Poetry and Creative Writing for All

Paul Dawson

Winner of our Top 5 Poets of October 2003 Online Competition

I am 24 years old and I have been writing poetry since I was about eleven, I remember the first poem I wrote was about my mum. In my English class in school we had to write a poem about anything we wanted just as long as it rhymed, that’s when I first realised that I had a natural ability to write words into rhyme. Since then I have experimented with various styles but I usually write the poem in whatever style the poem comes out in. I have written hundreds of poems over the years and I’m glad to say my writers hand hasn’t dried up yet, whenever I feel any emotion my mind seems to turn the emotion into words, it’s a force of habit I guess, a way of reasoning with my feelings. I also write short stories as often as I can, their usually science fiction stories as I like anything out of the ordinary such as U.F.O’s or time travelling, I’m currently trying to write a novel about crop circles.

As far as my influences are concerned, I enjoy reading any poetry that has depth and where you can feel the emotion running between the lines. One of my favourite poets would have to be Sir John Betjeman; I especially love the poems Slough and Diary Of A Church Mouse. I love the way his poems glide along effortlessly and how he introduces the reader to so many different images. I am so grateful to Forward Press for choosing my poem to be October’s poem of the month. Six Feet Below was one of those poems where I wasn’t sure if it was a bad poem or a very good poem, I guess a writer is the worst critic of their own work, which makes it very hard to know which poems to send. I’m sure I will continue to write poetry for a long time to come, and I really enjoy reading the Forward Press anthologies, I have been in quite a few now and I am really proud for my poems to be alongside all the great talent out there.

Black Ghosts

Tempt not my evil mind,

Where wondering clouds tempt the ground,

Foresee me or forsake me,

Until my illusions deny their sound,

Is this a dream of my earliest memory?

Kindled fires still burning inside,

The shallow dreams of great discovery,

I fear them not for they never hide

The path stretches out across gorgeous summer days,

My mind wretchedly curious, so much life in bloom,

Some memories die for the mind begins to fray

Someday all to be left, me inside this room,

A first kiss, first touch, the only time of innocence,

Lost inside us all is the falling of the fence,

How I drank the sweet taste of childhood,

But to drink its glory is to consume its worth,

When did the shadows mark my body?

The darkness of the night latch on to my soul,

I bow down to the nettles on the ground,

For they sing of good intentions, neither friend nor foe

My thoughts will roll like thunder,

Across the aching path of life,

And this world won’t care nor wonder,

Of where I roll my half cut dice,

Sometimes the visionary world is unclear,

Only shadows appear like black ghosts,

Feelings tempt you away from your fear,

But to fear is to believe in the things you love most.

What Love?

Upon that venomous flower,

All my aches of love are flushed,

With no desire or power

These cheeks will never be blushed,

Among the unknown places I walk

Love hides forever more,

My heart tends only to stalk

Love for me is only to be adored.

Within my castle of cold air,

Passion blows right through

Love for me is only to stare,

My lips frozen and blue

If my hand can’t reach paradise,

Or touch the earth where flowers die

This heart is numb with frozen ice,

Love for me is only goodbye.

Of yesterdays like flowers anew

The dagger was to fall on me,

If I can touch the ground where flowers grew

My soul would rise above the free,

Split by reason of insanity

This world cradles a forgotten sun,

My heart just a rotting cavity

Where drugs nurse the aching numb.

If flowers and flies can beg for love,

Then I a man on his knees

If two loves for one is not enough,

Then I a man of great disease

If the flood can nurse within me,

Soothing warmth of gentle care

Take my love that will never flee,

And I will give what love to spare

We are always only a second away from death

Where we implode from the explosion of life,

As I see the flowers droop in winter’s garden,

The coil stagnant in the old grandfather clock,

I think how time will one day stand still for us all,

That are flowery bodies will one day droop,

Our inner wheel will all at once stop churning

Our eyes will no longer be the focal crutch of our lives

It shall not matter if our bodies bleed heavily,

Nor will it be seen that our skin is freshly washed

Our skin will not shiver in the winter cold,

Nor will we be warmed by a fire’s glow

Our mouths will not be blessed by freshly baked bread

Our noses will not draw in the fresh summer breeze

We will be as still as the trunks of massive oak trees,

As patient as insects caught in spiders webs,

We will not worry for tomorrows unpaid bills

Nor shall we remember to take our daily pills,

No words will tremble pass our silent lips,

Nor shall words be heard by our closed ears

And our final sleep will never see the morning,

Our face will never again stand among the crowd,

And a question will flounder passed a child’s lips

That demands to know where people go when they die

Among the shadowed hills

I hunt for your lonesome soul,

An apparition of your earthly ills

Rests uneasy upon your glow,

Come with your hidden wit

Rescue what’s left of my heart,

Your hand in mine’s the perfect fit

Please be lifted from out of the dark,

The world that you rest in

Rests uneasy upon my being,

If I could speak to you from within

I would shine a light on what you are seeing

Our hearts share the same beat

Our skin can be touched by fire,

Our world is touched by the same feet

Our holding for love reaches the same spire,

My world speaks of straight thought

Where yours is crippled by the jagged edge,

You are the same soul of love I caught

But know your mind has drawn a wedge,

Speak to me through your crippled words

Hang my thoughts high in your crazy sky,

Sing to me through the straight thinking birds

Find their wings and make them fly,

I see your tears fall from an empty capsule

You quench the thirst of straight thinking flowers,

But in your eyes I see where the confusion grew

To become the mountain of your lonely hours,

Talk to me as wisely as you seem inside yourself

Let my crazy love compete with your crazy mind,

A path must exist for me to find your mental health

But if not I wish for disease on my straight thinking mind.

A million waves have met this shoreline

Curled and crashed like so many loves,

And I see the stars that shine as if by design

Where the blood has spilt on God’s white doves

A sentimental soul has burned to ashes

His heart stopped dead in the summer heat,

I watch the wave and the rock it smashes

A lonely soul that waits in nature’s seat

The burning of my sweet heart desire

The lips I long to kiss sweet goodnight,

My beating chest that burns of desire

But all is gone when I turn out the light

Rejected to a place where no man should dwell

A place that’s as cold as any winter night,

My heart was wrong to trust the romantic well

But my mind still wants love without a fight

The echoes of heaven must bow to my grave

The grave where I envision moments of bliss,

Kindness I imagined and kindness I gave

One true love is the tale that I miss

Rock me to sleep past this aching pain

To forget my love is to remember the loneliness,

Sweetheart you must not stop the falling rain

To forget the pain is to forget the bliss

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