What you see

Is me.

I will not be altered

By the perception of others.

I will not be seduced

By promises of the popular.

I will not be bannered

By headlines not my own.

I will not be tarred

By the brushstrokes of strangers.

I will not be overwhelmed

By the crushing of censure.

I will not be destroyed

By the sound of silence.

 

I will be controversial.

I will fly in the face ...

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So strong, the crystal clear sorrow,
that breath is left forgotten
to lie at the heart of emotion
and, though words chain together,
no reason will extract them from sound.
Why do you cry within my heart?

So delicate, the crystal clear voice,
that I can see the body I don’t know,
the tense curve of the thin neck,
the bare arms drawing the absence,
not from the lover, who left, but from within.
Why do you sing...

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Through tendrils thick as mortar,

and scent as dense as hurt,

a window grows scantily

and sheens a jaded skirt.

 

Winter pulses warmth,

summer diseases carnivore,

triumph for the vine

to choke the family sore.

 

The house becomes the hill,

the serviced dines inside,

turning Key into prisoner,

a sanctuary that lied.

 

A nest that steals the egg,

a moon that eats the earth -

the co...

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This is a true story in rhyme, it happened last year when one member of staff was trying to plan the usual deprtment Christmas do. I've left the boss's name off cos' he didn't see the funny side of the remark. Pah Humbug!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Johnny looked at the year planner.

This time of year it was h...

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Through the bay window

 

 the evening sky turns a gentle shade of

 

   pink and violet…

 

The setting sun

 

glistens on a ‘planes vapour trail

 

and I think of my husband

 

halfway across the Atlantic…

 

of my son on the other side of the world…

 

and my lover

 

two miles down the road…

 

 

  

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Mum always told me police are to be trusted
We pay their wages
We’re their bosses
They’re there for us
To care for us
So whenever I forgot my watch
I asked them the time
Wouldn’t think twice about
Stepping out of line
I wouldn’t even so much as dodge a train
Or cross a road without looking both ways
But I’d still start feeling guilty if a police car crawled past
But it’s all part and p...

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STROKE

 

 

Mad falsehoods fill the fallen hero's head

as ghosts advance apace at reason's yield.

They trample 'cross his muddied neurone map

where synapse-stumps bestalk a battlefield.

 

Born into life's affray, scarce half equipped,

his strategies too few for victory;

with elegant redoubt of mind's finesse;

Babel at bay, he shunned cacophony.

 

But now comes ignominious collapse;

hi...

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paint Cleopatra

and stay

golden

and sombre

under the heady

heights

of young

days

sedated

in power

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To drift

All my days have numbers,

and every day is numbered –

if I give each day a number.

Each second follows minute,

every minute follows hour,

the numbers don’t get smaller

I just rattle in my shell;

a shell inside a shell,

Like a Russian doll of shells.

My defence is superficial

to the shell that is my skin,

then the shell that was a person

can be found somewhere inside.

My f...

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Elbow deep in murky water

Dried egg stuck to his chin

Trevor the triffic kitchen porter

Plunges more plates with a grin

His daylight hours spent below ground

In the glare of fluorescent strips

He’s worth more at his age than minimum wage

He doesn’t even get tips

He scrapes leftovers from fine bone china

Of sturgeon and chateaubriand

Scours thermidore he c...

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A cool breeze blows from the west,

Airing a sigh of relief,

That some steps will be took,

To preserve,

The Earth,

Water, boughs, soil, limbs and leaves

 

Of brazen lawlessness,

Some corporations,

They know not how to recompense,

To be the fools,

To bind us all,

To the bitterness of their wrought consequence

 

Drastic action will be needed,

Before the end,

To bring them to ...

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The Piano Concerto

 

the friend who perseveres

snared me

with words - weed - wine

and music -

the notes unfettered

flying  across the ceiling

running up the walls and

swinging from the light fixtures

dripping

falling

cascading over my consciousness

in a delirium of sound -

the melody was lost

each crystal note caught its own life

and leaped...

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to pray

to change a fuse

to say you are my lord

to say you are my lady

to change channels

to be honoured, and

to give honour

to make love, new way

to exercise

to be married

to be executed

to live

to die

we may kneel

 

Beside the bed of a dying friend

or pleading, begging for mercy

we may kneel

 

To be vulnerable

To be blessed

we may kneel

 

To find what is lost,

To lose ou...

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We all need a little chocolate in our lives
Chocolate is the answer to everything
Soft smooth milky delight
That’s melts on your tongue  and sooths the soul

Wicked hard dark exotic chocolate
That takes longer and tastes stronger
But it gets to the parts
That need a lift.

