Ritual

It is a grey morning

I am awake early

The backdoor is open

And cool air enters the kitchen

My father is on his knees

Scrubbing a wire brush

On the fire grate

Newspapers on the floor

He takes a rag

And pours black lead

Onto the stiffened fibres

Then he smears it

Onto the scrubbed surfaces

He balls up the newspaper

And throws it on the hearth

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Away The Lad

When you haven’t got a friend

Or a carer you can reach

Then plan a family trip

To the better equipped North East

County Durham’s nice this time of year

Or so I hear them say

And simply by happenstance

It’s only my wife’s birthday

You see me and the Missus

developed a little cough

so we panicked and headed North

and all the newspaper can Fu...

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Kneel

I saw a young man kneel today

He hung his head as if to pray

But he would take a life away

To honour and protect they say

Another black man has to die

Before the country questions why

They let enforcers kill and lie

and let another mother cry

Fear and hate mix with malice

A city faces the abyss

A cocktail of vinegar and piss

On the streets o...

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Death (XIII)

My entrance on a pale horse

Raising the black standard with white rose

Is anathema to most

These bones are survivors

Of the battle between

The worlds of living and dead

This black armour

From the land of eternal sleep

Is unsurmountable

Before me

The clergy, kings and peasants

Fall beneath my hooves

When she flips me over

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Tunguska Dawn

The day the false storm came

My brother Chekaren and I

Were asleep beside a campfire

The smell of burning wood drifted

Across our sleeping forms

When suddenly a thunderclap

Awoke us from deep sleep

And we saw the second sun

Blazing white heat tore our shirts

And made our skin hot to the touch

And all around we heard the sound

Of the secon...

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Label On The Bottle

The label on the bottle told me it was strong

But I drank it all night anyway

And didn’t think that I’d done wrong

It made me very happy in a lightheaded sort of way

It was deep amber in colour

And I would regret it all next day

It burned the back of my throat as a sipped the evil brew

It smelt of cinnamon and spice

And bit by bit my co...

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Elegy For Days Lost

Another day has come and passed

Left pain and sadness in its wake

The seconds, minutes, hours amassed

The sun will give the moon will take

The distant friends the loved ones lost

Amid the times of dread disease

Each family will count the cost

And curse the name of days like these

And yet the sky was clearest blue

I wrote a poem, sang a so...

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Fog

I have never felt so alone

As the time spent in November fogs

When I was not yet in my teens

Wrapped in heavy clothes

With hat down low

And scarf around my face

Cut off from the world

By this dense yellowing cloud

Unable to see more than a few feet

In front of you

And the hollow muffled sound

Of someone heading towards you

All other backgro...

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Those Low Down Bottle Blues

The day the clock struck thirteen

We took it as a sign

That the world might be in peril

So we all broke out the wine

But it probably was nothing

Just a poor miscounted chime

An end to our sobriety

And not the end of time

The night the stars rearranged themselves

In a moonlit sky

We all dived for the whisky bottle

And some of...

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This Machine Kills Fascists

He was the dust bowl troubadour

A Socialist down to the core

Resist the rich protect the poor

This machine Kills Fascists

Dylan, Ochs and Johnny Cash

Seeger, Strummer, Billy Bragg

All of them would raise his flag

This Machine Kills Fascists

He plied his trade on Texas streets

Busking to earn some money to eat

Harmonica blu...

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fly

a haphazard weaving

of unclear intention

the drone of annoyance

the beating of

full spectrum wings

the tap

                tap

                                tap

                                                tap

of attempt after attempt

to get through the glass

of the window

and reach the free domain

of the out there

the buzz

       ...

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Zoomnation

He stayed in beautiful isolation

For so long

He became a memory

A shadow on the wall

A stain on the carpet

When they sipped red wine

They remembered him

In the taste upon their lips

In the pause

Between the small talk

The chair remained empty

The corner a little darker

The mirror over the bar

Cast no reflection

Of him

A...

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Ye Tale Of Brave Sir Moppalot

I wasn’t quite there yet

So this story is told second hand

Of the bravest and noblest knight

To ever gallop over this land

He was sitting quietly at home

When a neighbour just down the street

Knocked on the castle door

To advise him to get on his feet

A princess in need of his help

Had called out his name in the night

Be...

