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Best Poems Written by Nick Ravenswood

Below are the all-time best Nick Ravenswood poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Nick Ravenswood Poem

Amoxicillin

I sleep while nature squeezes under my door.
A dream of the swamp blooms like a water-born disease in my polluted
senses flooding my throat, nose and lungs.

Breath rattles heavily through damp fabric and pushes tears through
infected lids.
Salt cracks and crumbles from my eyes in brittle flakes.
Nature is in this house.

From within the walls, soaking wet tendrils transmit intricate messages.
Tapping. Smearing.
Mud at the water’s edge swallows my legs in muscular contractions that grip me hard and hold me sucked into the slime.
There is comfort in my restful sludge as I slowly become a celebration of waste.
A new smell is in this house.

I fumble, prod, rip, and slash at the dirt-smeared welts in the hope of exposing bone through paper-thin skin.
Insects have burrowed beneath bleeding fingernails and laid their sodden eggs inside tear duct, nostril, and mouth.
Swollen and stretched, the engorged tissues begin to rupture as they rhythmically pump soupy discharge onto saturated sheets.
I hear my laughter in another room.

From the banks of the swamp, I watch amber lilies drift away on dark, green ripples that shimmer with an oily gloss.
Their moist, heavy perfume clings to my tongue like a sugary membrane.
I slowly lift my head towards the clean blue sky and open my mouth wide.
I hope God can see me, feel my restructuring.
One by one, black, twitching mosquitos swarm down to feed from my gaping mouth.
They bite and suck the blood from my blistered lips and force their way down into my lungs and stomach, filling me to bursting with their fluttering wings and delicate stings.
I cramp, bruise, tumefy.
Cells divide.
Segments fall away.
New organs grow.
This is my fresh suit, my next phase.
I do hope God can see me.

Details | Nick Ravenswood Poem

The Riddle of Shiny Helen

Love hearts and scabby knees.
Dead flies and stinging bees.
Dirty nails and sweaty lips.
Fishnets with ragged slips.
Eyeholes in a hessian sack.
Pimples on a tattooed back.
Toys that she just can’t unpack.
Helen. 
Secret Helen.

Lies from a mother’s heart.
Secrets that fell apart.
Beauty too divine to see.
As purple as a Judas Tree.
Singing from her cradle jail.
A baby crying weak and frail.
Giggle, breathe, inhale, exhale.
Helen
Splintered Helen.

An infantile brutalist.
A wide-awake somnambulist.
Mamma’s bile and Daddy’s fist.
A kiss, a slap a broken wrist.
She hides within a dark recess.
She dances with her own distress.
A monster wearing fancy dress.
Helen
Sacred Helen.

Fantasies of guilt and sin.
Concealed beneath a slab of skin.
Loathe the self and stunt the flesh.
Her impotence and spite enmesh.
To love the girl, she veils the face.
To save the world from its disgrace.
Before she leaves without a trace.
Helen
Shiny Helen.

Details | Nick Ravenswood Poem

The Unknown Woman of the Seine

She.
Serenity’s relief adheres to alabaster sleep from the rivers own pale fruit.
There is majesty in the tides annihilation that polishes cheek and lip.
A smile as slight as sanctity anoints reflections saturated, ineffable.  
Not even her amused sediment mask could locate her distant shore.

She. 
A blink gives birth to locked gaze that gorges itself upon the unblemished.
Possession thickens the surging blood that flows only for the unknowable.
He cannot resuscitate, cannot embrace what has drowned, drifted.
So, she holds him while he presses plaster to eye, mouth, and nose.

She.
Preserving fleeting pores that gape beneath the thunder of the adoring gaze.
Seraphic visage is captured and crafted with his heartbroken perpetuity.
Confessions of devotion wash up on empty banks and sink into blackened silt.
Lonely as a legend she leaves him and walks silently into deaths duplication.

