Flashbacks haunt me, images of poverty, little slum kid getting six years for robbery, dwelling in the pits, dirty faces and no shoe laces, bruised eyes,scrapes and blood traces, the eighties the nineties, saw the same picture, the noughties, still we craft the same scriptures, its daunting... Trapped in these industrial ghettos, BUT THERE AINT NO MILLS NO MORE SO LET US GO!! little s...

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                                                Wake Up

 

            Awake, look and see,

See all the wasted peoples

Feeble’d by a system flawed,

     Just cause,

When provocation matters

More than healing,

Will you be ready for recourse?

 

            Those that live the life

Of privileges

            Do they know the truth

Of pain, pain from sacrifice

From those they use as slave...

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Shadow, companion to those who take rest,
you that expands yourself in the drowsy eye of  the fading light,
why do you sometimes lurk,
create fear,
play havoc with the weakened mind?
Although you loom so large and sinister,
probing with your misshaped fingers,
finding so many places to lay down and hide,
dark and menacing,
I know how small you really can be
in the true light of day.

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Hiya. You might know some critical folk who refer to over-the-top poetics as 'purple' writing. I am colour-blind and have never seen purple.

PURPLE by Dominic Berry

Purple is there
making butterfly hands in an eye's corner,
in top hat shadows when you should be sleeping.
Smells of joss sticks and cold lakes.

Purple might be naked,
off somewhere
with eye-liner swirls round large, f...

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Weapon

 

My swollen belly, evidence enough for you

my accusers, who

 

see not my weakness

nor the advantage taken of it,

 

but only guilt

and gather, empty handed yet

 

assume the shame of acquiescence,

imagine contrivance.

 

your judgement the vessel,

my doom the journey’s end.

 

The agony of ignorance explodes on my skin

and blameless stones glisten red in the sun.

 

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So Beckham is doing a timeshare

Playing for LA and Milan.

I think it’s a brilliant idea

Every player should follow his plan.

 

Wayne Rooney can timeshare with Watford,

Taste life outside the top flight.

Let’s see how flash his play is when

Away at Cardiff on a cold winter’s night.

 

Bring Ronaldo to Luton!

British football at it’s grass roots

And if, just once, he tried diving

Defende...

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Nothing like love tastes so bitter in the morning

after burning all night in your embrace,

then learning my passion has been misplaced.

I am penned into my own situation comedy

with black permanent marker,

a slack smile with no laughter.

So I no longer quake, shake, rock or roll,

I am merged with dullness and deepest grey,

I am purged of useful words to say.

On the longest day I held out ...

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I smashed a thousand reflections of myself in different mirrors the otherday!
each mirror showed a different reflection not of my own.
I melted them down into glass again
made them into on giant mirror
and smashed it again with a big pebble.
Its not that I don't like my reflection its the baggage I carry
which causes me pain and anger
I wish I could smash myself and reform the real me into-
an expression...

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Rocking Glockenspiel

 

I wanted to rock on my glockenspiel

But Miss only left two bars on

Not content with a droning dum, dum, dum, dum

With my baton I bashed irrhythmically

Possessed with a dyspraxic urgency

To make music with the others

But I were playing a different song to them

Lost in a tangle of perfect pitch

And chords played out precisely

On posh violins and flutes

And other...

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The thunder of the street; the rhythm of the heart

Where should help begin?

What's the communities' part?

Money comes in; some wanted and some unplanned.

Agencies that work separately,

need to share the same hymn sheet.

Separate boats sailing or rowing; racing across our turf.

Merge your boards, catch the next wave

then together we  will surf.

Atop the white horses we ride,

pool ou...

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Accused of touching

      female rears,

          the manager

              broke down in tears.

                   His IT colleagues

                         backed him up,

                              restoring

                                   reputation.

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Tell me about your traffic jam

Tell me how your are powerless
And a prisoner
When they sold the car
On the back of an empty road
You embraced it
Yet you found when you faced it
The rush hour made a choking mess
Of it all
Those painted hills are rainbows
The pots of gold
Are the overthrows of flapping tarpaulin
Dragging from the wheels
Of a lame juggernaut

Tell me about your traffic jam

The lambs to the m6 slaugh...

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Growing inside of me I feel its form taking shape
Day by day this fresh new life grows inside of me
Taking nourishment from its parent as only a new life should
Soon this creation of brilliance within me will fill my thoughts in every waking hour
Forming peacefully within, wrapped in the comfort blanket of my body

I feel within me a presence growing but know not of how I feel as yet
A state of shock I ...

