smoke spiralling toward a retired ceiling fan
long exhausted, still spinning
over shaded stucco,
worn and grey as home.

I'm remembering black lipstick, eyes locked
far away, at the peak of a phantom cathedral roof 
built so much higher than this apartment
in a space between the cracks,
in a place of sunken, silent ships,
queued onwards and thru sonic trances
as the thought of midnight ...

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The day suffocates my soul

Each minute sends me further

The more I fight the harder my body fights back

Good things happen but I am blind

The only thing I hear is silence

Faces pass, I smile back only out of habit

My body has learned how to pretend

But my mind will never grasp the concept

My heart aches constantly

It pushes against my rib cage

It is a prisoner trying ...

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What good does it do to complain?

The fates are blind to all of us

Look at the winter fly

Dead upon the sill.

This morning I swept away three more

Their bodies still intact just their tiny souls departed,

Like cars abandoned on the roadside

In a film about the end of times.

Sometimes it’s as simple as that,

The best years of your life

Defiled against a...

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Dreams
Come
In sleep
To write down
Pen and paper
Hope to inspire someone

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I used to work in a car body shop

In Holloway

We specialised in top of the range cars

Alfas

Audis

Porsche

Now anyone who knows Holloway

Will automatically know

That if you drive a nice car

In Holloway

You are a drug dealer

Or you are lost

The place I worked

Was directly opposite

The women’s prison

And the saddest thing

Was the ladies who were let out

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My friend Terrence

was a little happy sole,

he didn't need a kennel,

nor a house or a hole.

His home was a shell

that he carried on his back,

so that all he had to do

was drop down on the track.

Then he'd pull his head inside,

followed by his legs and feet

and he’d look inside the fridge

for something tasty to eat.

If it started raining

or got ...

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"there's good news and bad news

which do you want first?" 

                 "I'll have the bad news."

                Thus        Murdoch became rich on human weakness

sad but true that this philosophy is cheap to run

like an old friend clapped out expecting little.

GOOD NEWS COMES AT A PREMIUM!

(well it wouldn't be cheap 'cause it's special)

with bad news you can...

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Man made, masonry maze
So distant from our base
Open heart and an hourly haze
An everchanging face

Years would take to see each square
And elsewhere are our years 
One could be a long affair
Rest stay behind the ears

Or perhaps with perfect planning
Not all but many fit
Squinted eyes and vision panning
A few could see you sit

Wonder where to place the blame
The picker of our len...

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The collection of Frida Narin's poems are not a nostalgic work; the past is not in the habit of painting romantic pictures. The boarders in Narins poems, from north to south and from east to west, are not lines separating humanity. The flags in the collection of Narins poems are not raised to separate the people of the earth from one another. These flags must be sown to create a carpet for childre...

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On some nights I miss you so much I want 
 to perform a lobotomy on myself. Remove 
 the image of your shoulders against his 
 from where it is lodged inside of me, burn 
 all your pretty words from my frontal lobe 
 so that the next time I see you, everything 
 will look like static. It is all heartbreak, 
 dragging my quiet body home and trying 
 to remember the last time I felt this alo...

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Looking back in hindsight
I wonder how some
Of my ex girlfriends
Would have handled me
Getting diabetes

Sian who lived with her wealthy parents
And who kissed me with a desire 
Beyond her tender years
Would have resented my inability 
To keep running down to London.

Helen would have sat in front 
Of her ever increasing cocktail bar
And have said what the hell
Can you drink now
(w...

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Along the long and winding road

You’ll reach a spot where paths will cross

There you know not where to go

For either leads to unfamiliar ground

You’ll never know where they may lead

Unless you choose to follow it

But know that you may never know

Where the other could have taken you.

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yawn yawn

woke up early

empty head

out of bed

slip on some socks

stare at the screen

shutters still closed

not ready for the world

putting off looking at that unfinished piece

yawn yawn

©Colsibabes 2015

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The days of feasting and hunting seemed unending:
The seasons passed: the hart in the woods bred
And reared its young year on year,
We ran after them, the spear sang a song
of whistling death. We joyed.

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10

     We ventured in for ten minutes,

Our little circle of Globe Trotters and SAS Sigs,

But there was no life,

     Just acrid tobacco smoke

And stale alcohol,

But the Rebel MC was having none of it;

A Newcastle Pub dead as a dodo

And nowhere to go-go!

     So we pissed what we could

And let fly a dance,

And before we left the whole

Pub was in trance...

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Three more rain drops beat

Staccato, full stops, to leave

A promise on the wind:

The storm will soon begin again.

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This story happened in one school 
But … for God’s sake, keep cool,
it can't be taken as a rule.
Once when a teacher of math fell sick
A teacher of physical education came, named Nick.
He wanted to show how intelligent he is,
So he said: Solve my problem please!
-A car moves at a high speed.
To go to Spain a plane I need.
Can you tell me my age
If I read a book on the last page,
a pea...