Melted chocolate flowing in fountains
Firm plump strawberries
Dipping delving diving
Deep into pools of chocolate promise
Doubly  de...

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Sticky ice-cream fingers
on afternoons the length of a holiday,

the revenge of a smeared ant nest,
changes measured by the summer grass

shared chips and love’s boiled egg
gone with the sun in the sea,

a tumbling fumbling romance
on a green bed of insects.

Shedding skin in the shade,
eyes squinting on the pool side.

I’ll shield them with a golden cloud
and show off my gory pink.

Windows right down to fre...

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Softened black ground under foot

Smell of hot tar and spring

Has come; buttermilk white

The blackthorn sprays

On the lips of iron-age ditches.

Primroses speckle their green banks

New scarring earth’s old wounds.

Lanes exhale tang of burning old -wood;

Through this  perfume ,rare as sandalwood ,

I   wend the road  that leads 

beyond these hills

Towards the sun of other day...

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The beast in me sees the beast in you

and I see what I want to do

Lust catches me unawares

I stare into your eyes and look you up and down

You are the water in which I want to drown

the flames in which I want to burn

I am like a savage caveman who wants to conquer you like Genghis Khan

But I would do you no harm

Your arms would be the charm around my neck

Your legs...

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This sprung from an excercize which was supposed to revolve around a ping pong ball and how it changed my life and to be written in a twelve syllable format. It's odd how an idea can alter ones perceptions and create something quite different and completely out of context. I don't make any bones about my lack of poetry terminology or skills but i am becoming more open to positive critique. So you ...

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as if by magic.....

 

One, easing the poetry bus down Radcliffe Road, approaching the bridge that spans the mighty Tonge.

Two, its last journey, all decisions made, Metro Salvage assure me they pay “top prices”.

Three, Joe, six, chunnering in the seat behind, goofing about school.

Four, BANG!

Five, brown blur slaps windscreen, disappears as brakes slam.

Six, simultaneous thoughts, (is that...

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Part Nine

 

 

 

………..yet, the crying never stops,

Defiantly I wait to be the pax,

     But the hercy bird to freedom

Seems forgotten in the past,

     And with the twilight of every

Starlit night, the memories of

Kurdistan come flooding back,

A deluge down a tired track

Warms a path upon my face, and

With haste I take a chemical

Remedy and know the

Nightmares are inbound,

And a s...

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Today my soul is born a new

Its raised so high I swore it flew

My soul soared high above just like the breeze for the morning dove

Above the grey and into the blue higher and higher my heart flew

To see the sun once more, to feel the peace and joy that I adore.

 

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Bantry, Co. Cork, Ireland - 15 June  2009 - Poets Express is pleased to announce the list of special guest performers appearing on 11 July 2009 in Bantry, West Cork, Ireland. Manchester (UK) performance poet, experimental sound artist and novelist AndyN; internationally known performance poetry troupe Scream Blue Murmur from Northern Ireland; poet, author, and journalist Derek Fanning from County ...

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[click the link to view correct formatting]


ode to the thought sniper

crusTranquilizer
birtHabits
gonzOblivion
haikUnhuman
stinGabba
moutHumiliation
fighTelepathic

ruinSecluded
arsoNeurons
zombIngenious
clasPensive
slidEnding
alteReflections


[ copyright owen calvert 2009 ]

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Would that I                                                            

Were dream

Thread need

Through needle eye

Of your desire

Tread heady high heel

Joy upon the back

Of lust and fire

Grind flesh on flesh

Till pain should

White heat reach

Sweet blister weep

Arched fingers splay

In element

Not found by day

Till glistening skin

All done in

Should tumble 

Readily to sleep…

...

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Sea-food restaurant

Perched upon its cliff-top view

Looks down hungrily

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Yes, there are times when you think you have made a break through in this cut and thrust world of poetry.  Then it happens, a mention on the radio (which you know nothing about) and only on the Tony Stringfellow show Page One.

Yes the email came flooding in from our trusted Mr Blackburn telling me of my success, and after a quick reply expressing many thanks, the plan was put into action to liste...

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Zorro’s children

 

 

on rainy Saturday mornings

a well-spent ninepence

was all it took

to leave a headscarfed mother

in some chattering queue

for luncheon meat

or lardy cake

and step inside the transport

taking us

to Planet Zog

Or Dead Man’s canyon

via Keystone or some cartoon city

where,

fortified with Mojos

and Mambo juice

in strange shaped cartons

we’d jostle for the back r...

