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Best Poems Written by Neil Mcleod

Below are the all-time best Neil Mcleod poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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A Ship In A Bottle
My great Grand Father sailed to New Zealand on a ship called the Wild Deer in 1872. I have always loved ships in bottles, and one day decided I would drain a pretty bottle of its contents and put the inspiration back inside. It took three months to complete the project.

It sits there on the sideboard
Or on the mantle shelf,
And after such a long time
You don’t notice it yourself.
But should you have a visitor
Or younger child come by
It will spark interest anew
And gasps of “Me oh my!”

It’s then the curious wonder
How the ship was put inside,
And where the opening’s concealed
And was it hard to hide?
And if you put it in there
How many times you tried?
And if it went in through the neck
How could it be so wide?

It’s then you tell the story
Of going to the store
To find a bottle of good clear glass
With a shape worth planning for.
Dimple Haig is famous,
Carduh’s pretty fair,
The first one is triangular,
The other one is square.

The bottle must be decanted,
When empty cleaned and dried,
And a careful measure taken
Of the dimensions inside.
It’s then you render drawings
Of the ship you want to make,
And plan out going backwards
Every step you’ll have to take.

First you carve the hull
Of wood with grain that’s fine,
Then step the masts with hinges
So they fold down in a line.
You add the sails and rigging,
Check how they’ll erect
When’s time to pull the halyards
Through the bottle’s neck.

It takes months to finish
Doing a little every night,
I had my children watching
And remarking at the sight.
They saw me put in plasticine
To mold and shape the ocean
And carve wave crests with a spoon
To give the water motion.

When at last the time is right
And everything is ready
You carefully set the ship upon
The sea and hold it steady.
Then pulling on each halyard
The sails are slowly raised
And those who watch the process
Stand enchanted and amazed.

Details | Neil Mcleod Poem

Getting Back On Track

Getting Back On Track

You can’t be tying a string around your finger
Every time you have to remember
Why it is you went into the kitchen,
Or what it was you came into the garage for anyway.

You stand in front of the fridge,
In a room cluttered with thousands of memory joggers-
A block of carving knives, that lasting gift from your wedding,
The painted rose on a plate from a grateful patient,
A colonial tea canister from Williamsburg
With a key to stop its contents being purloined,
And the gallery of photographs held by magnets on the door,

And it is as if you were gazing at some rebuilt city,
Which has been completely redesigned
After an atomic bomb has wiped
All the definitive land marks off the map,
Wondering why you are there,
And what pressing task,
Which was screaming for attention,
Caused you to sleepwalk,
And if the telltale signs of senility
Are already devastating your mind.

Then picking your way back to the bathroom
You peer into the mirror
Straining for the clue,
And with an Archimedean exaltation,
Discover the switch of memory
And reluctantly admitting your humanity,
Put your day back on track once more.

Details | Neil Mcleod Poem

The Growing Trees

The Growing Trees

When I was a younger man,
So many years ago,
I looked out of the window
To see them in a row,
Well established conifers
Growing on the hill,
Level with a tiled roof
Beyond my window sill.

Today I paused reflecting,
Gazing through the glass.
I see the trees grew taller
As those years come and pass.
Their trunks are soaring upwards,
Crowns stark again the sky.
While they shall all continue on
My life is passing by.

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L a Blue

L A Blue

Blue sky every day
In sunny Los Angeles,
An endless summer.

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Misconceptions

Misconceptions so often prevail,
They rob us of honest detail,
They clutter the mind,
With notions that bind,
Of the cleverest female or male.

We really should root them all out,
Removing the reason to doubt,
That the tales we are told
By the young and the old
Are really worth bandying about.

To tell you the truth I despair	
At the apple that fell through the air,
And struck Isaac’s head
Releasing the thread
Of the theory of gravity there.

When Washington’s dentures you view
It’s simply not right to construe

That they’re made out of wood
For wood is no good
That popular myth is not true.                   

Michelangelo, its widely known,
Lay on his back ’neath the dome
Of the Sistine to paint,
Well that’s something that ain’t,
So the next time you hear it please moan!

Details | Neil Mcleod Poem

Bedyet

Bedyet
	
It’s not time to go to Bedyet, I’ve frequently been told,
By people who won’t travel, be they four or nine years old.
And others even older won’t visit the Bedyetter
They leave it late, refuse to go, although they should know better.

Have you been to Bedyet, you really have to go
There’s something there for every one, I promise. I should know!
I’ve been myself, so many times, I know the places well.
And you should too, and if you’re quiet and listen I will tell.

The folks who go to Bedyet have heavy hooded eyes,
	With droopy lids that seem as though they’ve grown to twice their size.
Their hair it seems disheveled, with whispey random curls
Not at all they way we choose to see on proper boys and girls.

The Bedyetter are fliers, they cross the colored skies
And when they fall they safely land as if on rubber thighs.
And each of the Bedyetter, from  babes to those full grown
Can tell a tale that’s better than the best you’ve ever known.
	
The Sandman’s a Bedyetter, a busy chap is he,       
He visits every dreamy head before the morning tea.
And when you get your cuppa you may feel a little grain
Like sugar on each eyelid, and he’s the one to blame.

Some of the folks in Bedyet have mouths that open wide,
With long and breathy smiles, and teeth moving side to side.
And arms bent at the elbows that seem to point the way,
For others that will follow them before the end of day.

The children there are dreamy their thoughts just run astray
And they don’t seem to hear too well, no matter what you say.
I even heard it said that some have let their faces droop,
So far down to the table that they wind up in the soup.

But all will wind up cozy when you travel to that land
And though you don’t expect it, things always go as planned.
Just pack yourself off early, and always floss and brush,
And take yourself to Bedyet and join the rest of us.

Details | Neil Mcleod Poem

The Old Home

For Eve Senn
 
You may have never believed in ghosts
Smart people never do,
Or certainly they never admit
To others that it is true.
But I can tell you of a ghost
That's known where ever you roam,
And that is the spirit that remains
When at last you leave your old home.
 
You'll think that when the door's been locked
And you've said your last farewell,
That the book is closed, the story done
There remains nothing else to tell.
But in the stillness of the night
You'll awake in your home that's new
And catch yourself turning, or walking or thinking
The way you used to do.

 
Then you'll remember the mantlepiece
Where the old clock used to fit,
And the sunny patch in the garden
Where the cat would always sit:
Or the sheltered spot where the bench was set
So you could take in the view,
And you will remember how things are not,
Today in your home that's new.
 
And should you ever return again
In spirit, or one day visit,
You won't find a nook that does not have
Some little memory in it.
The answer you see is in your mind,
The phantoms are lingering there,
Waiting for something to let them loose
And catch you unaware.
 
When you think there's nothing there!



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Best Poems Written by Neil Mcleod

Hot Air

Timeless Oxford

The Wounded Bird

A Ship In a Bottle

Getting Back On Track

The Growing Trees

L a Blue

Misconceptions

Bedyet

The Old Home