no expectations
The TV’s switched off to spare the blasphemous news
I’ll just read a book and stick to my own views
Turn down the heating to save the planet
Cancel the turkey and don’t be a gannet
Strangely though I keep hearing the phone
Such a nuisance if you want to be alone
It seems to get louder as Christmas approaches
Invites to parties as gloom encroaches
I pace the room fighting temptation
Sucked right in like the whole damn nation
What the heck, well go on then?
I can always tape grumpy old men
Jump in the shower, sing a carol
Down to the pub, sup a barrel

John Foster

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As the Curtain is Drawn

Sunshine flickers through the tainted glass
The branches sway swiftly on the grand yew trees
But the curtain is drawn
And the light disappears.

The sky is a bright, turquoise blue
The birds gracefully soaring through the air
But the curtain is drawn
And the light disappears.

They march boldly down the long, dark path
With their heads bowed as a mark of respect
Soft, gentle music can be heard faintly
But as the curtain is drawn...

A life disappears.

Charlotte Caulkin

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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)