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What is life without love and passion?, A room cluttered with material possesions, What is life without hope?, A waiting room for death, What is life without the children?, The end, Sometimes i ask myself, What is life without diversity?, A bland meal with no seasoning, So....what is life without the sun,moon and stars?, An answer, Would life be better without hate?, Or should we be gr...

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British, Not Pure

 

They would, perhaps, be less inclined

To rant on racial purity

If Britishness were more defined

Precise, and with more surety

 

But such a task is far beyond

All experts in ethnography

Genetics does not correspond

With cultures flowing wide and free

 

To take my case as case in point

I’m English – that is plain to see

My passport is distinct, not joint

I’ve lived...

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     It wakes me in the small hours

     Bleary

     Bog eyed  batty

     Then loads it's burden upon me

     'Til I'm shaken

     Shattered... and scatty

     Work!

 

     It's like a giant

     And I'm held as it's captive

     It's shackles bind me

     And make me inactive

     Work!

 

     The satisfaction levels it gives me a...

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What granite, grey, glow less forms

Separate both you and me

For pastures green

In the seasonal sky

Dear we met a year ago

At Kings Road, Brighton,

Not London.

Let me begin to tell,

The words said on that day.

“When we have lost,

All our meanings, and resolved

All our mysteries, we will be alone,

Together, on an empty shore.

Those words, that day,

Still cautious to your charms

My ...

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Spied amongst the bargain paperbacks

Lilac words beckoned

Dragging me from my cappuccino

The title

A question

A statement

Requiring me to open virgin pages

Demanding my attention

Sucking me in

Flushing, recognising

My ego, subconscious

Had transferred itself

Into black and white

For all to see

Quickly slipping

This truth

Beneath a dark coat

Deviant, excited

I left

Unchallenged

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Good Over Evil
Shine Bright

As a little youth mi was always bright, One even asked mi to turned down mi aura light, Mi know mi a, b, c and mathematics right, If you buck with mi you feel an intellectual might, In the ghetto mi hold things tight, For mi walk with love not fright, All the youths them mi tell fi stand right

Words is wind and blows are unkind, So no bother with fights, stay calm & everyt...

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Wrote this for the Birkenhead Park poetry competition, didn't win, but well, never mind eh?

It’s so long since we walked in Birkenhead Park, together

And wandered at will down the paths, or fed ducks on the lake,

And rolled in the grass, or sat under a tree in fine weather

Where light-sabres of sun fight the dark-side, and we lie and wait.

Watch blue, fish-shaped, sky in an ocean of leaves ma...

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Wish

Sometimes he wishes
he was a hero
like Superman
and fly to the moon
in a few seconds
but he can't.



Other times he wishes
he was Spiderman
and climb up
a block of flats
quicker than the
naked eye can see
but he can't.



He's even on occasion
wished he could stretch
further than Mr. Fanastic
but he can't.


He can't.


He's me.


He's  Andy N.


I don't have
any special powers
nor any amazing ability.


I can't fly
through the clo...

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(not a great poem - but heartfelt)

 

What time is there

To get things wrong?

Tread a thousand grapes

For one drop of wine?

Allow fear

To cloud

Judgement?

Doubt

To soil

Beauty?

 

This life

So short

Demands more

Of you

Of me

Of all

 

These arms are all embracing

This mind a blank sheet

This heart an open road

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DESPAIR

You seduced the moon, undressing it with your soul.

 

You aroused the stars, turning them on with melancholy.

 

You tortured them with anticipation.

 

You wern't into long distance relationships

 

so slept with my best mate instead.

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Take this ticking grain of sand

from me.

This tiny thing,

friction, burning,

corroding my soul.

Never becoming

the pearl it promised.

Take this ticking grain of sand

before

I implode.

Deb R.J. MAy 30th 09

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Constructive Criticism

 

I’ve been criticised since I were a child

To help me out, I understand

Like when my teacher made it clear

That me chubby Crayola was in the wrong hand

As left, it just ain’t right, my dear

And all the metal rulers slapped on desks

Making tiny slumped shoulders snap to attention

Couldn’t make me understand Roger Red Hat or Billy Blue

My phonics certainly weren’t...

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Here’s what the stats are telling us happened last month:

1.6 million hits 2,230 log-ins to the site 125 new events put on gig guide 31 events updated on gig guide 27 new poets added their profiles to the Poets' Showcase 294 poets' profiles where updated on the showcase 1,590  ‘comments’ were made 287 Blogs were made

Here’s the latest chart on which cou...

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