It's by night you must rush
into your truelove's arms.
Unmoored souls will drift afar
easy as mindless clouds.
Could it be the moon's guile,
in rivalry with the sun,
stealing them away?
Some swear the night itself
dissolves neglected souls,
leaves no trace at all.
Love calls on the unwary:
do not be lured away, maddened,
forever lost in wilderness shade.
There's whisper of mania,
...

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It takes a village to lose a child
and a whole world
to lose a community
water evaporating
each believing 
they can find a space of their own.
It takes a city for a graffiti artist
to make his mark 
from the outskirts to the heart
and a whole world 
for a driven society to brand its stamp
on everything it finds.
It takes a country to define civilization
in its own terms
right or...

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A mind's to hold a gorgeous song
while mired in sickly muzak.
As long-distance birds must do
angling for the uplifting spirit.

Expectation is not more than
a further mile through muck;
continuous spattering that
begins a burial early.

But experience is more than
more of the same. Patient study
transforms the student. Don't expect
a crumbling likeness to endure.

Who has the m...

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Don't worry they say
you are no longer needed
to continue the story.
The story is the story has ended.

All eyes are free to see
the phases of the moon
now the moon is grey
and so is the sky.

You're no longer required or allowed
to relate hair-raising detail.
No longer able or entitled
to pass on a grain of unencrypted truth.

You'll get to know your limits
inside a room that...

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The swan remembers, journeys,
through five sets of cygnets,
countless wide full-moon vigils,
back to the most deathly freeze.

Under weight of ice
branches fell from lakeside trees,
many a stoic witness fate overcame;
small bodies entombed in sharp crystal.

As a glance of sun inspired flight
all found equal- the neighbour lakes-
incarcerated in themselves,
inhospitable and unm...

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I have to think how to breathe in and out.
It appears I'm to carry on
like the world's worst actor
utterly stunned
when an Angel says "Sorry"
as if lost rainforests need judgement
for their absence.

I know wielding forgiveness without cause
to be a crime. I'm speechless. Words would come
as from a babbling amoeba on the floor 
but what help is that? I want to help.

There's a li...

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November draws her blackened leaves 
back into the earth.
Hasn't it always been the end of the world?
Echoes, hammered into the head
from cut-down Edens, in faint pulses
die.
Survivors are none; disaster complete.
Veiled sunlight stalks the dark battlefield
and soon exhausted, turns away.
It leaves unnoticed a bud unlikely
as one green marble in all this space.
It turns out the end...

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Frog neglects to jump
Pond a sheet of polished steel
What art bestows life?
 

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Metropolitan Man wears the mask of the commuter.
Faces Today's challenges via trusty computer.

Odd, him looking down from a mountain top.

Wholely beautiful, there is a lake of silver
     perfectly still but for a distant man
          ant-busy at the edge.

A fisherman's son of an age
     with the work-wear swaddling him,
          the jumble of tired equipment
                and ...

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A harp string plucked 
is a real flower plucked
the thorn is a private concern.

Scaling Jacob's ladder of bliss
arpeggios, rambling roses,
no upper limit in the air.

As light chords rise, what covenant filled skies!
Confirmation from the chorus
all that rings true is agreeable to all.

And in the moment's silence between notes
measured minds orientate themselves.
Not compasses...

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Old timers call the evil force 'money'
but it's a shapeshifter we have amongst us.
Inhuman as a virus, invisible 
and fatal as a chemical weapon.
Not faceless, headless: there's no 
executive power in a senseless force.
(That's the good news!)
Every day we leave the bunker
wonder what the hell is this world
and find out which side were on.
Bound to matters close to hand
whose conde...

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You can't hammer a post into the ground
without delighting country dancers
who'll weave ancient ribbons
all around your maypole.
You can't sweep a square yard
free of fallen leaves
without a picnic taking place.
And if you should stop
there'll be strangers nodding
then neighbours, then friends.
Even moving away you'll be leading
a sanguine and spirited parade
if you could but know it...

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You can't look with full attention
and at the same time judge.
This is the fabled wisdom of age.

A selfish, gawky fledgling took pride 
in his power of attention, keen
to be passionately engaged.

An egoist psychopath or novitaite bullock
of half-formed mind liked to judge,
considered it a matter of pride.

I chuckle now at pride, become bald.
Take infantile chalk lines for real...

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She leapt into my lap
embraced in the familiar way.
Oceanic depths of music
dissolve walls and hours 
as in a dream.
Bowed in silence before a song
Columbus in the old world
held her beauty's siren.
All so real then
where does such love go to die?

"You could bring her back. I think you should."
There's a long explanation but who needs it?
Sforzando my response:
"Yeah. Right. Gr...

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The cloistered blade of the gypsy
short and cold and unadorned.
Fall of the cards too rapid to follow.

Mingled shouts build, higher;
lashed to the rocking table
forbidding reason and retreat.

This small lullaby, my doves-
who sparkle over rubies in rings-
pay no heed; it's a corner grub.

