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Best Poems Written by Nigel Gray

Below are the all-time best Nigel Gray poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Nigel Gray Poem

The Girl, Part I and 2

This is two parter. The first dealing with the abuse of the mother. The second part is about her child, growing up in care

The Girl, Part 1

A foetus from a mother’s womb

Prematurely born too soon

Due to punches, slaps and kicks

Delivered fast with fury, quick

By a man, in drunken rage

Who thumped a stomach, broke ribcage

Of mother who could not defend

Against the rage which knew no end.

Unbridled ire he launched against

A woman who had had the sense, 

And also child beat out from her

By angry, savage, saboteur

N.L.G


The Girl. Part 2

She never stood a chance, the girl
A chance she never stood
At seven months, born premature
Kicked out of womb with foot;
By father laced in alcohol 
Belligerent and vile,
Who spared no rod nor pulled his punch
On women he defiled

She never stood a chance, the girl 
A chance she never stood 
In Children’s homes and foster care
she lived through her childhood 
Attachments never formed for her
No bonds or pledges made
By people charged to care for her 
Just sorrow and dismay

She never stood a chance, the girl
A chance she never stood
No opportunities for her 
They thought she’d do no good 
Passed from pillar then to post,
And then passed back again
She never stood a chance the girl
For her no sweet refrains 

She never stood a chance, the girl
A chance she never stood
Poverty for her assured
It ran through lines in blood
No song with lifting melodies 
Would underscore her life
Just beats reigned down from angry fists
And chorus sung with strife 

She never stood a chance the, girl 
A chance she never stood 
Disordered personality
Consultants diagnosed 
Anxiety, depression 
Heightened lows and lofty highs
Mental health became her norm
Well, should we wonder why?

N.L.G

Details | Nigel Gray Poem

Like Rabbit In a Headlight Caught

PTSD

Like rabbit in the headlight caught
I want to move, i know I ought
But quicksand stuck, I’m petrified 
My body still, arms laid by side
Stretched out on mattress, naked, soaked
From sweat in which my body’s cloaked
My eyes beneath my eyelids twitch 
I feel spell bound, as though bewitched 

For no amount of effort made
Will stop the mighty fusillade 
Of flitting thoughts that run amok 
In brain that never seems to stop
That terrify and keep me still 
And holds me there against my will
As demons holler, scream and shout
Cause in me panic, fear and doubt

Another night. Another night
Of post traumatic, tear filled fright
Recurrent themes of past events
That feel electric, shock intense
Of sights and tastes, of smells and sounds
Of death displayed on battleground 
Where I lay frozen like a corpse 
Amongst the dead of man and horse

Laid with my friends whose high pitched screams 
Preceded death, as blood in streams
Poured forth from wounds and shattered limbs
With faces fixed in rictus grin
Their eyes wide open, traumatised
Set fast at time of their demise
These friends I’ve lost. Held close, held dear
I felt their pain. I felt their fear

Me, myself, will coward call
For I, stock still, watched comrades fall
As bullets sent from snipers hide
Shot men who dropped like swatted flies
While flares lit up the darkened sky
I saw those maimed around me writhe 
They cried in anguish, cried in pain 
Cried out for mothers, though in vain

For mothers comfort they’d not get
Just cold embrace from barbed wire net 
Or warmth from bullet searing flesh 
Or tender mustard gas caress 
For mothers could not see their tears
Could not console with sympathies
These boys who came forth from their wombs
Though trench would likely be their tomb

Again, again sent out again
To breach the top of trench. AGAIN!
To fight against an enemy 
We did not know and could not see
We were sick, with madness cursed
Our shell shocked brains we nightly nursed
Self soothed ourselves, curled into balls
Whilst huddled against trenches walls

When injured we were fixed and sown
To battle ground we would return
But minds cannot be healed with stitch 
Though bodies healed our minds were sick
Sick of life and sick of death
Our lives bereft and meaninglessness 
Oh take us from this maddened curse 
Of war that seems oh so perverse 

The end came quick, armistice signed 
Came home from war, left friends behind
Consigned to unknown soldiers grave 
In foreign land and small enclaves
But memories of these past events
Lay dormant not and circumvent  
the inner workings of my brain
Night after night with no refrain 

The war has left a deepened scar 
My mind a waking, night-time, mare
Of comrades I’ve left dead on Front
With blown off faces, bloodied stumps
Whose images, come back to haunt 
Sorrow filled and ghostly gaunt 
I weep as pictures fill my head
Of bodies slain, disfigured, dead