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It’s Salford Shopping City in the spring

The wind blows plastic bags round and around

The taxis race round roundabouts. Swearing,

A woman with Tourette’s withdraws her pounds

The bus-stop throbs as people are let down

A man skulks smoking outside Bargain Booze

The Pound Shops, William Hills, Woolworths (closed down)

The Flea Market empty but for refuse

At quarter to five, long Post Offic...

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My thighs rise like wings.

I am an armchair:

you

a hand reaching for coins.

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I’d like you more if you built the world in the shape of a bee

Then it would be transportable

We would hum next to colourful flowers with soft petals

The earth would taste of honey

The air would be soft, full of warmth, furry

There would be others like us

Around us, being social

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  the doomsday man

 

surprisingly enough

each new day finds you

sandwiched here

between Burger king

and vacant lot -

thrice times woe man with

your brimstone smile.

slow dog-paddling

against the apathetic tide

that scours

these caves of Arndale.

your hand a flush

of trump card pamphlets,

useless

in this game

of patience;

black aces of repentance

neatly sidestepped

as the ...

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I wasn't expecting the border police.
Not in Oldham, anyway
- too far from the coast.
They came on the heels of a yellow storm,
ran-tan-tan on the door
echoed the rolling thunder.
‘We’re checking passports,’ they said
‘on a random basis.
We often do.’
I answered quick, with
undisclosed deliberation,
‘I have no passport.’
‘Then how do you know who you are?’
‘I have a mirror,’ I said.

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Layer upon layer

of gold leaf and enamelled jewel dust

held weightless on paper wings.

Entangled in spiders’ webs,

I found their bodies folded,

vampired and hollow.

I unfolded the canvas

found their painted wings,

laid them on red velvet

inside a heart-shaped box.

 

Butterflies, soul-birds

probed int...

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Frequently,

you came to rest as day broke.
Frequently you failed to rest
and as day closed you awoke:

you awoke and the nightmare continued.

What devil’s tongue rests on your lips,
spits as love sends hands to shake
- in desperate exorcism -
will they wake you or will you break?

Tonight,

nothing about anything makes any sense.
Tonight you will possess
everything of the nothing
the day represents.

...

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A translation from Tomáš Hausmann (Germany)

I am an expert, yes an expert

I have an expertise which

I exer­cise

ruthlessly

 

I have studied my art for many years.

It is my hobby, my work, my obsession, my life

and it is very secret

dangerous

- thrilling even

It is very satisfying

 

I choose my basic ingredients with extreme care,
acquiring them from reliable, te...

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Portia knows that life is a pain

just having been out shopping again.

It is a nasty continuous round, of

doing boring things in the kitchen.

Peter comes home from his tedious job.

He cannot help thinking that Portia's a slob.

She's scruffy and tired and, all of the time,

doing boring things in the kitchen.

Portia peels spuds during GMTV

while the window cleaner sees what he ...

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Freshly cut grass and a whiff

of sea air - stung, tired city eyes

Heading for the field, we squelched our

way to the stalls

Huddled around the heat - waiting.

Hands clutched sticky pink candy

Men poked the charcoal and sharpened their prongs

“Are they ready?” I asked.

The rough hard shells, somersaulted; on the

hot bed of wire

Crackle - pop: My black trousers, speckled w...

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Cutting-wit poetic escapism to elucidate and alleviate an unfeeling modern world that just pretends…

FEATURING 'The Lost Commuters'
The Poet Laura-eate (Laura King)
Danny (Corporate Enemy No.1) Chivers
Oliver (rebel with a railcard) Gozzard
Mac (cheeky chappy) McFadden

'Cheaper than drugs, quicker than therapy'. Exchange & Mart 
 
Saturday 11th April 2009 9.15pm @ The Brewery Gate, St Thomas Street...

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Through the Hi-tech telescope-

the universe is flat

a skin of stars

an armour of light

there`s always a tap leaking

somewhere in the minds

imaginings

the spirits in another

time

bluebirds flying

in your sleep 

God plays piano

you singe your mind

with dreams

huddle your eyes to mine

through the hi-tech telescope the universe

is flat

just like

the planet

we love.  

 

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The ironblack eyebrow of Hughes

raises an inch as I arrive

and like a sad A Minor Chord

Kundera sits in his corner

as I walk through this place, the void.

 

I’m offered a whiskey tumbler;

taste my soul in its afterbreath.

