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Best Poems Written by Andrew Collinson

Below are the all-time best Andrew Collinson poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Urban Sprawl

Gardens, houses, metaled roads, no tractor and mower
Speed limit grows in reverse, bigger and slower
Brick and concrete slowness teks ower
Sixty, forty, to thirty, where does it stop ?
Down to twenty wi’ houses on top

The infrastructure is little
Planners and government fickle
Greenbelt is pointless and brittle
Farmers berated for removing hedges and trees 
Yet with urban spread, it’s the accepted disease

Tyres, bottles, wire, bricks and stone can’t be mown
Poisonous garden waste and domestic rubbish thrown
Working farms overwhelmed, engulfed and surrounded
Unworkable as animals are regularly hounded
Mechanical and vet bills compounded

Abilities and patience are seriously tested
However much time money and effort invested
rubbish knackers machines and kills animals when ingested
It matters not how well the farm is managed
Gates left open, animals and boundaries continually damaged

Old farmhouses swallowed up, all out of place
Invaded by alien architecture, right in their face
Greenfield sites with scant protections
Built-up outline grows more projections
New estates in all directions

Exponential town growth, 
Ribbon development, conurbation sloth
gradual creep, sudden crawl
Houses and industrial units, landscape awl
Removes the countryside whole, urban sprawl…

Details | Andrew Collinson Poem

Carrion

Studying the studying
staring back - heavy shiney black
on the coffin road - I stood in the gods
an imposing carrion crow perched
Johnny Cash of fauna
Studying the studying
piercing dark inquisitive eyes
scanning for a body - to beak hack 

Leaving - his panoramic but dead
observation tree, higher than me
the white thickly splattered  
heavy branch reverberates -
a silent metronomic 
Catching thermals or up draughts 
vulturing round and rising
his energy conservation guarantee

Pin point eyesight for miles
cleaning catchment of two valleys 
funeral bell caw  caw   caw fades
into feathered undertaker silence
Smelly mutton, frogs, afterbirth 
and cold lamb, traditional tallies
contemporary road fill habit
rat hedgehog squirrel - rabbit

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Pendle's Unseen War

Tap tap  boom… sheep scattered like shrapnel
Brian Dunn’s instant memorial smoke rose
from his peaty wet death hole, roots
lumps of peat and ling fell like black roses over his body
and the blood splattered fan of shattered gritstone
Three lads Sunday walk, October 1950

Derrick Shaw’s lower arm was brast away tapping 
the mortar bomb on the wall, saying “perhaps this one will go…..”
his life and army  training wasted, he survived a fortnight
Fun was blown out of Brian Boreham’s life aged 14
witnessing the nasty death and maiming; badly injured and 
stunned off his feet, he dealt with peacetime battlefield horrors
 
Split second ear-bleeding noise, blinding flame front 
massive air overpressure blast and burning bone breaking shrapnel
Silent mundane looking ordnance, inflicting instant long-term trauma
young Brian’s tearless mourner, his dog Molly 
sniffed his blackened cooling remains and torn clothing, wagging her tail
whining, stopping and returning several times - to confirm he was extinct

The lethal incident was raised in parliament
there was no human enemy in Pendle’s long war
munitions and tank trap targets shattered shards still remain 
After live firing practice the hill was twice declared safe 
but a mortar’s boom still cracked Pendle’s silence 
resonating around two families - for decades

Where the WW2 troops were stationed at Brogden farm
an overt regiment of tank traps stand to attention roadside
another unit laid prone in a mass grave, dam a Sabden lodge 
holding waters drained through the dark deadly ground 
inert unknown markers of Pendle’s unseen war
waiting - for a Heritage blue plaque medal.

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Mountain Maple

Leaf twig branch, consumed
Riverside mountain maple
Wood-ants worms water

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Unseen Beauty

We all have 
Our own brand
Of functional crazy
A richness of confusion

Don’t shoot your kettle
Pigs in woodchips
Sprawled across dark water
Like the spawning moon

Don’t sleep
In the boot of your car
Mcarthys child, salmon gilding
Cold water of the brook
And duck-egg skys

I look forward to;
Gardening in Greenland
Mist drowning the sun
Hills flowing like water
And lamp lit dark

Shrapnel erratic 
As a winged seabird
Licked
By a word storm
Building unseen beauty

Lingering limbs
Soft as smoke
I can’t throw 
Subtle shadows of moonlight

The dangers of creation
I am reading like a poet
Are we but constructed of dust?
 
Remembrance poppies oxidise
To peaceful white
Pillars of ice
Cauldron Snout
Frosted

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Earthy Hills

Dressed by sky and ground
poetic timeless hills
earthy seasonal colours

rough grasses, bilberry - textures of ling 
appropriate scenery, daily found
day-wear evening-wear, everything

Knarly living, the hardy survive
Rowan, Scots Pine, Birch, green scattered stars
no frills just hills, majestic and alive

Details | Andrew Collinson Poem

Suddenly Swans

Torn sail blowing in a gale
sand beautifully shifting, dunes flowing 
spray from the edge of a wave
moments camera frozen, seen
snapshots of the mind
memories only you can find

Long-lasting bulls eye ripples grow on the millpond surface 
a momentary jumping fish creation
dissipating, gently lapping the hard rocky edge
Suddenly two swans water-ski in
paired parallel wakes created
disrupting reflected hills, sky and trees

tinged pink in gentle sunset breeze
good dry day promised by the sky
red western evenings never lie
High pressure, breeze slow & soft, a warm waft 
cloudless ocean deep blue skies
natures treasures for our eyes

The rocky path carries us
up towards the setting sun
warmth disappears to the western coast
we are no longer warm as toast
cooler air moving in, breeze going thin
light fades as we reach the pub
time for hospitality, beer and grub

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Jazz Kit Mix

Blow your gills out
with Miles Davis, mellow n kind of blue
relax in black 'n white ways 'n days

all; all the jazz kit

Go on a blues Holiday Billie
away with the Jones’s Nora
get some Rays with Charles

Lenard needs his raincoat
he’s Cohen, hallelujah
hey that’s no way to say goodbye

Jason’s going 93 million Mras
to see if he can Bossa Nova
Amy’s gone the Winehouse with Mr Jones

Ronnie’s off up Scott
not Holland seeking Jools
or Lincoln looking for Abbey

with all; all the jazz kit

Immersed in Ethel Waters
Roberta took some Flack
and Charlie had to Parker

Ellington was no Duke
to some, 50 years ensemble king
he said; it don’t mean a thing

Courtney doesn’t Pine or sing
Benny, who stomped at the Savoy
was a Goodman, not a bad boy

Eartha wanted to be evil
but was so good
for Christmas she got nothing
she got nothing for Christmas 

but had it all; all the jazz Kitt.

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Stone Metal Word

Stone quarry
Stone quarryman
Stone worker
Quarry worker
Quarry labourer
Stone mason
Stone chisel
Cold chisel
Metal worker
Whitesmith
Silversmith 
Tinsmith
Goldsmith
Blacksmith
Wordsmith;
Black art
Word art

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Residential Paradise

Spacious comfortable country residence
extended and upgraded, sleeps eight.
On the fringe of a conservation village
elevated distant views, sheltered
solar heating, well insulated.

Sympathetically tucked into a south facing hillside,
extensive well-manicured terraced gardens.
All amenities, motorway and railway within 5 miles.
Paradise on four levels, décor understated
a dusty sand hole, ant excavated…