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Best Poems Written by Gavin Pattison

Below are the all-time best Gavin Pattison poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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The Good and the Bad

I am good, with certitude I do solemnly say, 
But look without and see this sunlit and splendid day.
For is it not true that to be upright in such is so damned easy, 
But not at all when winds are northern and I’m feeling weary? 

I heard a happening the other day of a great deceit, 
A crime so ill and corrupt, one of such a terrible feat. 
With cunning a man did take the wealth of his dear friend, 
And what of truth and of trust when but money be the end? 

My spirit recoiled and righteous I felt – that, I’d never do! 
Or so you think, my friend said, but have you ever looked at you? 
Of course I have and found, within, a pure and good heart! 
Ah, he said, but what of without when all goes athwart? 

But what do you mean, my dear friend?  I promptly did ask back.
What I mean is your life is bright but what if it were black? 
I looked about at silver sites and props, and did heavily swoon, 
For in a mental flash I imagined all as barren as the moon. 

What am I if all such robes were in an instant taken away? 
And my friend, perceptive and timely, slowly began to say: 
Look around and see the mass in times so rich, and gay, and fine, 
Then you will see, my dear friend, that there is no need to cross the line. 

Now I’m lost, my friend, I said, could you put it another way? 
Yes, my friend, I can and will, and then sombrely he did say: 
The good and the bad are one and the same in times high but not low, 
For in the latter the bad are shown, but who it be, it’s hard to know!

A, my friend, o yes, now I do see, but there’s one thing I don’t understand:
What of the terrors, in times good and bad, who wreak chaos about the land?
Those are the few, he said to me, his eyes wide open and alert and bold;
He then went to speak but then could not for his blood, it seemed, had gone cold.

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My Dear, My Love, My Lie

Alas, in the entirety of my composition I see, I feel, now, a part missing whose shape is strange, a form which nothing, without and within, might fill;  

It is you, My Dear, whoever, wherever you are; you are the missing part, My Love, the phantasmal modicum;
 
One day you will come to me, and the hole will be plugged, and this frosty winter draft will cease to blow about the creaking corridors of my being; My Dear, the leaks will stop; 

I won’t feel so heavy, so down; I will be full yet light, cumuli; I will be complete; alas, you are but a fiction, My Love, a lie, a distant note of hope, dishonest as a child’s laugh above a funeral’s solemn load; 

For it too will cease and perish as the white dove, above turmoil and war, will fall and rot;

But you’ll see me through this hueless, harrowing day of trees crawling about my blank, birdless sky; 

My Dear, for now, at least, My Love, for now, at least, My Lie, from now till the last, everywhere, nowhere.

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Autumn's Art

When light goes from the sky, hitherto blue
And all seems so old and dead, except you;
And the cicadas’ concord ceases midday song,
And Orion melts, who erstwhile told the lie that nothing’s wrong;

Lament not, for smokestacks will promptly climb
Into a sky so pastel pale with the passing of the time;
Against which softly set will be a blur of orange, of red,
At which hearts will swoon and will pass thy frigid dread.

As the iced-pricked air elicits the blood of the weeping trees
And you, now numbed, are brought to your reddened knees;
To the wind-whipped rustle, the music of the ground,
You cry and laugh a little at such art, profound. 

The smoke of autumn will billow about your elated being
And let it you will and stand in awe, as if for the first time seen;
For a thought will rise as a bubble in your humming head – 
O how and so can such beauty be made by things but dead?

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Dead Dreams

There once was a boy called Tom 
Who knew not where he was from, 
So he went to a land far away 
And lived a life, o, so fine, so gay. 

He lived under a silvery shining summer moon, 
Cirri skies of pastel aloft made him fully-bloom. 
Lavender light and smell and song suffused his memory, 
But, alas, such sweets evoked not what was but what could be. 

For as time slowly went by, 
He felt his life go awry, 
And deep shadows walked over his being, 
The leaks in his soul unheard, unseen. 

For in each enchanted moment that came, 
The problem was invariably the same; 
Not what and who were there, but who and what were not, 
Slowly made his visions and dreams decay and rot. 

He was, alas, a victim of time, 
His days bereft of rhythm, of rhyme.  
And so his gasping heart felt not full, 
Skies drained of hue; chords of doom rang dull. 

Thus one day he mounted a cliff-edge, 
And, with a full gasp, leapt off the ledge, 
And dived and tumbled and fell hard down to the sea, 
That poor boy, Tom, from his phantoms, never free.