Best Poems Written by S. Lee Bentley

Below are the all-time best S. Lee Bentley poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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That Girl, a World Away

That girl, a world away
Does she think of me?
That girl, a world away
How to make her stay?

That girl, a world away 
We would never be
That girl, a world away
Sleeps when I'm awake

That girl, a world away
I cannot unsee
That girl, a world away
Haunts me every day

Copyright © S. Lee Bentley | Year Posted 2025


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My Place Below the Hill

Fresh ocean air
Oh, take me there!
To the place below the hill
Three hundred years
I hold it dear
Ancestors can be felt still

For all I've roamed
My heart knows home
And it cannot get it's fill
How does it long!
For ancient song
And the view from mine own sill

A seat of peace
My mind's at ease
Oh, the terrors a place can kill
Soon I'll return
All else to burn
And allow my heart to spill

Copyright © S. Lee Bentley | Year Posted 2025

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June 26

Violently thrashing and jerking and pulling
It implores me to act
Desperate to stay alive in it's final hour
Reminding me of our pact

It pleads, it begs, It cries to me
All the while concealing it's fangs
It tears me apart inside
It hammers, it pounds, and it bangs 

A love earst alive and warm and real 
Now cold and cooling yet 
Longing to be revived, it's fighting
Refusing to lose the bet 

Once nurtured now neglected, alone and afraid 
I must let it die 
And to ensure it won't return a spectre tomorrow
I'll stare it in the eye

Copyright © S. Lee Bentley | Year Posted 2025

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A Line

I see you in the faces of 10,000 strangers

Copyright © S. Lee Bentley | Year Posted 2025

Details | S. Lee Bentley Poem

There's Heaven

At the center of the storm you'll find the calm
In hell, in hell; there's heaven
Peace has been beside you all along
In hell, in hell; there's heaven
When the clouds part you'll hear birdsong
In hell, in hell; find heaven

Copyright © S. Lee Bentley | Year Posted 2025


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Obsession or The Way I Wish Things Were

What I want to do is purge you from myself
All of you from all of me
And move into the future, alone
Find a new purpose or
Float aimless without a home
.For eternity 

But

If we are tied together in this life
    and the next
        and the next
            and the next
If we were tied together before
In lives past
Through the ancient histories
    10,000 times repeated
        and repeated
Who am I 
To ask you to go on without me?
Who am I 
To ask myself to go on without you?
Who am I to ask?

I'm unable to forsake you

Perhaps I can ask myself now
...In this time
Plead with my soul
Persuade my heart to petition my mind

Beg

"Please, forget her."

But you cannot be separated
from the substance of my being.
You are essential.

This time was a failure
It hurts to exist here alone.
It hurts that I cannot be there for you.
It hurts that you don't hold a place for me.
It hurts that you don't see me
    recognize me.

The twist of the knife...
Here, in this place, I am an imposter.

The only thing left to do?
Cut this life short
and Wait for you
    in the next

Copyright © S. Lee Bentley | Year Posted 2025

Details | S. Lee Bentley Poem

The Tug That Roars Within Me

My biggest weakness is my desire for obsession
My want to be fully engulfed in my aeipathy for another person
To give them all of me
And more, all I want to be
To gladly abandon any other potential 
To blind myself 
To neglect anything else that needs my attention 

To forsake my goals and any progress I've made toward them
For the sake of being consumed by the feeling of being in love
To hold tight to someone long after they are gone. 
To fixate on an idea
I do this to my detriment 

I remain stagnant in a moment long past
And feel it still, as real as it once had been 
My disposition to sacrifice the current moment is my undoing
I abandon the things that need tending to
I die to all future moments 
I could easily live the rest of life as a court jester
Playing the role of Romeo on the stage of my own mind

Copyright © S. Lee Bentley | Year Posted 2026

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