Home » Poems » Best » Carrick Townsend » Best Carrick Townsend Poems

Best Poems Written by Carrick Townsend

Below are the all-time best Carrick Townsend poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Carrick Townsend Poem

Taking One's Leave

I walk into the night
And leave the world behind,
The fading of the light,
The stumbling of the blind
I seek another path
A road that has no goal
But the semblance of the truth
The yearning of my soul.

The moon holds centre stage
Beyond the trellis trees
The city lights engage
But can no longer please
A mind grown tired of life
A heart no longer strong
Tired of this world of strife
Return where they belong

The wind picks up the leaves
And gusts across the park
Where silent shadows heave
And vanish in the dark.
What held us here so long?
What fantasy prevailed?
The plans we lived among
Have long since been derailed.

And so I take my leave
I say to all goodbye
There is no call to grieve
There is no need to cry.
I seek another path
A road that has no goal
But the semblance of my truth
The yearning of my soul

Details | Carrick Townsend Poem

The Long Good Bye

PART ONE
You tap me on the shoulder and ask whose staff I'm on,
 Startled I try to tell you but see that you have gone
 Down the path of memory to a place of no-recall
Where I'll no longer find you and you won't see me at all:
 Only a booted stranger you've never met before
 And a blur of marching soldiers, Marching into war. 
I set the cup down slowly, the broth i've made for you,
 I draw the curtains slowly to hide those scenes from view,
 But in the mirror darkly that stands beside your bed 
Your gaze picks out the shadows of the men that you once lead.
 You turn to me in wonder and ask where they have gone, I tell you they are marching, 
On down to Avignon. 
I know not what I'm saying, I blurt platitudes and lies, 
I want to stop your memories before they turn to cries
 Of dying men and horses, exploding mortar shells,
 The mud and blood of warfare, that very special hell 
Of living in the trenches when you were twenty-five 
And saw your generation 
Half crucified alive. 

PART 2
Slowly the darkness thickens, you turn to me blind eyes
That see beyond our seeing however much one tries
To shield you from the knowledge that all your friends are gone,
And you ask me if your sisters and your mother still live on.
I tell you they are doing quite well in Kentish Town
And hope to see you shortly
When you yourself go down.
In truth they died tomorrow or thirty years ago,
It makes no sense or difference to what you need to know, Why tell you they have followed those soldiers you once lead,
What purpose can it serve now confessing they are dead?
I do not want you grieving every time I speak.
When you yourself are leaving
I neither ask nor seek.
And so the days continue and sometimes we are friends,
And sometimes you're a burden, a charge that never ends,
Till looking back in anguish to how things used to be, I see again the father who meant the world to me.
And so I stoop and kiss you and gently take the cup
From the gnarled and twisting fingers
Of the man who grew me up.

For my father who fought in two world wars and died of Alzheimers in 1986
Copyright © Carrick Townsend | Year Posted 2020

Details | Carrick Townsend Poem

Japanese Temple Screen Saver

In the photograph before me,
stretched out to fit the screen,
the faces that smile out at us
are not what they would seem.


But each a silent witness 
of the pain that haunts the soul 
and each a careful construct 
that only has one goal:

to build a bridge to heaven, 
reseal the sands of time,
to make of life an anteroom
that leads to birth sublime.

And looking at that picture,
stretched out to fit the screen,
I thank those Buddhist faces
for the sharing of their dream.

Carrick Townsend
09/08/21

Details | Carrick Townsend Poem

Wind

Though crystal stars trans-pierce the sky,

The world we see is but a lie: 

The silvered moon that bathes the lea

In waxen light and filagree,

The rising sun that coats in gold

The topmost branches of each tree,

Are but a concept tired and old

Of painters’ brushstroke imagery.

 

And yet each time I watch them pass,

Collapsing waves of whispering grass,

The windblown gases of the storm,

The shadow clouds that skim the corn,

The black, the grey, the shimmering bright

Unbridled horses of the night,

I feel impelled despite my scorn

To hail the wind’s poetic form.