Come the night when I can sleep 
And cry no more on sweat stained sheets
No longer feeling tense and fraught 
As though entrapped and cobweb caught
I’ll feel no shame that I came home
Will not feel guilt for friends now gone
No horrors will prevail my thoughts
Of those who died on battlefront 

There’ll be a time when I will shed 
My cloak of fear that’s stitched with dread
When only fondest memories
Of friends I had revisit me
Should I feel lucky I survived 
Did fortune favour those who died
I often wonder who fared worse
The now deceased or living cursed

Details | Nigel Gray Poem

A Mother Under Lockdown

I wrote this when my mother was alive and added the last verse when she died. 
Covid was a terrible time for all. My mother suffered a second sons death during Covid. Two sons lost before her own passing and the isolation felt during the Covid period. Not nice



A mother under lockdown

A Mother under lockdown, 
looking teary.
Overwhelmed and suffering, 
she was weary
Isolated solitude
A loneliness, whose magnitude. 
Dissolved her strength and fortitude; 
So clearly

Another son she’d lost, 
before her time
But life, it has no reason, 
nor no rhyme.
Suffering could not replace
The pain my Mother had to face. 
Her life, the only saving grace; 
Was mine

I saw the grief, 
etched in My Mothers face
The love of sons and Mother,
interlaced.
Through nightmare she was stumbling
Though shielded she was struggling. 
So distant from her mothering; 
Displaced

My Mother loved them, 
this I know for sure
Reciprocated love, 
they had for her.
They’d comfort and allay her fears
They’d hold her, wipe away her tears. 
Not knowing that their death was near;
Ensured

There’s many in our lives, 
who’ve now passed on 
Brothers, sisters, 
nephews, nieces, sons.
There’s no replacing what we’ve lost
Longevity comes at a cost. 
You lose the ones you love the most; 
Forgone

The end of life for mother, 
has now come
As now we mourn,
the setting of her sun
She’s left a lasting legacy
Behold, we’re here, for all to see
Ensuring that her ancestry;
Lives on

N.L.G

Details | Nigel Gray Poem

I Know a Man

I work in mental health and hear lots of stories from people who have suffered abuse, when young. This poem is about the abuse suffered by a child that led to psychosis as an adult. Warning: if you’re ‘triggered’or ‘offended’ by the content of the poem. Please don’t read it.  

I know a man

I know a man who knows a man, 
Who lives inside his head
The man I know has told me that, 
This man fills him with dread
He scolds him, calls him bastard
And he says he should be dead
He mocks him daily, takes the piss 
And tears his life to shreds

This man I know, informs me that,
The man inside his head
Has lived with him since he was young 
And raped him in his bed
He told me that, the man he knows,
Upstairs would lightly tread
To slide between duvet and sheet
And wrong him while he slept 

The man who lives inside his head, 
Was both his parents friend
He baby sat when they went out,
Abuse this did portend
This man I know, then just a child
Was too weak to defend;
Himself from lust of pedophile
Who ‘ed’ him till he bled


Pshycotic now, this man I know 
He takes olanzapine
It quells the voice inside of him
But life is not serene 
The man who lives inside his head 
Though quiet and unseen 
Still petrifies this man I know 
And haunts his nightly dreams

N..L.G

Details | Nigel Gray Poem

Poor Blue

Poor Blue. Written about a visit to the butchers with my mum, in Liverpool, when I was a child

Poor Blue

To butchers I went
With mother to spend
Some money on meat for the week
For two days a week 
My mother cooked meat,
Boiled tatties, with carrots and peas 

This did coincide
With baths as child
As meat and a bath were a treat
But not just for me 
As brother you see
Shared both on the same day each week 

But back to the tale
Of butcher regale 
With mother and me lined in queue 
In front of us stood
A man and his dog
A long haired Alsatian named Blue

From nowhere a smell
Invaded the shell 
Inside of the small butchery
In nostril it crept
As tear drops I wept
And nausea overcame me

My mother said loud
“Dogs shunt be allowed,
In places where foods on display”
Blue looked at my mum
And though it were dumb
It’s eyes displayed hurt and dismay

The butcher stared down 
Addressing the hound,
Said, “you and your master must go.
Please turn about face
And leave from this place
Dog farting is such a no no”

Both bloke and the dog
Departed the shop
And left with their tales between legs
When I looked at mum 
She whispered “keep schtum”
For from her came’t smell of bad eggs

For months after that
When we shared a bath
Both brother and me made a joke
We’d fart in the bath 
Make bubbles and laugh
At mother, Poor Blue and the bloke

N.L.G