The dirty dark blue overcoat

Had long since seen a better day

A hard life, over sixty years

Has him set in his own way

Guardian of suburban parkland

Where all the Children play

The eyesight of a shithouse rat

From the days when he wore khaki

Remembers Dunkirk and it’s beach

Queuing up still makes him narky

The Kids know not to mess with him

Because He’s the Lo...

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I cried for your life

Grieving not only

For what I lost

But for all that you

Had taken from you

You deserved a fairer chance

To be, to live

I wanted those things for you

I wrote you a letter, once

When I was twelve, perhaps

It was less than a year

After your death

It may have been the day

Before cynicism reared

It's ugly head

Taking hold of my...

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As I bask in the sun

The rain starts to fall

Droplets find the ground like silver

I am filled with childish wonder

Awaiting the magic, it appears

The colours bring my world

To life

My sky awakens

To excite me from within

I seek to find my utopia

Not for the riches of wealth

Only for the affirmation

Of magic

Are you looking for me?

You will find me at the e...

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She screams

A sound that penetrates

The hearts of all around.

She breaks

Her heart explodes

She crumbles to the ground.

A child

Her childhood stolen

With the burst of a pea.

Her mother

Gone forever, gone

Her brain not meant to be.

What now?

The love stops here

A cry for help.

Don't leave

Come back to her

The child needs yo...

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Father's very strict, mother's very weak

Beatings too harsh for a daughter of only 3

You wished that I had died Daddy

You even said it out loud

but i loved you anyhow

Forbidden to walk on the carpet

I was just not good enough

I've tried to fulfill your wishes Daddy

Fifteen times I tried somehow

I ran under buses, in front of cars even.

I took hundreds of pills Daddy

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My daughter brought a Jackdaw in the house

And grief introduced itself

Melancholic and wounded

It hunched in the corner of the room

She fed him her loving eyes

Bread in tweezers

And named him Poe

Then this sanctuary

Took him

She phoned every night

He was mending well and with the magpies...

He was in the biggest aviary...

He was set free.

But w...

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A CHILDS EYE

Imagine a world of love and laughter
Of fun filled days and freedom till after
The tea time call or the playtime bell
Get back into line or you'll catch some hell

Imagine a world of wildness and wonder, of fun and jest
Of questions and answers and adventurous quest
When time was your own and life was a whim
To walk, to run through grass so long, to swim

Imagine a world ...

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the flimsy frame rattles
as a doom laden bellow
pierces the smoky milk
shrieking  away unwary
sailors straying close
to Yorkshires crumbling coast
like some creature
lost in torment

we cower
beneath dull yellow light
from sweet smelling
gas lamps
their cog wheels
turned up high
and wicks ablaze
to ward off the dark

a jigsaw unattended
its pieces spilling
c...

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Any Winter Saturday In Nineteen Seventy

multi-coloured, sweet, cloying battenberg
taking away the bitter taste of defeat
it’s yellow and pink uniformity
In sharp contrast to the soft curves of the settee
putting ones and two’s and crosses
next to the selections on the pools
a dirty yellow stain hangs over the chair
where my father coughs and splutters on his tea

blacks and whites and ...

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