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Best Poems Written by Richard Allen

Below are the all-time best Richard Allen poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Life at rainbows end

people come, they go
pattern of lives loose-woven
and unrecognised

fate is just chance, some
random coincidence of
persons and events

if pattern there is
you and I could not see it
too close and too faint

life at rainbow’s end
where primary colours blend
all is black or white

centrifugal force
eliminating object
irresistible

continuum space
time dimensions of the void
sub-atomic id

Caliban’s quantum
leap into complexity
fire of libraries

overpowering me
animal of my present
genetic heirloom

dismal winter storms
insignificant fury
nothing better than

ever present death
season before our rebirth
losing its savour

reason’s reborn rage
calculating cold revenge
dying souls’ repast

age wearies my soul
while my body fights its fate
no satisfaction


life at matter’s end
particles planning to change
me for other forms

life at reason’s end
what has sense to do with age
when death annuls it

life at senses’ end
midnight panic blind terror
soul, be calm – live on

time now to take stock
I am autumn, winter looms
inevitably 

time now to nurture
keep my body hard and strong
soul in the clear air

time now to find peace
let me soul in stillness cease
body find release

guide me spirit guide
body to dust, soul to void
life at rainbow’s end

Details | Richard Allen Poem

Different Worlds

suddenly a commotion
a score of gulls screaming
wings flapping, gliding, wheeling
then within half a minute
away into the sky behind the houses
what and why I asked myself
but found no answer, as usual

a pattern of small copses
gaunt, unloved trees, perilously
leaning against each other
roots drowning in pools of muddy water
picture of neglect and decay
and then in their midst
a carpet of bluebells

field of sheep
field of horses
field of crows
field of cows
field of rabbits
field of wood-pigeons
field of barren apple-trees
field of bare earth
field of undrained water
field of hope
field of neglect
fields of Britain

Details | Richard Allen Poem

Jack Frosdt and the Ice Queen

It freezes
	my breath back against my face
		     back against the wall;
stiff as cardboard
	like frozen washing dragging on the line
		     my skin ignores my bones;
icy slush
	slithers round the veins in my feet
		and no warm blood dare enter;
my fingers
	red and lumpy like raw sausages,
		     quick-frozen, cannot hold your hand;
the air
	between us is frozen like a board –
		sound hardly travels in such frost.
Grotesque
	and unreal, I am a hoar-frost demon,
		and you, apparently, are the Ice Queen.
Underground
	must I hearken back hastily,
		as you melt away into my past.
The sun
	feebly lights our frosty passions,
		and you melted away in the heat.
Night freezes,
	and I spring up from dark below
		but you are melted to a stump.
It freezes,
	my breath back against my face,
		     back against the wall.

Details | Richard Allen Poem

wolf

Our world is filled
with the stench of death
the wolf was never at the door
it was always inside
destroying everything
in fire and blood
in agony and falling buildings
killing, maiming and starving
babies and children,
women and old people,
the sick, the healthy,
the sane and the deranged
the poor and (rarely if ever) the rich
it has the mind of a psychopath
unrestrained by laws or morals
sometimes even applauded
Our world is filled 
with the stench of death 
I weep salt tears
but it isn’t enough.

Details | Richard Allen Poem

Old man's beard

is it just my age?
increasingly I value
winter’s soft decay

those last few leaves
revealing tree branches
decorated with lichen

rays of the low sun
penetrating morning mist
shining in hoar frost

in the hedgerows
remnants of summer’s blooms
ragged robin and old man’s beard

gulls and crows picking
at the dead fields, harbingers
of a time of lack

oak leaves are the last
to fall, pallid brown, clinging
to summer’s false hopes

even at midday
mist persists, permeating
tired fields, sad bare woods

a time of quiet
decay and rebirth: I watch
disconsolately

Details | Richard Allen Poem

The Parsley Sage

heavy-footed
he tramps his
wisdom on her
renaissance carpet
			she gives him
			thick coffee and
			sits him in a chair
			far too small
he stares about
the room & talks
about nothing in
particular, but
			thinking all the 
			time about time
she smiles and
does not understand
			he clutters out
			confused by her
			incomprehension
			stumbling over his
tears.

Details | Richard Allen Poem

Winter sun

“wundor weardh on wege	water weardh to bane*”

Across the path of fallen leaves, dark and unremembered,
Millions of white crystals teeming from a leaden sky
Darting like tiny daggers into my eyes, blinking, smarting,
Over frozen ground, rapidly white, I lope cautiously
From the top of the wood, the fields are already covered
And the bare trees assume a garb resembling white feathers, 
Hazy in a white mist of a billion swirling, dancing crystals
As I trace a path through the virgin white forest paths
The storm ceases and with a pallid sun comes the frost
My feet chill as they crunch through the thickening snow
In the crevices of frozen mud, footprints of ice appear
Dull and bone-hard beneath the glistening white crystals
Even the slightest breeze brings a fake snowfall from the trees
Disappointed gratitude at the sight of a deceitful sun
Ever chillier, even the air against my face feels ice-hard
My breath coursing forth like the fumes of a steaming dragon
The only warmth save the blood pumping my legs forward
Through tracks white and hard, through an unfamiliar landscape
Seemingly recognisable, but utterly changed, almost instantly
And that poor impoverished sun, bright enough to blind,
But too weak to cherish, disturbs my erratic, stumbling way,
Until I depart from the wood, sliding on pavements of grey ice
Disguised by yet more flakes of snow, as the failing sun retreats
And a blizzard obliterates the darkening skies.
				



(* “On the way a wonder 	water became bone”)

Details | Richard Allen Poem

Grey Angel

In the woods lurks the grey angel;
Wingless and disillusioned, he awaits
The onset of diarrhoea,
Bismarck’s jocular displeasure
And the seagull’s lugubrious weightlessness –
Later than previously, he erects
A flag made of wormwood
Brought all the way
From the ceiling of an underground café in East Berlin -
He sighs….and it is like someone playing
A musical saw: it expresses harmoniously
His perpendicular musical soul –
Expecting nothing, he is perpetually disappointed
By the visitations of crones desirous of petty miracles,
Of repentant tax-gatherers requesting absolution,
On New-Age moongazers seeking enlightenment,
Of people who desire certainty, answers,
Of people who pursue truth and self-righteousness,
Of people who just want to see what an angel,
Any angel looks like. Only these curious rubbernecks
Touch his bland and ironic soul with a faint luminosity –
Their enthusiasm for life, if crass and tawdry,
At least provides the salt which otherwise
Has lost its flavour….a pity
That it just rubs salt into his wounds.

Details | Richard Allen Poem

Truant

grey morning, ten o’clock,
school gates closed
with all the pupils inside –
less than a mile away
empty park, empty playground,
except for a teenage boy
sitting on a swing,
rocking furiously to and fro

Details | Richard Allen Poem

ball tears fall invade dreams

I had feared
that you
had become
a sealion;
		but you could
		not swim
		over the lake;
huge tears
were in your eyes,
			and the large red ball
			fell out of your mind
			on to the ground
			as though punctured;
Liebchen,
do not invade
my dreams thus
again.