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Best Poems Written by Barry Freeman

Below are the all-time best Barry Freeman poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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The Arrival of Sound

Once upon a long time,
The silence blanketed my world
Like snow covering an arctic forest.

The nooks and crannies of my days
Were filled with the wispy webs of quietude 
Worked by whispering limbs

Mine was a vast tundra
Of silence
Across which great unheard herds 
Of thoughts could roam
Freely, gambol and graze
Encountering nothing to disturb them

Rivulets of words
Gathered and trickled
Over the schisty shingles
Of my mind

Eons passed

But one cold, silent, snow flaked January morning
A pioneer strode manfully, meaningfully
Into my wilderness without warning.

Falling in love with all that he saw
He began to sharpen his axe.

Now the hordes of herds have all but disappeared
And the rivulets have been dammed and channelled
Into a thousand subterranean pipes
And there is TV and MTV and DVD and MP3
And my world
Is rich with sound.

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Another Lifetime

Goodbye to Sunday, Today is Monday
So I switch to auto-drive.
It’s a cold, grey steel-edged dawn
And I curse the fates that I was ever born
As I head off to work with my face down-drawn
And shout a goodbye to my wife.

It’s a cold grey, spitting day.
So I stay on auto-drive
I check my watch at the factory gate.
It tells me I’m ten minutes late.
There’s no time to even contemplate
That someone’s having the time of my life.

Every day goes this way
So I stay on auto-drive
I clock in and clock out.  I’m left in no doubt
Someone’s having the time of my life.
I work through the days in a robotic daze.
How else am I supposed to survive
When from Monday to Friday, no day is my day?
I’m just the boss’ from nine-to-five.

Then at night the television shows me a vision
Of a world that’s been so contrived
That I know when I own all the things I’ve been shown
I finally will have arrived.


I live for the weekends when being with my friends
Is the only time I feel alive.
I’ll give up one day but it’s once again Monday
So I’m back on to auto-drive.

There’s no use moaning; It’s just Monday morning
And the cold dawn cuts like a knife.
								
© Barry Freeman - January 2003

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In Sandy On a Sundy

In Sandy on a Sund’y
Can’t even buy a pie
The High Street is a ghost town
From some Kafkaesque sci-fi.
Not a single caf is open
No point in asking ‘Why?’
So I’ll just go down
To the Rose and Crown
And give their roast a try.

The film set has now altered
To a Sergio Leone
The barman with the hang-dog look
Is sitting all alone.
I enquire after Sunday Lunch
His reply comes Brummily spoken.
‘No food today,
I’m afraid to say.
The chef’s right arm is broken.’

So homeward I trudge
To a can of stodge
That I’d been keeping handy
And I curse the day
I decided to stay
In this Sabbath-subserving Sandy.

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Dad

You were not perfect
But you were good.
You were decent
And I have only recently
Understood
The true meaning
Of that word
And what it can cost.
You were a man whose moral compass
Never seemed to falter,
Whose honesty would not alter
No matter what, in consequence, you lost.

You stood there quietly firm
Committed, through ups and downs,
To providing a safe home
For your wife and your three sons;
A solid rock upon which 
We have been able to build with ease.


In these steps I have tried to follow
Often stumbling; sometimes falling,
Falling short of the mark you set
But you always forgave my folly
Forgiving my hurtful failing
And this, above all, I’ll not forget.

(C) Barry Freeman - 21st March 2019

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Tag You'Re It

The following poem is a poem trouvee made from a collection of movie poster tag lines.

Let’s play a game
When he comes home
It’s date night
Ready or not here he comes
It’s date night
When the darkness comes
It’s date night
Some homes are born evil
It’s date night

Fear comes full circle
He knows where you sleep
He’ll shatter your dreams
Into your dreams he’ll creep.

Let’s play house.
Who will be his bride tonight?
Till death do you part.
Sharing is scaring.
The tell-tale heart
Love never dies; it kills
And if you love chills and thrills 
It’ll be the night of your life.
It’s date night.
A night to die for.
Evil has a destiny and 
Tonight evil gets raw.
It’s date night.
Will it ever stop?
A different set of jaws
You’ve been warned
It’s date night
You’ll be dead by dawn
Cause if you don’t wake up screaming,
You won’t wake up at all.

