Errant in the dark, the telltale signs

we saw catapult us fifteen miles

through gulley and field

uproot and cascade, we now deem

a captured eye, a wind-blown scene,

so fresh, so free for all, and yet...

hot-bladed too, a line of fire

in this frenzied, war-torn age

a searing divide, a map, a point

as plain and unbroken as

you, my rock, my hallowed place

here be...

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if I was offered a choice between a Ferrari

and everlasting life

that would need some careful consideration

      and while i'm thinking it out (hypothetically)

i'll take out my very own genie's lamp

(always a comfort in times of stress)

      rub it vigorously

      wait for results.

I mean, this comes with no strings

no after effects

and no need to change

th...

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Zones of Avoidance (an excerpt)

I’m reading ‘The Confessions of an English Opium Eater’ –

I want to understand what drove my daughter out

in the snow with no coat or socks, in search of a fix.

I want to understand what divinity led her

to set up camp in the derelict ‘pigeon house’

after running out of sofas to surf.

*

I was a Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds girl mys...

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When I’ve gone

When I’ve left you all

When my bones are being reduced

To dust, best held in an urn

Skip through my back catalogue

Find the verse I cobbled together

That has become your favourite

And read it, loud and proud

It’s all I’d want really

I can think of nothing better

Than my most precious friends and family

Being forced ...

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How do you get considered...

elected or selected...

To decide on the worth of another's work,

And how it should be respected?

Is it just an ego trip...

The way to poetry fame "to be",

A judge of poems whose taste will lurk

In the pages of posterity?

Are there certain forms expected...

And names of familiarity?

Is it likely to be rejected

If you're unknown...

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Eyes snapped shut in the street-facing bedroom

lit up by the light of the Spar

that floods it's white plastic windows

illuminating each passing car

In her curled up hands a faded old photo

crinkled,yellowing,torn,

but the hands,once so gentle,that hold this mementoe,

are as cold,are as granite, as stone

In came Sister with a meagre tea tray

barging in,past...

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Confidence

Faith rising in the east

calm after the storm 

pressed suits and uncomfortable shoes

the good word awaits

the sidewalk alive with parents

and children

too many to count 

So sweet and innocent

Mom and Pop 

anxious to compare clothes 

recipes

scarves 

and neighbor gripes

Such content 

such confidence 

must be nice to know 

to know th...

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I live my life the way that I choose

Within a commonly accepted framework,

Both legal and moral.

My creeds are common sense,

Honesty and freedom of choice.

Am I consistent in my actions? Probably not,

But I try to do my best,

Keep myself to myself

And get on with living my life.

Is it necessary for me to set a good example?

Quite probably, but within na...

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        A wish to help me through the night
        Twin flames forever burning bright
   Lost souls who've found each other now
       Complete in knowledge that somehow
                   We'll make it through 
                        However hard
                   We'll grow together
                    Love unbarred 

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Berlin

A conversation with a stranger

Across a rumpled unmade bed

The sound of her voice rolling

Against the thunder in my head

And I felt so low and tired

So full of hurt despair

Didn’t know where I was

Or how I’d arrived there

But I was talking to this stranger

The way I’d not talked for years

And she was sitting listening

Through all my words and fe...

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I opened my heart for all to be seen

an overwrought shadow of a former once me

beaten, bruised with a spirit so low

hanging as the leaves of a weeping willow

What wrong,I had shown, was cut ever more

For showing the hurt  

kept in most others, special draw.

"your pathetic", "so bloody weak"

cruel to the worst 

Nor can I bury the love that I  seek

worthless fool for ca...

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abandoned now upon the rack
yoked as a slave to the flesh
inshallah he hears a hundred times
cain's mark he bears upon his head

in the lower forest of the climb
where man does not clear nor farm
a narrow track threads the groves
of shadows without near or far

and here to ali's great dismay
a feasting tiger bars the path
half hidden by the shafting rays
and the weighty buffalo carcas...

