Poetry and Creative Writing for All

Keith Robson

I am a 61 year old man living in Northumberland, who has been writing poetry for only the last four years, gaining great enjoyment from it. I mostly enjoy writing rhymed work, as opposed to prose, Rhymed work is beautiful, as long as it is done properly, and interwoven with good imagery, although I do write quite a bit of prose also.

Vigil

Every evening at nine
she turns on the light
at the end of the hall,
and it filters
through
cream lace,
crystallizing
 raindrops
as they fall
upon the ground,
calling to the darkness
with its
shining silent sound,
and listening
with the patience
of a never ending song
for those
softly muffled
footfalls
to walk up
her lonely lane,
through the swirling
Autumn shadows
and the dancing
crystal rain,
so that she
can draw the curtains
like a cloak
upon the night,
and she can sing
in quiet whispers
as she
switches off
the light...

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Reflections

The trouble with reflections
is they always slip away,
like leaves upon the water
drifting into yesterday,
like Monet's water lilies
in a misty mirrored sky,
they blossom for a moment
but eventually die.

Reclining in a row boat
on a ghostly painted lake,
the flowers fade and vanish
in my gently swirling wake,
just a silver sad reflection
of a painting that I knew,
like a half forgotten daydream
in my memories of you.

Propped against an oak tree
by a bubbling Summer stream,
I seem to see you smiling
in the water's hazy gleam,
and I try to touch your image
but you shyly move away,
like the leaves upon the water
on your way to yesterday...

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Down by the endless sea

Down and down by the endless sea,
past dreaming stones
and drunken spires,
the same old song is calling me,
and we may meet
perhaps by chance,
down and down by the endless sea.

Down and down to the harbour side,
through ancient streets
of cobbled stone,
where shadowed silken secrets glide,
to walk with us
and show the way,
down and down to the harbour side.

Down and down to the painted sand,
remembering
the way we were,
I kissed the moon upon your hand,
you took my arm
we strolled along,
down and down to the painted sand.

Down and down in the depths of me,
I keep you safe
within my heart,
for what we share shall always be,
a timeless
gold eternity,
down and down in the depths of me...

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Diamond

A polished stone has many sides
a face has many names,
a dream is sometimes hidden
in a fire's dancing flames,
reminiscence is a song
that often sings to me,
to soothe me with the magic
of the way we used to be.

A memory is a diamond
with its facets and its fire,
with its unrelenting beauty
and its unfulfilled desire,
just the brilliance of a sunset
on a long forgotten shore,
like a shining golden beacon
to the land of once before.

There's a book that tells the story
of a dream I couldn't keep,
it just tumbled into yesterday
and gently fell asleep,
and when the ashes whispered softly
in the dying fire's glow,
and the eyes I loved were empty
then I knew I had to go...

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Unanswered echoes

I walked with you again
on the cliff top
by the Abbey,
while the gulls were weaving patterns
in the lonely
evening skies,
while the silver spires gleamed
on the harbour's
tired trawlers,
as the sunset kissed the ocean
in the mirror
of your eyes.

I thought of you reflecting
by the dreaming
cross of Caedmon,
as his psalms of past remembrance
gently lingered
in the air,
and for just a fleeting moment
in my purple
twilight nocturne,
I could feel you stood beside me
I could sense
that you were there...

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Geisha Whispers

Moonlight crying on white linen, fingering
lace curtains, glancing apprehensively
at distorted reflections peeping
through Waterford crystal
framed in silver,
a silence
almost apologetic
creeping through my room,
trying hard not to disturb
the softly sleeping gloom.

Melting gently through my bedroom wall,
wind chimes, barely heard
bamboo sighs,
Geisha
whispered words
that penetrate my sleep
with velvet promises from far away
I feel their kiss upon my eyes,
after the waking of the dawn
before the night wind dies.

Liquid noises scattered on the day
nudge my slumber, quietly
taking my hand,
waiting
for my eyes to see
through softly misted windows
almost imperceptible visions,
fading remnants of the night,
retreating shadows settled down
to sleep away the night...

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