I don’t want to mask my poetry

I want you to understand me

Curse your perfect rhythms, rhymes, haikus

Your lyricism, your literary

When I try to adopt it, I turn mute.

Something channels through me

(I’ve never really found the root)

A demanding stream of consciousness

That cannot stop to breathe, let alone

Wait, conceptualise, draft, redraft

I can’t!

...

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I was once a dancing flame but I forgot how to dance so I mimicked others until one day... pft.

I am unable to see myself burning out untill I spit, clinging to the bitter end of the wick.

At first, I am a soldier, fighting because I know the end is coming.

At the end is a void. Nothing in it and nothing can fill it. Nothing matters.

DESPERATION. Pouring everything and anything into th...

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I keep drowning
in the noise
Of
Others opinions
on how
To live my life
Their expectations
Only stress and scare me
If only I knew myself
Inside out
Through and through
If only I've finally become
Deaf and dumb
To this noise around
If only I can make
A decision
and swear on my integrity
That it's truly
Mine own
If only I stop
Striving to prove myself
to this world around......
...

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next door they've got new windows

all triple-glazed for noise and heat

hermetically sealed against society

frost and storms designed to beat

yet other enemies will get through

invisible demons with wings of fire

on those panes reflections of one

mountainous molten funeral pyre

coming round but I'll never be right

lungs crackling like broken glass

legs potent...

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those unsanitary days of yore

any hand-washer or hoarder

was deemed to be a victim of

obsessive compulsive disorder

gel meant KY or Vaseline, for

painful episodes down there,

often after inordinately free

bouts of sexy wear and tear

hands red raw from washing,

loft creaks with boxes of SPAM,

DT's swimming through my visor,

gel and tonic beats any dram

...

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Its always the same old story

I meet a woman and we click

We go out for a while and talk

Time seems to go by so quick

After a bit something happens

Signs of unease appear, frowns,

My mask slipped for she's seen

The dark side of my downs

Moods are fatal for couples

You have to banter and smile

Hide the despond with a grin

Play happy families for a while

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I can’t see

But I can dream

It’s like wearing a blindfold

On my brown eyes

I can’t watch, but I can feel

All these weird wild vibes

All these angelic faces around me

But those diabolic souls surround me

Are they real or are they fake?

It’s like watching a blue snowflake

Falling for smiles and grace

All night murdering for a race

I can’t wait

Ti...

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He took his wife
A punching bag
He is at liberty to hug
Or to blow up steam
By her hairs to drag.

As it may sound sad
He opted to project
A doting husband facade.

When she became vocal
About this
To his parents
Who she called
Mom and dad
"We do not expect
Our well brought up
Son with
Something underhand!"

"We are afraid
The complaint is not
Plausible as he has
A cool head...

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Don’t wear your mask if they ask

just bask in your task —

–your task to free you and me to be and to plea:

“I can’t breathe through a mask”

“I can’t breathe through my nose”

“I can’t breathe through my mouth”

“I can’t breathe on my toes”

Breathe out breathe in

It’s no sin — you win

Inhale Exahale

Tell a failed pale tale–

–A tale of Michael who couldn’t breathe

a...

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The Poor Little Dove/Michael Kwack

To watch the wave play with the wind,

I sat by the museum garden pond.

Then a small pigeon came flying,

Landed to her feet, tiny and cute,

And stared up at me, a bit intensely,

Only blinking her eyes, no other move.

She was like a camera model baby,

And I recalled my infanthood pictures.

I started taking some ph...

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She wears sneakers and

Uses the back streets

Dark alleys cover her tracks.

Its like the days of

Prohibition only without the

Tommy guns and as

The first bit in any book on

Economics is

Demand and supply and

They're crying out for her

Services the price is steep.

She sees a police car but it

Zooms off, a false alarm,

This is nerve-racking but a buzz and

She...

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Battle-hardened Sister Yvonne

Missed nothing

Double-checking mask, visor, gown

Everything.

Colleagues, even

Consultants, relied on her to pin-point

Gaps in their armoury.

If anyone was safe from patients

She was.

After her shift last night she

Clocked off and

Walking to her car

Got hit by a taxi taking home a patient.

Reliable to the end

She did not troubl...

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They'd seen each other on the

Tube, followed day after day by glances and

Hesitant smiles and he'd meant to

Make his move

Break the ice but then came

Lock-down.

Now he's mobile again, wondering if

She'll sense the smile beneath his mask

But there's no sign of her

Is she scared to emerge, furloughed or God forbid, sick?

Will he see her again?

Last night he watched T...

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Did old Polly really drop her

Mentholated into my pram or

Was I too young to remember?

If so, why the link with Farley's rusks?

Later, one student summer

At the discount store in the market

I nicked a gross of tins and

It took three weeks to flush away the contents

Without my mother knowing and

One night I gave it a go and sneezed like a trooper yet

It did the trick f...

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The following piece is a snippet from Buzzin Bards Manchester Poetry Anthology, submissions are still open at:  https://www.localgemspoetrypress.com/buzzin-bards-poetry-anthology.html

While you’re too busy being two-faced 

I’ve got one face with many layers. 

Take me at face value, or take a detour, 

reforged, like Ant Man upon my deep pores. 

Tryna get 1UP, that’s a weak score...

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I feel dead inside

I can no longer hide

For so long I've lied

I promise, I truly tried,

But today is the day that I died.

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The mask has fallen.

Like glass it has shattered into tiny pieces,

Never to be repaired again.

Every piece representing a lie behind the truth,

A secret that was thought to be better off hidden.

True light revealed itself today.

Shining bright like never before,

Exposing all the darkness nearby.

The shadows disappeared,

The ghosts all fled,

Yet you showed your fa...

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How brave, in reality, is a ‘brave face’?

A facade shared, it would seem,

by the majority of the human race.

Beneath the flaking paint of a painted mask

lies a truth too long and painful to explain

no matter how oft you care to ask.

How long before the cracks become too wide

to conceal with powders and creams

and the crimson smile starts to slide.

How long...

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