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Hold your head high and smile and

Straighten your back and look ahead

They tell me

Because I

Never know who I am and what I deserve

Never remember

My place in the world.

I think I am a cloud or a see-through curtain

I fancy myself a vase with no flowers in it

I walk around like a clown on a journey

Outside the walls of the home.

I would let birds alight on my shoul...

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Eros
a letter bearer
a memorial burier
graveshift digger,
sobbing for solace
muzzled, but crying out
characters carved in fingernail

caricatures recycled, resewn
(pretending that you've never known)

dug up and cleaned up
pastels painted over
and over
bright and brighter colors yet
to pour over tired, faded earthen tones
rewritten unrecognizeable:
and rewritten
and rewritten
pl...

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an old oliveoil press rusting at the bottom of a sandy garden

in his occupied territory.

man lying prostrate,

on the soil.

murmuring.

about a weight, a burden, something.

we disciples could not hear clearly,

what with all the muffled explosions

and such.

 this man, this man, he screamed out ‘NOT AS I WILL BUT AS YOU WILL FATHER!’.

but there was no other man there, no ...

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Child,

My Dear

Come here

Why are

You here?

Alone?

No Mama?

No Papa?

 All alone?

Come

Come

With me

No need

For you

To walk

These Streets

On your

Own

Look around

Child

Is this the  

Future

For you?

The world

Is too busy

No one

Will notice

You passing

Through

Child

You loo...

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Even when the light inside the Mind goes very dim,
The power of the Heart will still be there.
To guide you through the darkness when the times are feeling grim,
And remind you of the love that you once shared.

Just like the tide, it's ebb and flow,
Together with the Earth, we are attuned.
So breathe in slow, then let it go,
And time itself will help you heal the wound.

I apologiz...

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I once knew a little girl

Or maybe she was a young woman

With a pornographic smile

And a diamond in the corner of her eye

She used to tell me stories

Of late nights and sad parties

And the men that she kept

Always had another secret at home

She flirted with danger

Wasn’t paid in cash or kindness

The pavement welcomed her presence

With a sympathetic sigh

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A sad entry.

Sadness in blogs. 

Overwhelms the theme. 

I wait for the wave to carry me forward. 

I sink into the sea.

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I have sat at home and watched whilest my world has fell apart . A lonely drastic place , the place I made my start . Memories of a lifetime , and so within my heart . Being torn apart by others , just ripping us apart . We gave them our all . All our dreams , all our plans . Worked hard all our lives , now facing more demands . Nothing to look forward to , only new challenges every day . The rich...

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I AM AFRAID

Childhood
Adoclescence
 Late
Adulthood
Creeps Peacefully
        
Smoothed
By
God’s Long Fingers,    

Asleep …
Tired … or Malingering    
Sprawled Floors,
 Here Behind
 Frameless Doors
 
    

After Malt Hops
On
 Ice

Should I
as

Christ is    

Conjur  Strength

Powering Our Moment
To
 Crisis
 

I Have Wept
Fasted

Wept
and
 Prayed

...

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My dad wasn’t a clever man but he told me when I was young that if you shared all the money in the country out equally, inside a fortnight half of it would be back where it started.  I couldn’t see it at the time but I’ve started to understand the kernel of truth it holds.

Consider if in the great divi-up you got the “Citizen’s Share” of £100,000, what would you do with it?

Well, there’s onl...

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We grieve like melted snow

Nothing to hold on

And they will never know

How the warm tears gathered

On our mourning fate

To repeat this sad snow storm

On each and every face

© David R Mellor 2016

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Picturesque life with an ideal family.

If only my perception could transfer to a book.

Pages and pages of it sloppily written.

Where I could give everyone a small glimpse of my outlook.

Aimless decisions and purposeless acts,

Turn into my haphazard life forged by untouched facts.

Forget a day in my shoes

Try a day in my mind

Pointless...