Details | Nick Ravenswood Poem

Mr Museum

Flayed inside his shadow box.

A permanent collection.

Years lost under glass.

History anchors hate and trinket.

He crafted this cabinet.

Polished the locks.

The tours are all guided.

And he leads every step.

To the left: heart on shelf.

To the right: fist just in case.

His exhibitions never open.

His artefacts are never viewed.

A relic in love’s wreckage.

Sorry, forever sorry.

Read the sign: Stand behind the line.

Don’t touch the display.

Details | Nick Ravenswood Poem

The Final Emptying

She has gleaned the bare root of her captive.

Soggy dressings fall away, dissolve on calloused feet.

No point in changing these regretful bindings now.

He tells her he understands, that he once loved her.

She is beneath his nails, in his mouth, between his teeth.

Rubber tubing snakes from his torso, head, and neck. 

Pushing out the slow but steady drip of his pollution.

Seven enamel bowls are full of him and need emptying.

She wonders how this room looks to him.

Final?

Endless?

He asks to be turned, says his right side has gone numb.

She pushes a moist shoulder, and he flops squid-like onto his back.

Touching him brings sour acid bubbling into her throat.

These walls will see his last hour, his ultimate reflection.

It has been one month to the day since they first saw each other.

She will quietly count him down back to that night. 

Back to his first steps towards her. 

She will watch the slow stream of him until he gradually drains away.

Down to the dregs, down to residue, down to the beginning.

Details | Nick Ravenswood Poem

Mother, Father and the Birthing of the Angel

You have led my course through fractured lanes.
Your groaning ballad my only light.
Kill blessings from stained lips safely float our steps.
Where would I be without you Michael?

Crow mother lies broken at our hand.
Eyes, lips and tongue smeared on stone.
‘You are just like me,’ she bleats through shattered teeth.
Thank you feathered protector, my septic pedagogue.

Poisoned Papa gags as we grip him heart in hand.
Oesophagus glove binds wrist, forearm and elbow.
Pushing down to Hell, void swallows his crushed vena cava. 
Dislocated mandible squeals leaving the path clear and final.

A baptism from a splintered bucket washes away our rusty halo.
We have built a fine church you and I.
Can you hear me Michael?
Are you there?

From Father’s secret chest, blades, saws and spikes are repossessed.
They are now our beautiful burden, our sanctified implements. 
Ground and honed to a steely whisper that will glide down to the bone.
Beyond the door you beckon to me with your silvery, distant song.

Night air sears through our lungs like freezing ammonia as
Shifting constellations light our winding passage through London.
From Threadneedle Street to Guthrun’s Lane all dreams are devastation.
We select a lost tenement as a playground and trudge through stinking mud.

There is a family within – Mother, Father and Son.
They are the fruits of our maledictions.
‘Cry no more little one,’ his voice congeals in my veins.
Soon we will be clean, huge and stinging.

At my touch the door yawns like the prelude to regurgitation.
In the darkness soiled, saintly fingers caress a razor. 
Taut, ablaze, locked.
Tonight we will sculpt what we never possessed and love what hurts the most.

We are Destroyer.

Details | Nick Ravenswood Poem

Perfect Imperfect

Framed blemish.
Heavy as a tumor.
Solid as surrender.
Dig into epidermis.
Uproot the moment.
Unclean kernel.

Hard, cold reflection.
Show me pretty.
Clogged pores.
Yellow teeth.
Rheumy eyes.
Ugly is as ugly does.

Smile at the mirror. 
Try to forget.
This is you. 
Forever unlovely.
Look at what you did.
Children are so cruel.

Rose scented perfume.
Disguise the stench.
Excrete from every orifice.
Sweat soaked lace.
Urine stained ribbons.
Paint and purify the meat.

Shave the head.
Smear on foundation.
Sever the lips.
Dust with powder.
Extract the teeth.
Cauterize with lipstick.

