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Sam Kelly Winner of our Top 5 Poets of August 2005 Online Competition Sam Kelly, my pen name, is an indication of how I see my poetry and how I relate to it. Using a different name makes my writing a performance, like an actor assuming a stage persona, and it helps me empathise with the people that I imagine myself to be. My work has always reflected things that have happened to me or others I know, but in using this mythical person I can stretch my own experiences and relate to other areas. In reality I am 49 year old male, born and bred in the south west of England. I started writing poetry in my teens but stopped when one of my grammar school English teachers, decided that I was not capable of writing the prose that I had presented to him, and asked me from where I had copied it. I then stopped writing until last year, some thirty years on, when, after leaving the Civil Service to become self employed, I found I had some time to myself. One of those poems from my teenage years was recently accepted for inclusion in the Poppy Fields 2005 anthology, published by Poetry Now, and if I find that teacher, I may very well give him a copy of the book. The poem of the month ‘Poisoned Justice’ was my reaction to the recent acquittals of parents accused of killing their babies, on the evidence of a now disgraced ‘expert’ witness. A Taste of Your Love A bright summer morning greets me with a shower of light I watch you sleeping, breathing softly, lost in your dreams I want to capture the moment in a locket close to my heart The sun warm on my back, I sit by the window, as in homage Worshipping your beauty, your magic, your essence, your spirit The curtains moving slightly in a gentle breeze of overwhelming silence I quietly pray, asking that this scene could last an eternity of seasons Like an old Master’s canvas, etched on the ceiling of my existence You turn and move, not waking from your untroubled consciousness I am smothered by the need to hold you close, to confirm your reality But constrained by the splendour of the picture, I freeze and wait Comforted by my immeasurable devotion and everlasting adoration Knowing that within minutes you will wake, and grasp the day And once more I will live again, fulfilled by the taste of your love Night, Night Mum … I sit
still holding her hand,
gently stroking her
fingers Hours pass I sit
wiping her brow, tracing
the lines with my fingers Hours pass Her
breathing laboured, out of
time with my tapping Minutes pass All is
still now, and I weep,
wringing my hands and
fingers No time left A Devon and Cornwall Childhood Rolling
hills and water mills Golden
beach, girls who teach Seagulls
squawking, lovers talking Smuggling
spirit, birds that look
fit I felt
surrounded but never
hounded Burnt
in my soul, never the fool The Victim Sometimes
I feel it was my fault Sometimes
I need to be hurting Sometimes
I wish I was not me Sometimes
I need to seek refuge Sometimes
I think I’ll get better To My Son You
are growing fast now You
were home at Christmas It was
not long ago that we
chased you round I want
to be a good father I have
no regrets, I never have
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