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Best Poems Written by Archie Wilson

Below are the all-time best Archie Wilson poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Archie Wilson Poem

Life Eternal

Life Eternal 


Her fingers were speckled like 
brown chickens eggs. 
They felt both hard and soft, 
sticks in tissue paper. 
Her veins were ruptured; rivers 
on a decaying landscape. 

The room was hot and dark 
and smelled of ancient secrets. 
Granny’s smell; I wrinkled my nose. 
She tried to smile through 
her agony, to make me less 
afraid as I fidgeted in the chair. 

“Be a good boy for your mother” 
Her gossamer voice, barely audible 
had reached across time and touched me. 
“She needs you son, look after her” 
I nodded, bewildered by this mystery 
but full of dreadful wonder. 

“Are you dying Nanny?” Sotto voce. 
“Mummy says for me to kiss you” 
“Come then son, kiss me on the cheek” 
I was hesitant and afraid. She lifted my 
child’s hand and gently touched it 
with bloodless yet tender lips. 

“Are you dying Nanny ? I don’t want 
you to die” The tears welled unbidden. 
“No my child. How can I die when 
I live on through you, my beautiful 
Grandson. My life is rich, and eternal.” 
I did not understand and was uncertain. 

Next day brought an empty bed and 
and a world of empty hearts. 
Now a lifetime on, it is I in the room 
waiting for the circle to turn. 
I drift in morphine haze and 
pray my Granddaughter will understand 

I hear the tiny tap on the door and 
try to smile so she is not afraid. 
She enters, thumb in mouth 
and I want to cry for her. I try 
to speak but can only croak. I 
reach out and see that my fingers 
are like brown speckled eggs

Details | Archie Wilson Poem

Misshape

Cripple

Nature made me incomplete
She failed to give me two good feet
The left one’s fine,
It’s well in line 
But the other is rather bittersweet

It twists around to a great degree
A much disgruntled employee
Of a brain as quick 
as a lightning stick
But useless just below the knee.

A  childhood spent in pain and traction
And futile physiotherapeutic action
Didn’t help a jot
 just hurt a lot
To the surgeons evident satisfaction


“Crippled crippled look he’s lame
Hop-along Cassidy is his name!”
I died inside
 hid and cried
 hung my head in mortal shame


Very cruel the other kids could be
 jeered and laughed and bullied me
 Until I wondered if 
God had blundered
And so resolved to go and see

I did my best to meet my maker
But became a recuperator
In hospice bed
Far from dead
A suicide impersonator

There came an angel in disguise
A teacher who didn’t instantly despise
Nor ridicule
A crippled fool
But tried instead to empathise






She gave me books and made me read
Seeing clearly  an inner seed
As yet unfilled
 underskilled
But glowing there, a burning need

She opened up my narrow mind
Allowing me to leave behind
A crippled past
A plaster cast
That held me in  it’s prison bind

Now I write with  creativity
And with much publicity
 bathed in admiration
 bought in proliferation
 treated with tender sensitivity

And though I have a leg still game 
It seems that popularity and fame
Make folk forget
My foot’s offset
And I am still inherently lame

Details | Archie Wilson Poem

Some Tsunami

Some Tsunami…….

Today is calm.

The end of the ocean licks the land,   
salt fingers idle townward,       
chortling shingle laughs into
new born pools shattering
a thousand iridescent suns
 into faceted frenzy.
Seaweed ambassadors inspect
The beach on spume horses

But today is calm

Yesterday, some  tsunami or 
Savage Gods incandescent rage
turned you tiger and
 towered you townward maiming
terrified beach huts
murdering screaming deckchairs
hurling delinquent shingle at 
dark hollow eyed cafes

But today….today is calm

Details | Archie Wilson Poem

The Adjective Cellar

The Adjective Cellar

Nestling smugly twixt pepper and salt
The adjective cellar begins its assault
When carelessly picked by some epicure
Who sadly considers himself connoisseur

Once the poor dinner guest flips up the top
The words tumble out, they’re awkward to stop
They bounce on the table and under the chairs
And yelling and screaming they bound up the stairs

Normally nouns are wrapped up in chains
Tortured and bound and horribly maimed 
 Now they’re ecstatic about to be pleasured
As picturesque words stand up to be measured!