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I want to remember you as a book I read

I want only to recall you from that shelf in my mind

where I place my favourite books

When I see you, I want to think of you as someone who looks a little like…

It would not matter then how many other readers you have

that same description of you will conjure their version

of your eyes and your smile, not mine

I would not be jealous...

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While I lie here, dead awake. 

Replaying in my head, all the mistakes.

I tell myself, I'm not afraid.

Even though I hope, one day I'll be saved.

I feel myself go numb again.

I feel it slip, through the wounds I've opened.

I need a hero, I thought...

Just as I'm falling, to be caught.

Though my body's dead,

My mind is racing,

You're in my head,

It's you I'm chasing.

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Another vacant month.

Outside the trees are trembling;

The loose elms

Emptying their calendar of pages.

Everything is quieting,

Dimming,

In the light of evening

You’d need sharp eyes

To pick the poor fly

Amongst the petals of the peony

Perfectly intact,

Except for life

That must have crawled out

While nobody was looking,

Like the stuntman

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Early doors paraffins, the usual thing.

Locals lower gaze

as old John shuffles in

with his arthritic hip, 

dribble down his chin.

He drops half a crown

in the Marie Curie tin,

decimal coinage never got to him

and he sups electric bitter

The landlord looks grim,

needs an ego trim,

thinks he's charismatic

but he's just plain dim.

Puts 10p on the ...

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Fire radiates in my eyes,
desire’s  claim is at stake,
on my bed the exuberant palm tree brightens my breasts
with the curly waves of your kisses

A prismatic encounter greeting you in my body with anxiety

Beyond the fury of my skin
my breathing becomes dizzying,
tremulous moans the voice of sunset ,
and dresses me as Spring

Feline, sin assails me, walks through the trails of my exci...

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Northern Lights

     She must be so tired –

     Plotted all along

To move this way,

     And she’s big,

Too big for rings – more-so

Her moons can never tether

Tails to secure her,

     And yet,

She is not so free,

     She twists and bows daily,

And she is neither cold or hot but both,

     But if wanting for reason

To her existence I am sure,

S...

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Those feelings

The ones that hold you back

Make you want to stop

stay home and hide

they haunt me

You get that sinking feeling

an ache in the pit of your stomach

can’t shake it

leaves you feeling helpless

and hopeless

Memories

that you thought you’d hidden

or dealt with

come flooding back

vivid as if it was just today

haunting you like a ghost

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Winter Growing

Plants in the tunnels
are barely growing
in this cold
I am barely here

In the winter
I fall back on old habits -
headphones, lines of code
the remote stars

I want growth and decay
to pound me awake
need the hot crisis of summer
to pin me to my body

But I have only
these tiny green threads
to tend, and the slight
pull of their becoming,

so vulnerable
tha...

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(This is a re-post of a series of five interconnecting poems, previously blogged as separate poems. The death of my mother last year was preceded by hearing the tone poem Finlandia, by Jean Sibelius, on the radio, and it so completely described how I was feeling that it took me over, and informs the whole series.

As a big nod to Sibelius, I decided to use a loosely-based symphonic structure, so...

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Beatle mop tops when all you need is love

Rolling Stones not satisfied would ever fade away

In fields of wild strawberry forever hallelujahs ring

In the midnight hour how sweet it was to be loved

Oh yes indeed how sweet it was

LSD purple hearts two a Penny lane

Flower power we made love not war

When fat Elvis was the king

Fashion passion Ray

Really got me ...

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With your sweet lips,
On which oft
I yearn to plant a kiss,
Slander me not please!

My lodestar
You must know
A drop of gal
The wellspring of honey
Is capable to mar!

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Sleep

Melt in slowly, like

cold butter into toast. Or suddenly,

like rain into a smoky black sea.  

Detune and let a snowy static overcome.

Shake any polaroids back

to their original beige wash.

Stop asking “am I gone yet?”

for that question answers itself.

Remember, it is and isn’t

like surfing a standing wave,

like dragging a sti...

