Poetry and Creative Writing for All

Daniel Exall

	Daniel Exall won our Top 5 Poems of the Month Online Competition - August 2006

Born in a village called Todmorden, just inside the West Yorkshire border I was always a bit of a pain as a child. We moved around a little and by the time I begun secondary I’d been to three primary schools, the second in Bacup, the third back in Todmorden. I might have felt I didn’t fit in when I finally did arrive.

My parents separated when I was thirteen. I’d already begun to stray off the beaten track - I’ve always been a little of a black sheep. My father died when I was eighteen, since then life has dictated I become a little too familiar with bereavement for my liking.

Around the age of twenty-one I picked up my education in music technology where I had left it a few years earlier, eventually completing my HND in Preston, and on and off I continue to produce music. I moved back to Hebden Bridge for a couple of hedonistic years, and have recently relocated to London. I consider myself a lucky man.

Some of my experiences have been quite troubling, and the amount of effort it has taken to work through, and past these periods has been phenomenal. For me this writing is almost self-clarification, and I certainly find it an essential tool.

I’m not sure what I’m making available to readers other than points of interest (or concern!) I find sometimes a strange beauty in all of them, and I do hope that some people can find the same.

Farmers

The incessant pounding of life’s heartbeat
surely stifles more eloquent forms of thought
my blunted wits about me simple tasks
I find are now a battle fought
with a colonial effort I struggle, unhinged
in this increasingly monochrome world
cynicism an unwelcome visitor
just walk away son - this oyster holds no pearl
how I long for the day that I can rest
a time again of colour and sweet smells
my distressed machine is winding down
and I know not where my wonder dwells
I find myself lost in this damaged affair
my mind’s precious reserves are wearing thin
and ever decreasing periods of calm
hold little comfort as I rest within
soon surely the pickets will rise
protesters of a furious bent
the imposed duty is too much
and the farmers grow discontent

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Free Love

After all
and after all

how I miss you

there's no need in me anymore
no craving to ignore

with a smile i truly miss your ways
each day you make me love again

on my bare walls in my empty room
in my bare heart

I found my soul

I don't need to hold together
what should have come apart

my pieces spread I gather and I find myself to give

and in all the weather's moods i'll be...

this is the love I was meant to give
this is the love that was meant

I feel free

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All gone

give me a name
so you know me

tell me your story
though I’ve heard them all before

show me your hand
for as an ardent disbeliever
I know of nothing but myself

show me the sun rise over flowered fields
show me a lost world
show me fuck all

give me a cold heart
so this passing freeze I can bear

take my wonder
for as a dead kid in a dirty war
I find it’s wasted here

and softly
quietly
these empty streets I dare to tread

so
for a moment
tread them with me

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Godfood

here I sit with my pleasure
at the table of the gods
and the food is exquisite
and dining is for fools
would that I knew my mind’s pleasure
as my pleasure knows my mind
and I knew not for a second
and on the eighth day we dined
now my pleasure having tasted
cannot leave again with me
and I sit without my pleasure
and I long to forget
though I should leave my pleasure there 
I cannot leave it be
so for now I take my pleasure
as my pleasure takes me

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Know me

give a little : take a little
you say you have it all

I will take all that you have

and I stain
believe

bleak times

as some dark sun
on the world I shine

shine : you

I am only
your heart

pride : shame : warmth : tear

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Hollow

with this sickening regret
I choke

my precious words mean fuck all

this is bullshit
this is not for me

apologetic apoplectic

and I feel…

but not today
not today

for as my actions define me
so my actions defile me

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So Lost

what do I do with all this rawness
I don t know anything anymore
I feel so lost

this given devastates me
mirrors the emotional cost

selfish, irrational, heartfelt

for what you ask of me
I have no way to help

rawness, lost, regret

how much of me can go
before all of me becomes dead, empty, soulless

nothing meant

give me a cold heart
as I have said before

if only so easy to gloss over
to keep from touching me
to ignore

keep all yours to yourself
and like a shark through untroubled waters
I can glide

give me the cold, deep, dark water
and an age old creature’s whitened eyes

show me your soul
and the tears, the hollow, the rage
I cannot hide

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Submission Guidelines: Poems of no more than 30 lines in length each will be considered.