Details | Barry Freeman Poem

Flat City Interrogative

When I was younger
My lover died from hunger
For God had not flung her
His scraps from the sky
So I covered her over
Neath the cold clay and clover
I buried my lover
Where the hungry all lie

In Flat City, that city
Where I heard the people cry
It taught us and brought us
A reason to die

Then I drank myself numb
Of that Flat City slum
For the trucks had ceased to come
And the taps had run dry.
So I prayed for death to score me
But she chose to ignore me
And as though she never saw me
She simply passed me by.

In Flat City, that city,
Where I waited for reply
But its answers were just chances
To repeat the question, “Why?”

Details | Barry Freeman Poem

In His Image

In the religion
Of the pigeon
Possessing a feathered pinion
Stands as proof of the opinion
That the pigeon holds dominion
Over all creation

For in the Holy Word
Of this enlightened bird
It is the avian creed,
That not intelligence, but speed
Is the gift that God decreed
For this, His chosen nation.

So in their highest perches
That serve them as their churches
The bird world’s chosen few
Will strut toward their pew
And with bowing neck will coo
In pious adulation.

©  Barry Freeman - July 2016

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I Walk In Fear

It doesn't matter what I wear 
Still I walk alone at night in fear. 
It doesn't matter what I say or think 
Or whether I've had too much to drink 
Whether I'm black or brown or white 
Still I walk alone in fear at night. 

I walk and avoid the shadows deep
Where dangers stalk and strangers creep
And I seek out every well-lit haven
Hoping to be seen by someone brave
Enough to come to my aid
As I walk alone at night afraid.

When I hear some footsteps close behind 
I tell myself, for peace of mind, 
It's just coincidence that they're there. 
Maybe they too walk alone in fear. 
But my heart pounds and my stomach grows tight 
As I walk alone in fear at night.

I walk down the middle of the street
To be clearly seen by those I meet
And walk around, never across, the park
For I walk alone in fear in the dark
When someone comes near, I’ll be on my phone
For I walk in fear at night alone.

It shouldn’t matter where I’ve been
It shouldn’t matter who I’ve seen
Visiting friends or working late
Seeing a film or on a date.
I should be free to be on my own
But in fear, I walk at night alone.

I should feel free to take in the stars
To walk by the river instead by cars
To fill my lungs with a night-scented flower
To go to a bar and not care of the hour
But you men who prowl take great delight
That I walk alone in fear at night..

Details | Barry Freeman Poem

The Lone Wolf

The lone wolf; 
The lean wolf
The big bad wolf am I.
I walk, I prowl, 
I stalk, I howl
At the moon in a wind-whipped sky.

Slack of jaw
And sharp of claw
The wicked wolf am I.
I walk, I howl, 
I stalk, I prowl
With hunger in my eye.

When the snow drifts
And the wind lifts
You can hear my chilling cry
As I howl and walk 
And prowl and stalk 
The rabbit running by.

You never see
The other me:
The soft and gentle side.
The she-wolf mother
Who has another
For whom she must provide.

My darling fair
Asleep in the lair
As innocent as a lamb
Must be kept alive 
Or she won’t survive.
This too is who I am

This other wolf
This mother wolf
This wolf of the Tundra wild
Who walks the night 
In the pale moonlight
Fearing for the life of her child.

The lone wolf
The lean wolf 
Returning to my lair
To find my cub
My plump little chub
Softly sleeping there.

Details | Barry Freeman Poem

Acrostic Sonnet

Acrostic Sonnet

Bright morning star that, in the frosty dawn enfurled,
Arrives like a fleeting herald of the sun,
Return, I beg, to your nocturnal world.
Return and let this silent hour run
Yet a while.  Leave her in my arms to pause
Locked in this frozen twilit time.
Overturn all the temporal laws.
Vanquish therewith each clock and chime.
Eternity spent by my love’s side
Should seem like seconds racing on
Keen seconds, that pass with a marching stride
And leave me wondering where they’ve gone
Till nothing have I within my power
Except to hang upon this silent hour.