Amputate the feet.
Brush on eye shadow.
Saw through hip joints.
Smudge on blush.
Open up the abdomen.
Suture with mascara.

Remade.
Smiling through distortion.
Deny the trauma.
Repair the shell.
Convincingly Beautiful.
Improbably clean.

Details | Nick Ravenswood Poem

Barnabas Oral's Sightless Game

He plays throughout the house at night 
a braille touch for his lack of sight
and dreams of all the crippled things 
with broken legs and shattered wings.

The bandage on his wounded eyes 
will be there ‘til the day he dies
and keep him in a darkened place 
with just a wet grin on his face.

The attic room that he called home 
was locked up tight, so he didn’t roam
but now that he has picked the locks 
he’s lurking in his stinking socks.

‘Twas Aunty Mae that shut him away 
to teach the evil boy just how to pray,
but he only tortured rodents and flies 
and used a pencil to gouge out his eyes.

So now he stumbles down the hall
and drags his nails across the wall
to find old Mae and very soon
play Blind Man’s Buff by the dying moon.

He gently opens her bedroom door
and listens to her gurgling snore
then lumbers towards her little bed
and strokes the grey hairs on her head.

With butterknife clutched hard in hand
it’s all unfolding as he planned
and with his blunted blade held high
he slams it into her left eye.

When old Mae shrieks and writhes in pain
he brings the curved blade down again
and opens up her right eyeball
as blood sprays on her floral shawl.

Barnabas smiles and deeply mumbles
as through his pockets he gently fumbles
and produces a bandage stained and old  
to fashion for her a new blindfold.




He wraps it round her head quite neatly
and tops it off with a bow tied sweetly
which keeps it tight and keeps it close
while tears of blood drip from her nose.

Aunty Mae is dragged up from her bed,
spun three times and then stopped dead
to stand alone in the middle of the room
while Barnabas hides, concealed in gloom.

‘Oh, Mae my sweet just listen to me,
now we’re both blind, as blind as can be
and the game is now even and honest and fair
so, follow my voice but be sure to take care’.

With whimpers and cries she limps in a swoon
as Barnabas whispers and warbles a tune
that lures the old woman out heel by toe   
into suffering, peril, and shadows of woe.

Her arms they flail, her hands they clutch
while she blunders about using only her touch,
yet Barnabas stands only just out of reach
and leers as he thinks of the game he will teach.

She yelps and swipes at the sound of his song
but Barnabas dodges and lunges head long 
out of her path as she tumbles and trips
and falls to the floor breaking both of her hips. 

With grace and care Mae is pulled to her feet,
embraced by her nephew with arms bittersweet 
then violently swung by her grand puppet master
and waltzed round the room going faster and faster.

They crash into walls and topple the chairs,
shatter the windows, knock a vase down the stairs,
but just as young Barnabas cooks further plans
poor Aunt Mae’s body goes limp in his hands.

‘Oh Mae, darling Mae we’ll try that once more
and play Blind Man’s Buff and dance ‘till we’re sore.
we’ll bleed and we’ll laugh, and we’ll laugh, and we’ll bleed
and in darkness you’ll follow, and I’ll surely lead’. 

So, all through the night they danced and played
and as the sun rose, they both gently swayed
to a song that he heard only inside his head
as he cradled his aunt who was broken and dead.

Details | Nick Ravenswood Poem

Exquisite Darts

Cleverness in chaos.
Twisted mischief threads
beneath razor intellect.

Urban antiquity,
out of place,
sherry to eyelash to eye.

Her cigarettes go better
with beer wisdom and
starry sky humidity.

Grand Dame, ferocious girl.
Lead me up a garden path that
stings until 5am on barren streets.

Vampiric. Languid.
There is no elegant sufficiency,
no want contained.

Faded lilies.
Threadbare wisdom swings
to giggling gallows below, aloft.

One more drink?
Reckless friend, take my hand
and drag me sweetly away.