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Cuttings

They took a sprig from Hatfeild Hall

And planted it in Wakefield Gaol

A Mulberry bush grew on the spot

Its humble origins forgot

And there prisoners exercised at night

Beneath the pale Yorkshire moonlight

Round and round the tree they went

Those sinners who could not repent

Before that Mulberry tree had died

They took some cuttings to the outside

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For Whom The Hammer Tolls

Dreaming of a hammer

A slow arc of deadly intent

A shaper of metal

The clang of contact

On a wrought iron anvil

That resonates threat

The white-hot sparks

From the red-hot ingot

As it succumbs

Weighing its power

In the palm of your hand

With a smack of skin

Its dull grey mass

Balanced perfectly

On a sha...

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Unclean

So only the dirty, the unclean, ungodly

Will be refused favour come judgement day

They will sit in their hovels of dust a distress

And live out their lives in their dishevelled way

They will scrape in the filth for a reason to live

They will hurt, they will need, they will cry, they will pay

For their corrupt and defiled code of getting on by

Where they sin and...

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Wastelands

Canal side moorings and old mills

Stretch their northern roots into the collapsed rubble

Of Industrialised wreckage

Overgrown with harsh grass and weeds

An old man sits at the side of the grey water

And dips a hopeful line into its murky depths

There are parts of old bikes and shopping trolleys

Poking from the surface like Leviathan bones

Paths ...

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Casting Runes

What price the steaming goat entrails

Coiling on a dusty Roman street?

The clouded mysticism of a crystal ball

Peered into for some future comfort?

The divination of ancient Gods

To tell us where our slouching bodies go?

The smoke and mirrors of

fortune teller, crystal-gazer, spaewife, seer,

soothsayer, sibyl, clairvoyant, prophet,

oracle, augu...

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A Second Changes Everything

A bullet leaves the barrel of a gun

A man thinks ‘what have I done?’

The sky is cornflower blue, without a cloud

The President waves at people in the crowd

A woman turns slightly to look at him

The sun glints off the Lincoln’s trim

A watcher points a cine-camera at the parade

A secret service agent dreams of getting laid

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Tank Man

Here is a tank

Rumbling across a vast expanse

A square

Here is a man

White shirt

Black trousers

A shopping bag in each hand

He steps before the tank

Raises his hand

Palm out

Stop!

And the tank stops

Manoeuvres

The man alters his position

Manoeuvres

The man climbs onto the tank

Talks to those in the tank

He...

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Magyk

I had a book all full of spells

Where childhood magic

Weaved its way

Between the yellowed pages

Where dragon’s breath

Set woodland glades alight

And lost children danced

With the frightened and the fey

The teeth of angry wolves

Chewed at the edges

Whilst chattering little demons

Clawed along your spine

Strange apples fell from wizene...

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A Life

From the day you are born

On the first day you cry

To the safe place you sleep

In the cot where you lie

On that first day at school

Where you struggle and try

From the first girl you kiss

To the way you feel shy

From your very first job

To the company tie

On the day that we met

To that very first sigh

On that day that you left

To the first ques...

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Some Words

I had been her son all my life

                But not all of hers

When she started calling me

                By her brother’s name

                Not my dad’s

                Her bother’s

Dead for these past 10 years

A stroke will do that to you

                Make you forget what you were saying

                Struggling to find the rig...

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Third Beach

This is the sunny place my spirits rest

Sat on a wooden bench watching the sea

The shimmer from the bright pacific west

The only place on earth I long to be.

The walkers and the cyclists passing by

Upon the wide and welcoming sea wall

The seagulls and crows desperately try

To out call the other in pine trees tall.

I watch the tankers in the distance drif...

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Black Metal Band Looking For A Name

Cannibal Sewer Rats

The Sweat Of Judas

Black Candle Prayer

Vikings Of Stavanger

We need a name boys

We need a name

Black Metal Band

Looking for fame

Sons Of The Necropolis

Sonic Angel Spit

Kitten Paws (No! Kevin No!)

Demon Suicide

We need a name boys

We need a name

Black Metal Band

Looking for f...

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Experts

Just inject it

Or swallow it if you like

I think that will be OK

Maybe shine a light

Or if you can

Get the light inside you

That will work, right?

Or pray

Praying’s good

Pray big

That should work

I’m an expert

I’m a big expert

There’s no bigger expert

Than me

He said it
I don’t believe it

He actually said it

What’s all this a...

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