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Best Poems Written by Paul Willason

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

Details | Paul Willason Poem

All That I Have Taken In

At day's end, I take in the last light
seeping into the dark waters
across the bay and keep it here.
I gather the sound of departing gulls
smudged on the sky, the quietening
settle of birds in the cypress trees 
along the foreshore, the giggle 
of a child high on a swing
being pushed by a mothers hand. 

I hold here the gentle sweep
of waves soaking into wet sand,
the slow roll of seaweed, bubbles
bursting around shells, wings
low over the water.
I draw in the evening and keep
it close with its lights 
sprinkled around the edges 
of the headland, 
emerging stars hung soundless
in the heavens, the blinking 
passage of a southbound airplane 
heading into a long night.
From somewhere, the smell
of honeysuckle spilling 
into the waiting air.

I make my way home, filled
with all that I have taken in,
almost happy having little space
left over to fit myself.

Details | Paul Willason Poem

The Labrador

If I wasn't there,
the rain swollen clouds
would have still dumped 
their dark weight over the bay
and through a gaping tear,
let down a curtain of sunlight
to start the day.

And if I wasn't there,
the old, arthritic labrador 
would have still waddled
along the street
with its bent but steady gait,
undistracted, self absorbed 
and fixed in its own stare
that allowed no deviation 
from years of devoted plod.

The morning had no need
for me, what happened
would have happened anyway.
There's an annoying sadness
in knowing the earth 
doesn't seem to care
if things pass unnoticed.
Sunsets and waterfalls
carry no favor. 
To it, the achingly beautiful 
and the catastrophic can
happily go unreported.

And yet I still ask -
what's the point -
and entertain the notion
that the universe has this
innate and unfathomable need
for a witness
to take in Creations 
unfolding riddle
and make it fit together.

I could be wrong,
but for each of us, 
the privilege of being here
on this gifted earth,
to understand, care for 
and tell its story in song
fulfills a purpose,
if only to this end -
or something more.

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Murmurs

I gather in the scarred 
and broken forms,
the lipped imperfections
that score the wind
to give voice to an evening. 
I see through the lesions
that open to a stillness
into which the universe
whispers its unfolding.

I feel the awe,
the sheer enormity 
that confronts the senses 
as all that is 
opens into endlessness, 
the mind wilting 
at its door,
leaving only these hands 
to shape offerings which,
like shells held to an ear,
echo only the faint murmurs 
of what cannot
be contained.

Details | Paul Willason Poem

Emily Dickinson

Crowned poet,
posthumous Queen 
of the private world, 
you explored
every subtlety of the soul
and mapped the wonder
of existence 
to its last drawn breath.

What price did you pay
deep in your alabaster chambers,
charting the course 
of a nameless presence 
stretched across eternity, 
giving it a home 
in the exquisite vessel 
of your words.

Details | Paul Willason Poem

The Mythical River Beast

I watched it emerge
from out of the fog, monumental
in size, a sheer cliff face of steel 
moving pass me, almost
quieter than my breath 
but for a whispered wake
running from its bow.
Something this big
should have made 
more noise.

A black hull bore scars 
of scrapings and rust bleeding out
of fissures along its length.
The fog seemed to oil its way,
its shape looming large
then slowly growing smaller 
as it slid down river until
it dimmed and disappeared.

In that moment its passage
was a mystery, a brief apparition
of something beyond the dimension 
of ordinary things. The quiet
of its passing, the dark bulk 
and beauty of its presence
was magnificent 
and overpowering.
It was like a shadow cast 
by a mythical beast
coalescing out of history,
infiltrating the mind then
dissolving once more
into a place somewhere
hidden in its magical past,
suddenly brought back
to this world 
with its registered port
written in rusty lettering
on its stern - MONROVIA

Details | Paul Willason Poem

The Peach Tree

They would ripen all at once
under a hot sun and hang
in a sugary glut only for a day 
or two before starting to spoil. 
I had to be quick and when
the time came, 
I hurried home
from school to clamber up
the tree and seize 
the fruit. Each was a warm, 
engorged globe of flesh 
with just a hint of give 
when a finger was pressed 
into skin.
No command, 
not even from God,
could have held back a bite.

