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Best Poems Written by Paul Crump

Below are the all-time best Paul Crump poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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The Ghost Train

Sleep perennial echos 
that haunt my silent grieving 
that ties me to your side forever
take me back a lifetime to before 
when I willingly drowned in my own self pity 
as a parody of the man I once never was, 
that place where I was happiest 
the instant that was the ghost train 
where that moment, my moment, 
sustained my want.

Copyright © Paul Crump | Year Posted 2018



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Last Night

in a far away sleep I recognise her from before she never disappoints me though she was never truly mine we sit on the grass in the park eating my mother’s favourite sweet peanut brittle and searching the free ads there is nothing I need then we laugh at the private and confidentials the girl asks me if I have ever truly loved someone then places my hand on her chest swimming through the best of her I am one of the cool kids I see places I will never go to I sit on violence like a broody hen then she wishes me luck when I come up for air

Copyright © Paul Crump | Year Posted 2021

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Gone

the starlings have fledged now and the cherry tomatoes have all been eaten. 
I donated your favourite chair to the charity shop in the high street and in that corner where you loved to sit I placed a large aspidistra. 
The woman in the shop told me that they like the warmth of a sunny spot but can live quite happily in a shaded corner. 
I laughed inside when she told me
Sometimes when I’m reading I will catch a slight movement out of the corner of my eye as a draught elbows the green foliage. 
I never think that it’s you.

Copyright © Paul Crump | Year Posted 2021

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Love at first sight

I asked her
do you believe that as soon as any man walks into a room and he’s eyes fall so completely upon someone like you he can fall in love?
at first 
she didn’t answer
she just looked at me 
probably surprised by my frankness
my impudence 
my candour
but then she asked me
are you inquiring about love at first sight
a feeling that may not or might exist somewhere 
beneath all the clutter filling a juvenile mind
or are you asking me about an aching
an itch that needs to be scratched 
or a desire 
a want
a thirst for a liaison with no strings attached?
defiantly I replied
love at first sight which I know operates surreptitiously in the wasteland between an obligation and a need to unite heart and head from amongst the confusion of restraint, pursuit and absolute dread but it’s source
undoubtedly 
is the heart which let’s face it
over the course of a lifetime 
performs some pretty cool 
yet for no apparent reason in one instant can explode a bomb designed to inflict 
maximum damage to the limbs and the tummy and intellectual mechanics
of the victim
which in this case is me
and I need to tell you
you are  
that incendiary device
perfect
incomparable
completely beautiful and designed to entice 
to convince
to ignite intentions inside 
to reawaken desires 
thought stolen by time
and that explosion 
that eruption of feeling in a nanosecond
can reverse all the years given over to personal internal corrosion 
all the doubt
and worries
all the spiteful self inflicted inner erosion
and implement love
and that’s what happened to me
it’s what you achieved when you offered rationality 
a good reason to leave 
because in my mind
when I walked into this place and I saw you
you filled the room
you emptied it
you spoke 
you screamed
you sent up distress flares
yet probably did none of this
because in a moment I was absorbed and
transfixed 
obsequious even
psychologically pissed and
I became someone or something I wasn’t before
incomplete 
like a jigsaw scattered all over the floor
and I wanted you to reassemble me
to understand 
to reciprocate 
to feel empathy
for our likes and dislikes to chemically bond 
to create some kind of loved up remedy and I now know
love at first sight really exists when it’s true 
when it’s untethered 
when it’s substantial and it’s living and I never recognised it until I saw you
to me you are everything 
again she never replied
not at first
her eyes 
decoding 
manufacturing  
her thoughts incubating inside
she was searching I assume
for what she needed to say 
to placate me maybe
to chastise me or even
to bat my feelings away?
but then she simply smiled at me 
almost knowingly 
as if to her this was an everyday occurrence 
like Deja vu
like Groundhog Day 
and said something that completely surprised me
thank you she said

Copyright © Paul Crump | Year Posted 2024


Book: Reflection on the Important Things