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Once I was of an age

When everything was black or white

When everything and everyone had possibilities

A time when I had not allowed myself

To be screwed or nailed down

By the deception that which all we do

Is set up to make a gain

Where all the fire in my eyes

In my belly never went out

But just changed direction

Where the focus was to grab

To have and to hold

...

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Butterfly wings beat,

dancing inside the meadow 

until darkness comes. 

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See, hear, my little one.

Your senses tuning finely to Earth’s

Undulating, rhythmic waves of ageless,

Age-old lifeforce

Pulsing lifeless forms to life.

Measured heartbeats drumming out

Life’s message

Through the ether, ever nearer

Farther than the furthest orb

Twinkling its cyclic orbit

Ever onwards

Through the ebony-black, empty-black

Dark.

Forcing: nothing;...

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The elderly gentleman approached

with measured steps and conscious carriage

precisely in pace with two golden retrievers

old dogs on slack leads

well-fed sleekly groomed

resigned to their constitutional hour.

They raised their heads at my approach

and one even lifted a hopeful tail.

I stopped. I love dogs.

'May I touch them?' I asked.

'Certainly,' replied the gentlem...

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I live on

A precipice

Somewhere between

The light 

And the dark

The good and the 

Bad

And whatever it

Is 

Or was 

I sought 

Seems to be

Hanging 

Just 

At the end

Of the next 

Bottle 

Or cul-de-sac

And I'm sure 

I can get there

Find it

Make it

Pinch it

With one more

Go 

Or drink

Or visit 

Or dime 

And everything 

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Will you buy me that slick pen
so expensive, so beautiful

I wonder will you wrap it
in specially chosen paper

some coastal scene perhaps
engraved with my initials

a pretty choice of inks
will I unwrap it on my birthday, beaming

say ‘thanks so much’ and kiss you
then write hard of my betrayals?

(Jan 2016)

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Crazed with worry
Clothed in a bloodless air

Not one body has been found
In the river
Or the lakes 
Moving shadow like 
On the land

Nor 2

But 85.

85 bodies pedal soft
Conscripted with cold drew
Over 6 years,

Cloaked in the ship canal
And all over 
Manchester’s water works
In deafening silence

Kneeling in deep breath

Crossing canal gates
In the Undercroft 

Or past...

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D is for determination. Facing obstacles,

And never giving up. If we did would we be here today?

Because of this the human race dances in the light of excellence.

Equality, is when all our brothers and sisters,

No matter the colour of their skin or age,

Are able to walk in the sun as one. This is

What makes the human race shine with excellence.

All the people who hav...

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winter
follows me
here

under
the creeping snow
shadows move
with the sound
of yellowed leaves

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Strumming Love

I hold her in my arms like a guitar
Running my hand across her body
Playing with her heart strings
Slowly going up the neck
I begin to strum her lightly
Hearing her beautiful moans
Is music to my ear
Progressing from a ballad to a love song
Strumming love with every chord
And then she whispers softly, "I'm glad that I am yours...."

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The words halted in my mouth,

my tongue catching on fire.

I ached to tell you of the hate I harbored,

but my heart stumbled.

Where had my courage gone?

You were right, and I was wrong. 

And that was where my courage went.

My ego was hurt.

But I moved on, knowing that whatever pride you had left was nothing but shit.

I longed to tell you what a cruel person you had become...

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The mobile phone is a wonderful thing

Thousands of melodies for when it rings

Which seems to be less and less these days

As it’s more of a gadget for you to play

Candy Crush Saga or update Facebook

Or take it from your pocket for a cursory look

To see if you’ve got any notifications

That you had not noticed through subtle vibrations

It rules the roost, the bane of your...

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I Am The Scarecrow

I am the scarecrow.

Hanging from this wooden frame,

a skeleton of twisted wood

that creaks and groans in protest

at the ravages of age.

The ice cold rain

trickles through my straw flesh

bringing chills to every movement

and dull aches to the knotted joints.

I am the scarecrow.

My sack-cloth head

full of sawdust ideas

that spill fr...

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