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Best Poems Written by Richard Hayes

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

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Lightning

Light,
Sudden, afar
Trembling stillness, Nature
Pauses, listening.
Thunder

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Mourning

Winter rains caress the slope
Where your ashes  fell
Rain and Spring will bring new life

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Spring Flowers

Desert flowers.
Bright colours
Too quickly gone.
Dead.
So too are we

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The Chasm

In anger
You told me
A chasm lay between us,
I looked
Saw it there
I recognised
My own handiwork
Horrified, repenting I
Built a bridge,
With strong foot boards
Tempting you to cross
I added shiny rails,
To stop you falling.
I sweep the boards
And polish the rails,
Most every day.
But you don't come 
To see,
To cross.
One day the dust will stay
The rails will start to corrode.
Then if you cross,
You will find
Only an empty wasteland
And my dust
Blowing in the wind
Unknowable.

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Light Sleeper

I'm five. 
It is light outside and I'm in bed.
But Mummy says it's late
My feet are bored.
They can hear the world outside 
And want to run, to dance, to play.
And I must say good night.

I am 35.
It's light outside and I'm in bed.
It's early morning
My body is bored.
It hears the surf outside roaring,
And wants to run, to swim, to surf,
But I must work
Until I say good night.

I am 55.
It's light outside and I'm in bed.
It's 3 am and bright with city light.
I hear people outside jolliing. (tr. partying)
My feet are bored - again.
I want to dance, to laugh, to sing.
Until the darkness comes.

I am 85.
It's light outside and I'm in bed.
I know its light outside, 
The nurse has said it is so.
The little boy is bored.
He wants to run and jump and play.
But I am tired and now its time
To let the darkness come.

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The Crow

?The air gently rises, I'm called, I'm called
"Spread now your wings, fly free, into the sky"
My wings impatient to ride the wind soaring
Softly call me to take the rising thermals
I spring away and fall before my wings
Gracefully open wide and strong
And bear my weight and break my fall
Spiral, around, around, rising on water
Driven air, rising from plunging water
Gravity fuelled, spring driven, seaward bound
It powers me up on wide spread wings.
I climb up, toward the vast blue sky
Lifted by the rising air column
I'm grace, perfection, control, ease
And above all master of the air
The ground recedes, the dry earth
Expands, stretches, and soon
Way above I fly because I can
Not because I must but
Because I am lord of all I survey.

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Artisan

Hands softened by diesel oil
Strengthened by daily toil
Scarred by physical work
Lie helpless while they talk
Softly of time and age and
The shifting of life's sand
The artisan listens sadly
Sixty years so badly wanted
Fifty nine years are granted
His life ends that terrible day
He has no reason to stay.