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You'll have to have been where the mail doesn't drop

Or where the papers and TV don't find you

To be unware of "black man shot by white cop"

Ad infinitum - just to remind you.

But the absence of the following has my mind in a whirl

"Black man shoots white TV news girl".

.....................................................................................

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Heading down 395

With a head full of gold rush stories

An eye full of mountain ranges

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May it be that you and I
Spend an eternity together
May it be that you and I
Live and Laugh forever
May it be that you and I
Live happily ever after
May it be that you and I
Always start a new chapter
May it be that you and I
Love the way we smile
May it be that you and I
Walk 500 miles
May it be that you and I
Hold each other tight
May it be that you and I
Always know when to fight
...

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This bad kid 

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Over cheap wine, where you might as well have offered me white vinegar

The smell assailing me but drowning out your bull crap

Steepled fingers as you waxed eloquent. Intellectual, some?

And your yarns about poetry and form and structure

The candle flickering, what a waste of a good candle

I could have put it to better, use, mmm

Nice and thick

But you drone on, buzzing, humming...

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All the faith carried in your soul
all the morphine lightening the load
they play a strange sad game
they lie in bleak dark ways

I listened to the doctor speak
while you read some ancient tome
and, yes, you know your body well
but pain isn’t the cause

This belief takes its small toll
the colour and the hope both drain away
defeatedly you feel you’re fading

But you’re not fading
y...

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Wheels

I’m going to write a psycho-list,

A peloton that’s better missed

Those Lycra clad with ugly shapes

Untrained unwanted jackanapes.

At two abreast and six ranks deep,

It’s up the hills they weave and creep.

They think they are the public good,

But only serve to boil the blood.

Of course they have a right to be,

But so again has little me.

They p...

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(Someone far cleverer than me wrote the title as a 5-word summary of how foreigners view the English - an old post)

I never cease to be surprised while we're on holiday

At the number of occasions that a French waiter would say,

“Hello.  What can I get you?” in perfect Ang-a-lais

How did he know so quick that we were English?

While you're shopping in the mall you see a fami...

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I need a friend,

Someone that wouldn't need my words to know something was wrong,

My body is weak from being strong,

I want to lay down my broken and lost thoughts,

I've lost track,

Of tears that I've forced to keep in, awaiting the second I get home to let them fall,

I need someone that would see past this wall,

The wall I've spent a year building up.

I can be surrounded b...

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Can I remember my   password; sorry I meant are the frozen peas still in my bag

Mushy I am

I leave bank cards in a supermarket pay out tills

The whole of Wirral is riding round on bus passes I leave

Mushy I am

Droplets of my money

Are rolling down your street

I type in endless passwords

All wrong of course

I’ve given my bank pin number

To a te...

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~~Standing proud
He hangs out
With the clouds
Absent without
Leave
From the skies

Who surround him
Like the remnants
Of a Cuban cigar
Well received

He checks his
Reflection
In his still
Washbasin
Covered in
Scars
From weathers
Not sent
To calm

Grumbling
He sends
A warning
To his
Siblings

’Sisters, you
Are about to
Be walked
All over again

In swarms
To escape
...

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Is it the destined way of man

To plead to beg

To scratch and scrabble

Clawing through naked earth

Like a desperate hungry animal

To dig down to the very depths

Of all that he holds dear

To snip and to sneer

At his own ability

To watch himself flounder

On jagged rocks

Cut and bleeding

To chip away at every sliver

At every splinter of every letter

Of every w...

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Trying hardest to dispel

but the feel’s returned

Perfect thought utopia

has tables since turned

Back at a very juncture

bit uncanny and unsure

Strong urge to move on

for an  enigmatic allure

Environs are inhibiting

lackluster same routine

Needs ditching tedium

& explore vistas pristine

Mettle’s taken beating

but the intent s...

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"Ignore the unfounded rumours

of pus- in your milk,

and others

which are also quite scary,"

said the white coated chap

with the clipboard and cap

and the man who's

in charge of the dairy.

words and foto T Carroll

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Isn’t that what it’s always been between us?
Static.
Electric.
Lightning rods taking every hit.

The shock was inevitable.
The passion was undeniable.
You are the bolt of pure energy.
I am the body of water you longed to touch.

Together,
we’re deadly.
But by God,
we’re lovely.

S.S.R

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Relationships despair,

With thoughts becoming words,

Walls that once stood surrounding,

Now stands in between, mocking.

Restlessness haunts eyes,

Moments of Vows, fires denies

Paths once chosen together,

Now stages reasons for fights.

Reasons found once to stay,

Seems melting away like ice.