Virginia Woolf, the curve of her

intelligent nose running through

her prose, gives a toasts to the void.

 

JD Salinger pours red w...

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eeeek, this ia a bit personal... (and long!) but all the more reason for it needing to be right, so lemme know what you think and dont spare the pill / sugar the horses... Thank Yooooooou, Sally xxxx

 

Home Town Blues

 

Something always happens in my head,

when the train slows by the big red shed.

The one that squats in the industrial park,

next to the estate where I was born.

During this ...

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My cowardice astounds me
In the face of certain death,
When maybe she's the best of friends
For those in pain and short of breath
Who count the sighs til morphine drip
Is once again replaced at noon
And muffled cries the silence rip
And life remains forever,
Sundered.

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Is your granny one of those sweet old ladies?

When a waif with an evil mam and dad

lightly taps on the door in the bleak mid-winter

hoping to thaw in the warm and wanders through

does she coo and lace his misery with Tizer

throws things together from the cupboard

showing ancient housewifery lore

to make perfect rock buns

that fill the waif to his core?

So does mine.

Does she ope...

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Can the moon come out to play?
I cannot sleep tonight.
My heart is torn in two,
and a thousand tears
spill from my eyes.
I thought I could never cry
because I used to shed
so many damn tears
until I ran dry,
but the water is running freely,
dripping down my chin.
And I cannot sleep tonight.
What if when I wake,
I find her gone,
another to leave my life,
to break my heart,
and to leave me all alone...

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The York’s Prayer

Our Dad, ‘oo art in Hebden,

Tha’s norra bad fella.

Tha’s County come,

Tha’s will be done,

On Earth as it is in Yorkshire.

Give us this day our daily barm-cake,

And don’t mind us when we bugger up.

We’ll try not to mind the buggers who bugger us up.

And lead us not into Southern ways,

But deliver us from t’mucky stuff.

For thine is this county, wi’ power ‘n’t glory,

...

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Fresh

 

Fish heads rest on ice

Sparkling diamond gleam

No rubies here

Or crimson smears

Just mouths and eyes fixed in a scream

 

Plundered from dark depths

Where gloomy gardens grow

Through rocks and wrecks

And bottlenecks

Of interminable shadow

 

For a shop window

The murder scene’s precise

No trace of blood

Knives swish and thud

And fish heads rest on ice

 

Sea creatures disp...

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It began as emotion,

More than you should bare.

It surfaced as tears.

Pure, fresh, and full of feeling.

It showed me your true self.

Innocent…….vulnerable……caring.

 

How can someone SO beautiful

Have so much pain inside?

It urges me to fold my arms

Around your graceful body,

Hold you close, and whisper

That all will soon be fine.

 

They say “experience the hurt,

To appreciate the pl...

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It was Friday night after 10. Only

taxis and buses prowl the Reading Streets.

On my way to the station my steps

tell me that story about a lovesick

Russian Count and the aim of his affection,

Natasha, who would shoot him in the last line

of the poem. I was passing bars and clubs

where bouncers stood like crows in black overcoats

joking about small brutalities

and the power they ...

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i see a single sparkling star in the sky

something must have stolen the others


some might say its leading our way to bethlehem

i say its a symbol of some kind of optimism


***


others fail to relish in its natural beauty

blinded by the smog and deafened by forgotten conversations


***


yeah, something certainly stole the stars - london! you cunt!


you've made the moon blush itself black!

for the love of fuck! gi...

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By day he looks like your dad

He acts like your dad

He even thinks like your dad

But my dad

My dad is different

He’s not one of us

Come the darkness

And the moonlight

He changes

Its in his blood

And it gets worse

He’s not like the regular

Once a month

Full-moon

Werewolf type dad

Changing for just one crazy night

Or the beer drinking

Once a week

Friday night with the lads

H...

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I first met him eleven years ago, not long after I started primary school, when my innocence was unending and the world was ahead of me. To this day we’ve remained acquaintances, meeting regularly but always with a companion, well more precisely a relative. The appointment would always fall on a Wednesday, as it was my mother’s half day at her employers and coincidently my school’s enrichment day....

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 ( A tighter amended version)

On soft warm sand I lie

Feeling the heat of the sun caressing my face.

Cool light breezes lifting my hair

And the rhythm of the waves pummelling the shore

Tempted by the clear blue ocean

In need of a cool embrace

I wade into the water.

Suddenly a huge wave enfolds me and I tumble

Into the foam, mouth and nose fill with salty water.

I am carried into the b...

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