Mouthfuls of sweet peach
sent every pleasure bud
on the tongue into a spasm 
and spilt the overload 
oozing out of the corners
of stretched lips. 
Great gulps 
were hurried down the throat 
to make room for another bite. 
No savoring restraint held
me back, this was volume.
All afternoon
my face and hands 
dripped a sticky syrup,
coating my shirt.

Finally I would have my fill
and sit bloated beneath
the tree surrounded 
by peachstones some still
encased in leftovers 
of pinkish flesh. Sorry evidence
to convict. Afterwards, 
a terrible remorse always
took hold. Next day 
I thought my stomach ache
was punishment from above.
Every year of my childhood,
in the heat of late summer, 
I repeated the same sin,
suffered the same consequence,
hoped for forgiveness 
from a wrathful God.

Details | Paul Willason Poem

The Longing

There is always 
a dull longing
that goes unlabelled
and hangs a layer or two
below a joy, a pang
somewhere in the soul
that can't be coughed up
or cut out, just endured.

A nonsense to the skeptic,
no more than perhaps
a twitch of an evolutionary
relic left unemployed within
the brain, now ossified
into an irritant jumping
across the boundaries
of our troubled sleep.

Whatever its origin,
it's always there
be it a hollow left in our psyche 
from an umbilical when severed 
by God or a buffering problem
in our brain,
the longing never leaves.
We try and quench it
with beauty, love, art
and myth but it remains
unfulfilled, as if a speck
of the infinite resides within
us all, that can absorb 
everything we have 
and then ask for more.

Details | Paul Willason Poem

The Question

Looking out of a window
onto the world, you wonder
if there is an awareness 
that soaks each living cell, 
something that sews together 
all life into a symphony 
playing to the score written
by a single entity.

Or is everything a random
throw, discrete forms let loose
within a mindless programme 
loaded with a bias 
to survive, a world where
even charity and love
are attributes selected 
to give the species 
a social advantage, a trick
to win the game.

What then art, a sublime
song sung by the human
soul or something made
in the workshop
of a brain to keep
the human species entertained,
nothing more 
than an evolutionary pill 
to save us from going insane
whilst welded to our purpose.
Yet so much seems superfluous 
to the mere act of breeding,
that we create books, galleries 
and concert halls to store,
the evidence we could be more.

Details | Paul Willason Poem

The Shadow

I have a light within
that I've somehow curtained,
put something in its way.
I cast a shadow across
everything. It is no defect
of the eye but of the spirit,
a flaw I have in me,
a dimming I pass on to settle
the scene and rob color
of its intensity.

I've gotten used 
to the dull glaze I bring 
that now it appears 
the natural state of things. 
Even water speared 
by the sun bleeds a muted sheen, 
no bright splinters of light 
ricochet off to be caught 
by eyes having to hide 
behind a squint, I can take
my reflections straight.

There are moments 
when I can feel a tightening
and something within me
stretch and tear the stitching 
on a seam. Light pours out
and affixes a patch of life
in a blinding beam, too bright
to hold or keep except 
for the afterglow it leaves
on a page or lingering 
for awhile on the horizons 
of a dream.

Details | Paul Willason Poem

Nowhere

Nowhere is a place
that comes up blank 
on google maps 
but you go there everyday,
walk the streets,
catch a train, buy lunch
at the same cafe.
Everything there is a clever
counterfeit, a construct
of your mind.

Nowhere is a place
where you can hide, 
where shadows luxuriate 
and thoughts have doors
so you can slip away
without being seen.
It's the place you know,
the stalled halfway point
where a lifetime
can be spent shuffling
dead end streets between 
where you are and where 
you want to go.