Cowardness blinds submission.

Arrogance blinds Love.

Moments t...

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Paxos, with it`s gnarled groves of olives and crazy stone walls, is a goblin island. It leans to the east, as though some giant Titan of antiquity strode across it and tilted it. The ground water is brackish due, it is said, to greedy exploration for oil. One suspects, though, a more tolerant attitude before the project failed..

The `real` town square was the triangle glimpsed through the chu...

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“Ich habe noch einen Koffer in Berlin” an old popular song in Germany

A Suitcase in Berlin

I still have this suitcase in Berlin,

It’s stuffed with receipts for comradeship,

Paid for anonymously by hours lived in fear:

Of  betrayal, of interrogation, of the camp,

Of footsteps on the stairs at dawn. I listen

For movement behind the wall of this day.

The hours pass slowly-the ...

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Poetry Online Slam was created by Bristol based Poet Matt Duggan who won the erbacce prize for poetry in 2015.

You can find out more about Matt here http://www.mattduggan.webnode.com  

Why did I create the Online Slam? I wanted to connect poets from all over the world who wouldn't get to see some poets reading LIVE! Plus, None of that dodgy judging or rent a room Poet B/S. I hope this projec...

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Forgive me as I dip my pen into blood of the past.

Memories.  Hanging bright as the whitest moon

in my blackened, indecorous thoughts.

I was his lover, his muse, his friend,

his counsel over secret canal side walks.

Both sharp suited, professional by day,

we drove fast through boundaries

into love first after taking vows of never.

Towpath widened into world of champagn...

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Orange glow

Blinding light.

Black metal

Petrol ignite.

Motorcycle riders

Blooded mess.

Bangkok carnage

Innocent victims.

Lives taken

For what?

Blue bag

Killer bomb.

The shrine

Stays strong.

To remember

Flames return.

White candles

Forgiveness flickers.

An act

Towards peace.

A symbol

Of ...

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A perfect excuse to 

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Speaking volumes with their eyes
Before the coach had even left
Let alone hit the motorway

Stabbing words echo deep
Petering on a seat
Tirelessly moaning spray haired

Oxidized in seconds
Climbing walls in a closed space
In a language not yet wrote 

Microfilmed in barely suspended anger
Snow like in a silent explosion 
Observing just one thought 

Just one sentence over and over
...

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Coded in red, yellow, green

Mounted on a pillar so high

Re-painting the urban scene

Directions, displays and drivers 

Gentle lights shimmered,

enough to stop rushing mob

Equating the chances;

for everyone to throb

Speed -bumpers couldn't intervene

Mind was intra-vocal and dominant

Criss-crossing the passersby

Yet my speech was silent

Crimson halte...

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The undefined boy with his tears torn apart Trying to cope up with his cries With his blood sheded life Made a barrier of darkness in his heart inside Stopped trusting those crowdy greedy eyes Living in d blackened arena of dead perception Broke dose illusive fences of truth ness And gone in laps of never lasting loneliness Coated with humanity daemon emerging inside Tried my best to mak...

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Spring-clean, fresh

dressed in flannelette

and floral,

the Snow Queen pales

against her pillow.

Limb-tidy, quiet

in a final contemplation,

seeing neither near nor far

though knowing earth beneath a primal sky

will be the regal destination.

The King rests            

                              gathers strength

                                   ...

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A pain moulded in my heart,
 melancholily deep inside 
A pain I thought 
will never leave me  aside 

Every time I tried to escape
 from the labyrinth of ache
I  remained undone 
from this never breaking chain 

Life is a journey 
filled with many unknown suffering 
It's a series of events 
strung together,forever changing 

I caught up in web,
 of never ending woe and sorrow 
...

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The heat of a British Summer

That never is

We wait through lengthening days

Wondering what happened to Spring

As the rain and wind still blows.

The height of a British Summer

Comes and goes

The longest day passes

And St Swithin’s Reign begins

As the rain and wind still blows.

The hope of a British Summer

That never comes

Nights draw in and Autumn looms

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 Here it comes, I just can’t wait
 Warm gentle sun to ease my pain
 A clear blue beautiful blazing sky
 To make me feel so alive again
 What’s the word? - It’s summertime
 It’s raining cats and dogs
 Me, I’m crying a raging river
 Lost and alone in a misty fog
 
 I want to lay and chill by the pool
 Have a long cool cocktail or two
 But this wicked woeful weather
 Man, it’s making me s...

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I see him sometimes at four in the morning

The man with the black cap

He walks his dog,

And apart from a nod

He’s not one for talking

He’s always there at four in the morning

The man with the dog

I guess he’s retired from some early morning job

Now he’s got the time

For walking

Still, it’s a grand time, four in the morning

For a man with a cap and a dog

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