The Vicar remarks on these halcyon days 
Whilst Major Winstanley has Draconian ways
And poor Mrs Kingsley’s exordium chatter
Falls willy nilly on euphoric batter

The twins are excited in ectopic manner
 The cats caught its tail in a Hashemite planner
The Doctor is dissident, red in the face
Flapping his hands with acrimonious grace

Sadly the dinner has come to a close
The adjective cellar is back in repose
The nouns are re-bound the adverbs placated
The Vicar, the Major, the Doctor berated

But wasn’t it fun to see how our language
Can blossom and bloom and happily languish
In even the narrowest pinch penny mind
When the fruits of the Adjective cellar are vined

Details | Archie Wilson Poem

Abattoir

Abattoir
                                           
She sat with her back to the wall
cuddling a red rag doll,
her eyes gazing into some safe place.
Her right arm lay disembodied
some ten feet away.
Her mother, beautiful, olive skinned
had been drinking coffee, Java I think,
now she lay stripped by the blast
to her lacy mauve French knickers
like some pornographic marionette
with hinged arms and legs.
Remarkably the coffee sat untouched,
still steaming and oddly inviting.
The silence screamed obscenities
as incongruous lances of sunlight
from the collapsed roof spangled
off the settling dust and lit
the crimson offal strewn floor.
A man created but
God inspired abattoir.

Details | Archie Wilson Poem

Stickleback

Stickleback


The stickleback had survived chilly
Spring and well into warm, moist
Summer.
His three spines keeping him safe
From even the glutton sabre toothed
Pike.
A chance in a million  caught Him
In my childish net. He didn’t know
Statistics.
Thrashing and flopping to the gleeful
Chortles and chuckles of us little
Boys
He was slithered into my jam jar and
Marched triumphantly home in murky
Purgatory.
Slow death on the kitchen windowsill
Overtook him, cooking in the hot summer
Sun.

Details | Archie Wilson Poem

Father's Day

Fathers Day

They came in the grey
of that fractured dawn.
Those sombre men
in mourning suits.

Platitudinous and
ruthlessly efficient
they took him away
in an anonymous bag

Our childhood Everest,
Methuselah, 
shrunken now
to common size.

Incomprehension muttered
behind our eyes,
minds locked, quarantined
from the mundane.

A lesser day dawned
empty and reduced
haunted by sullen night,
gravid with realisation.

Birds sang, milk rattled
children played.
Fatherless, we watched
him leave us.

Details | Archie Wilson Poem

Sandwich

Sandwich


Chop up the onion
Slice up the bread
Bring out the salmon
Bright pinkly dead


Wafer the cumber
Juicy and green
Ensure the blade is
Sharpened and keen

Scrape on the butter
Mayonnaise and dill
Cap with brown wholegrain
Fresh from the mill


Wrap it in poly
Heat treat the seal
Slap on a label for
Market appeal

What does the salmon
So freshly dead
Think of the mayo
 Thick on the bread ?


And what of the cumber
Bedded in butter
What would he say
But he could utter ?


And of the dill
Ripped from the ground
Silently screaming
Without a sound


And of the grains
Crushed for the bread
Do they feel pain ?
Do they feel dead ?


Eat up your sandwich
Think as you chew
Savour the contents
Cadavers too

Details | Archie Wilson Poem

Life Support

Life Support 


The night is calm and shimmers 
in its moonlight coat. 
I sit and watch the ocean as I 
wrest with dark demons. 

The vision engulfs me; 
I see her sweet innocence 
etched on a pillow of death, 
awash with cruel tubes and all 
the paraphernalia of dying. 

I feel detached as I observe 
phosphorous ghosts surfing 
like green bobbing lanterns 
to a glistening alien beach 

Black angels bow my head, 
bend my back and hang 
huge moral weights about me. 
A lone gull keens my torment 

Am I to be her executioner? 
Must I play God? 
Juggling with destinies and 
barely conceived dreams. 

Where are you my child? 
My sweet innocent child. 
My mind is a black hole full 
of question marks and 
dark destroying God hatred. 

The ocean whispers to me 
and gently caresses my soul 
I know the right path… 
I knew all along 

I stand wearily, turn and 
look at the brilliant silhouette 
of the hospice. It calls to me. 
She calls to me. 

I stumble and cry out but 
the ocean has made me resolute. 
I make my way to the switch 
that will end her torment 
and begin mine.

Details | Archie Wilson Poem

Getting a Wife

Getting a Wife......

When I was just a stripling lad
My Father said to me
Get yourself a wife my boy
And here’s how she must be

Sufficient mouth to sweetly smile 
But not enough to nag
Sufficient breast to fill your hand
But not enough to sag

Two hands to do the washing up
And bring you pots of ale
As you sit lordly on your throne
Because you are the male

Brains enough to understand
The wisdom of your ways
But not enough to question them
And clutter up your days

A body plump but firm and full
And good to look at too
So you can show her off all day
As she belongs to you

A wife, a nurse, a mother sweet
 All rolled up into one
A mistress, whore and lover too
So you can have your fun

If you can find a girl like this
You’re a very lucky lad
I fear she’ll be too much for you
So bring her home to dad