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Best Poems Written by Michele Fermanis-Winward

Below are the all-time best Michele Fermanis-Winward poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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The Memory of Lemon Juice, Gaza 2024

The Memory of Lemon Juice, Gaza 2024


The scent of leaves
we placed between our clothes
no moths would dare to eat
but these we left behind

the fruit we sliced, summer ripe 
packed in salt and sealed
preserved for later use
among the rubble of our home

my mother squeezed one each day
the drink she said
which gave her strength
but did not save her from the blast

before the bombs began
no home appeared complete
without its lemon tree
we cannot see where ours once grew

now we live in tents
wait hours in line for rice and mash
with our battered begging tins
the only things we own today

we talk and dream of food
recall the taste we crave
of boughs weighed down with fruit 
from the tree that blessed our lives.

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The Bitter Soil, Gaza 2024

The Bitter Soil, Gaza 2024

Earth, Gaia, mother of us all
wars defile her sacred gifts
we sow the dead like seeds
reap a harvest from our guns

in this shattered land
charred by hate and want
hospitals plant mass graves
no dignity in these deaths

infants wrapped side by side
flowers of their native dirt
plucked newborn buds 
where only wreaths are grown.

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A Prayer for Poetry

A Prayer for Poetry

Our ears are closed
made deaf by greater powers
the ones who believe
Palestine offers us no art
its people have no right
to share in our world

writers cannot bloom
among the falling bombs
blood and shattered bones
are not the soil they need
phones no longer ring
and paper can’t be found

poets write inside
the lids of their eyes
hum verses to themselves
to drown the noise of guns
each one holds a prayer
their death will be clean

but through the dust
the crash of falling homes
art will find its breath
reach for the light and shout
spread vibrant leaves above 
the rubble of today.

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Unseasonal

Unseasonal

Leaves shuffle on their stems
fall onto ones which fell before
not yet a storm of Autumn tints 
those will blaze in a month

these are an early shedding host
that leave before the cold appears
in months of heat and sweaty brows
what signal do they heed

still green among the fallen fruit
now turning into soft brown dirt
as fresh shoots spring into the light
rosebuds plump in April sun

no hint of cooler nights to come
our evenings set to dine outside
with singlet days of Summer skies
this pleasure now declines

too long, too wet, too hot we cry
as humans always must complain
the tropics stretching south to us
our discomfort metres rise

none can say we’ve time to burn
or urge us spin the wheel and wait
the dial is set for our demise
for life to build a kinder race.

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The Chinese Pistachia

The Chinese Pistachia


You came to us

a fragile seedling child

with so many names 

that did not fit

your grace and lithefulness


each season of your growth

and vibrant orange change

I feared you’d not survive

the harshness of our home

its frost and stoney ground


but here you stand today

outside my dining room

where I can watch

the play of sun and cloud

upon your arching stems


you flex against our storms

your delicate attire

belies a stubbornness

one ruby fruit that fell to earth

and now I know your name.

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Enchantment

Enchantment

Love is not the opposite of hate
that fiery passion
which turns against our heart
like a python through the blood
constricting life

love is what we yearn for
to create delicious selves
the flavouring in our lives
it is a thief that creeps upon us
or steals us from the start

of all the humours
love believes itself supreme
the drug we cannot do without
we are joyful in its midst
or a victim of its curse.

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Leaving Gently


Each morning as I wake
my eyes will seek the sky
be it blue or heavy overcast
my spirit lifts in flight -
to behold the natural world 
is a miracle of being

when I reach my final hour 
let the light touch my skin
no shadow’s cloying weight
give me a room bathed in sun
or a view of rain quenched earth 
trees flush with living green

let it be an ordinary day
familiar as I’ve often spent
with nothing overwrought -
a bird may cry overhead
perhaps some errant clouds
like me     passing out of sight.

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Unseaworthy

Unseaworthy

I creak like an old ferry 
coming in to meet the wharf
mindful of less agile passengers

but like a wayward skiff
my thoughts soon override the pier
bounce against its rails, veer off

impatient with each lurch and bump
engines churn, make the waters flounce
I want to glide, admire my wake

I’m taking longer at drydock 
and can’t maintain this tight routine
too many layers patch my hull 

beneath the waterline, barnacles itch
and I can feel those worms at work 
I’m eager for an obscure berth.

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The Passion

The Passion

It was a burning need
the desire to hold and hoard
not cars or rare antiques
but small and natural things

coloured stones from a beach
pales driftwood’s sculpted forms
parrots’ feathers of every hue
and discarded skin of a snake

such wonders of diversity
a bower built of treasured finds
until they overwhelmed my home
overtook the room for me.

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On Dreaming

On Dreaming

They are butterfly wings
delicate and fragile thoughts
mere wisps of memory -
ideas strung like gossamer
between the branches of our minds

embrace this gentle play
daydreamers frittering time
too soon the norms of turbulence 
will weight the hours we spend - 
snatch joy where you can.