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Best Poems Written by Gail Manwell

Below are the all-time best Gail Manwell poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Mystery of the Starry Night By Edvard Munch

the unheard-of starry night
subdued in colors
no bright
swirls
no blaze of fire
but a mist of mysterious night
reflected stars in flight
textured strokes
dark land
uncertain shapes
essence of the night
broken by dots of white
broken by line of fence
fence broken by a
shadow
who could it be?
who goes there in the night
that can’t be right
a trick
of the eye
no not here
the unheard-of starry night

Details | Gail Manwell Poem

Failed Attempt At Humor

You can’t understand how that sounds.
You laugh, but you look like clowns.
Don’t repeat the joke. Don’t assail
my ears with what you would call a humorous tale.
I don’t have the patience for this. My head pounds.

I’d rather eat coffee grounds
than listen to your waste of nouns.
But heaven forbid you notice this detail.
	You can’t understand.

Your obliviousness astounds.
It begins to escape the bounds
of what reality should entail.
Yet you seem infinitely able to exhale
nonsense. There is so much about you which confounds.
	You can’t understand.

Details | Gail Manwell Poem

Tastes Like Home

The salmon tasted like the seashore, 
like salty air and gulls crying,
flying overhead on the cold breeze. 

It tasted like relatives coming together
around a picnic table, laughing,
talking as the feast is spread,
as the ocean stretches endlessly right beside us. 

It tasted like lobster, red and spiny,
like melted butter and messy hands slipping,
gripping a metal nutcracker around the hard shell.

It tasted like Maine beaches,
a maze of shifting,
settling rocks, continuing all the way
from the trees on one side to the water on the other. 

It tasted like seaweed, washed up on the rocks,
covering the ground closest to the water in a slippery,
slimy layer of wet danger, waiting for you to fall.

It tasted like tidal pools, filled with tiny life,
with mini orange or green crabs that scuttled under cover,
and snails that hide in their shells when you pick them up,
but come out if you hum to them.

It tasted like wave-tossed pebbles,
like scavenger hunts for sparkling treasure, glass
past bottles thrown away, trash, and I am ‘another man.’ 

The salmon tasted like the seashore,
like salty air and gulls circling above the water.
I put down my fork and closed my eyes,
transported back into a realm of memories I’d somehow forgotten.

Details | Gail Manwell Poem

Weather They'Re Right Or Not

A storm blew over, brightening
the town with fast, white, lightening. 
Their weatherman was wrong
the “clear skies” were gone.
All in all, it was quite frightening.

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Without Sunlight

Without
the sun to shine
some slowly lose their will.
Some, however, thrive in darkness.
I do.

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Old Books

Do you smell that:
The perfume of ancient ages?
   Do you smell that,
which is held in perfect format?
Kept in the bottles of pages,
from the time of antique sages.
   Do you smell that?

Details | Gail Manwell Poem

Winter Knocked In Vain

Winter knocked 
but no one answered.
Since Summer went on holiday 
and Spring is still in bed. 
Autumn hears but is sunk so deeply, 
so comfortably
into the pumpkin colored easy chair 
that it cannot be bothered 
to get up and relinquish 
the leaves off the trees 
or the puffs of dandelion seeds 
or the ghost of a warm breeze 
which haunts the days. 
So, Winter knocks in vain.