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Best Poems Written by Piers Denholm-Young

Below are the all-time best Piers Denholm-Young poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Iona Moment

Here
where God is sought out
not in simile of rock and sea
We say
this is how it will be
when we know him
But he is now
In this serene extravagance
he comes to me
Far from all we made
standing where our brethren prayed
he is here
Enough
for now
is now
The larks’ soliloquy
and waves hushing far below
say to me
he is here
5.00

Details | Piers Denholm-Young Poem

Scafell Pike

Cronking ravens’ aerobatics 
between rock-pulpits leaning over,
grey disdainful gate-posts.
Our shouts echoed 
as we clambered like ants on a wall,
the lake a far glittering pool
in the dark sunken floor of the world.
On the saddle
buttresses of old hostile crags
hung vertiginously over an empty valley
where brown snaking streams reflected the sky.

When the fire died the night wrapped us in cold arms
and stars like dust convened,
aloof to the elegant comet and its silver veil.

Next day, glad to be warm again, on a pass, 
the summit of the piled massif
was a distant view in the sun’s torrent, 
another world visited, lonely,
while people toiled earnestly up and down the tracks.
When we’ve gone like empires before,
these mountains would still be hunched under the rain and sun.
But we ventured, searched from view to changing view, conquered, grew,
and came back a little wiser
to explore the wider wilderness
6.97

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A Blue-Green Jewel

A blue-green jewel in a starry sea
was left for them to care and keep
But ants upon the floating ball
were pirates and denied it all
The sky spoke on, the earth still stood
The blinded said they understood
But every word was dripping blood
The sapphire blackened, crimson grime
Tears can’t remove in all this time
Tears of stars and purer eyes
Blood of innocence and lies
Graffiti nameless on their walls
Behind them every vandal smiles
and shakes a fist at weeping skies
The jewel dies
But a shadow cuts the shade and light
invades the labyrinth of hate
‘Cross the heart of adamant
A signet stamped - a claim is made
And deeper red makes paths for tears
Once and now for hurting years
Rebels come to heal

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Hair

Normally
a long hair in shared food 
is unwelcome
But finding one
on my clothing
was a happy occasion
after yesterday
I wound it round my fingers
pulled it through my mouth
With its gold sheen
a piece of your extraordinary reality
that will take years
to adjust to
happily
11.13

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A Severe Beauty

Why is it all like this?
Such a mixture, such a mess?
One man only answers and makes sense
Beauty is for the looking
truth for the hearing
if you will
Love will lance your poison
drain the darkness
declare heaven
like a dandelion clock still telling
in the teeth of a gale
This severe love is no sweet tale
Life and death don’t play games
but love embraces all
with a driven heart like driven nails
Draw near, stretch out to hear
for only one thing matters
and all will be made clear
7.00

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Someone Took the Roof Off

Someone took the roof off
and I almost blew away
I could have fell forever
from where I lay
Down past the last light
for a good few million miles
sister moon is cluttered up
but still has a silvery smile
Running rings round Saturn
and dodging asteroids
In the back garden of the earth
is there no background noise?

I can’t get my head around it
spaced out, so far away
A hundred million stars are just
a drop in the Milky Way
Andromeda next door
is all history away
And still they’re saying nothing
unless their voice is deep
deeper than the bottom of my heart

Have you watched us, glittering,
for featureless wastes of time
and we are but a tremor
like a ripple on a shoreless sea?
And should we master all by knowledge from our pea-green boat
and hurl our words in silver foil 
like fizz above a Coke
your disdain shall leave us cold
and what you know be only told 
to children.

Details | Piers Denholm-Young Poem

The Sky Still Run

From up here
hung between horizons
just below the clouds
time stands still
far below, far away
humanity is teeming
the silent wind is humming
Am I a fool on a hill?

Looking up from the valley floor
The mountain loomed and I felt small
The urge to climb, to conquer all
to reach the sky, escape, explore
Up into the wind like a fly on the wall
to a world of rocks and moor
alone, afraid like a fool

On top of the world
my conquest tamed 
The world laid out before me
a town in my giant hand
rain and light fall together
between the sunset and the dawn

The table-cloth is folded
patterned with felt fields, toy trees 
A train crawls by in miniature
I am king of it all
my eyes explore the view
of my world
Sheep ignore me
and this place will not notice when I am long gone
The streams will still sing
the sky still run
We come and go
as if we own the place
authorised by pride
But the earth rolled over again
for another day
without us
and a fool went home
some the wiser

Details | Piers Denholm-Young Poem

The Rhythm

Millpool surface
still deep silence
Line quivers, ripples running outwards
waves pulsating
sinuous surface
dancing patterns
throbbing energy 
next dimension
second rhythm
resonating harmony
synergistic germination
inner worship generation
sympathetic empathetic
sacramental understanding
orchestrated voices flooding
wind and fire and water roaring
worlds in motion
stars exploding
molecules vibrate colliding
spirits sing
and love is king
the chord that springs
and resonates with wings
that beat in unison

Ch: The rhythm is him
the rhythm is me
a resonating harmony.

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I'Ll Try

Slowing down
inside
slowly
Whirling wheels
spokes run backwards
Stillness still
repels
Imagination still 
tells stories
draining fuel cells
Rearrange
what matters 
on the open top 
of time
Wasting it
contradicts
the flywheel in my mind
But it’s slowing
and the only fear left standing
may be of wheels
rolling on again

Stress thorn.
Your smile
successfully 
beguiles 
a victim
willingly impaled
struggling weakly
to escape
runs it deeper
till it fades
and leaves a lasting scar
What was that for?
Perhaps I understand 
love’s power 
a little more

So blind 
this mind 
cannot retain a fraction 
of the truth explained
So light my way
Spirit at my side 
Leave it to me, you say 
and I’ll try

Details | Piers Denholm-Young Poem

Haverigg Haw

Silver foil sea glittering
crinkled cauldron surface slowly swirling
Lazy waves folding flashing
Sheet molten run up close then drain away
Steel sky and the arc-hung sun
Smoke clouds piled on Black Combe
Sandpipers, a butterfly shoal swinging swerving
and a solitary bird hurtles joyously
Languid gulls drink sun
Windmills wave to no one
Stones ground round by the silver sea
will become sand, rippled strand
A lone oyster-catcher musing by the water
moves on to muse again
Heat haze waves ripple the sea edge
on the shingle scree
Ocean of air and light, slow currents
Sound of many waters blown across my ears
Piping birds
Smell of the shore
A lark hung like a kite descending on its wire 
unwinding its breathless trill across the dune hills
Lapwings hummed and clicked and whistled overhead
Little birds bouncing chirping on the wind
The lark reels on
Violets on the great dunes and small beetles with wheel-spin in the sand 
Two brown rabbits crouched, watched
then hopped off
Pink horsetail tips like asparagus
stretched upwards by a bench
It seemed a long walk back
through the golden gorse
and the burnt gorse
which the council saw fit to clear
4.01