Until point blank
Sun grows too white. And bound, stung night
cries in disbelief.
 

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An immaculate poet has intimated
your heart lies fathoms deep 
in muddy veins below.
All the trees roots dive to search.
Believing in the world as I see it
I'm sure one root will find your heart
then they all will.
Celebration in advance is hard to hide-
Just look at those leaves!
Look how the final clouds
nuzzle the lilac hills!
 

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Away from your empire you could be
a head-banded, bell-tinkling hippy
a song of love spun from your harp ringing
well, if you were hallucinating.

I saw you on the riverbank today
a pale druid could do no more to pray.
You stood so long, just as a waypost
what held you at that desolate coast?

I too carry a frayed bag of wishes
old and grey and reduced to ashes.
Take it now if it ...

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Behind bushes, drunk on your own
ravings: not the best place to start
the renaissance and take-over.
You're there because the dark poets
are winning. You believe they've won.
The vampire and the necrophile
are the characters they play with.
Ugly the art they think thoughtful
howls and shrieks are now musical.
Heart is heading for the deep freeze
-when else would you set it beating?
...

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I have grown old.
Clamorous shouts grow louder
("Just look how sincere I am!")
but hail from growing distances.
I'll claim to have grown too weak 
to wrestle down accelerating years
watch them fly out of sight 
all their luggage with them.
I have grown accustomed to dim lamps.
Fire of the mind parcelled out
to see clearly.
My dalliance with ephemera
grows smaller in proportion
to...

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Daylight won't judge nor even scrutinize.
The Moon keeps the exemplary vigil.
But you and I aren't the sun and the moon.
Fair enough.
Mary doesn't judge or scrutinize
her sister keeps an exemplary vigil.
Call unto Mary, the awakened one 
while fairer still, her sister
from dreams follows
the tragedies of the times
possessed of the smile
that's led generations through.
 

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Think of a most promising prelude to dreamtime.
A path in an english country garden.
A supernatural proem would cover it.

Rain at night. 

Sound emerges from darkness.
The fact of it's existence vulnerable to doubt.

Tell me I'm not alone in thinking
the song of midnight rain 
shines a light on the oneness of all life.
Yeilds a profound meditation on that truism.

Blown into a tre...

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I have long dreamt, lightening in the sky,
beckoned forward I'd say
"Pull your chair close
keep your glass charged
and listen."

As when children, lightening split the sky,
we'd stay up late to hear
"Draw your chair closer
fill again your cup
and listen, listen."

Imagine the war over, lightening 'cross the sky
in all the dim-lit rooms
"Pull your chair close
keep your glass cha...

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I am of a million by the loud sea
each holds a fantastical spiral shell
while to their echo-enlarging chamber
each pours the contents of a burdened heart.

With the timeless sea unmoved by secrets
all our task is to be not so saddened
while into the wave-worn chamber we sing
oh shoreline lament enable the heart.
 

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Time used to pass- custard setting-
boy nudges bowl aside-
smithereens around kitchen floor-
custard spattered up legs.

Startled, our kid scarpers so fast
no time to clean the slate
and worse, fridge door hangs wide-open.
His new age breezes in.

Clutching knees, stuck in long grass now.
Brood of magpies sweep past.
Walls spring up to block thought and deed
unreal, and one mile ...

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The poem stands accused.
'Threshold', 'omen' and all the rest.
The humble scribe explains.
The poem raises these phantoms
to drop them from a great height. Cursed words 
from the province of impish boys and girls
where superstitious souls conjour 
untenable worlds.
The part-time scribe will make it plain.
This amateur scribe works in the warehouse.
Here endless shelves hold the worl...

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Take upon yourself the look of spring!
Don colours- vivid!- like to define life!
All the world will love you, that you must know!
Standing as death, brittle enough to break!
Take upon yourself the look of spring!

It is the trodden beetle who knows death
megalithic stones, millenia erect, do not.
I stand midway and though already lightening-struck
this is my springtime. I will medita...

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I crashed in half way through the tune and stood transfixed
The tail end of a poem flowing fast into the mist
when all the apples in yon orchard belong to me
I'll hear again the music and gain the words completely

one so poor must offer up this unfinished design
must return to the forge and the mill and the mine
if all the apples in yon orchard belonged to me
ruby ladybirds and all t...

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The arch poet tends to his row of beans
as once he broadcast words across the land.
He sighs for these stems of rogue angle
for as he outgrows limelight well deserved 
his arguments pale, but not love, for love
the arch poet tends to his row of beans.

For love the arch poet made the verses
to challenge the spirit of any age
who in adversity is found unfair.
He created a space for p...

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Picture a lemming approaching a mirror.
In a vastly expanded second the lemming
regards the value of all lemmings,
their significance, regardless of situation.

Now, the lemming is industrious and swift moving,
when meeting another lemming head on
on one of their well worn narrow tracks
the lemming remains calm and sensible.

The lemming takes half a step to one side
the lemmin...

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"For all my didactic croaks
I have never persuaded anyone
to become a frog."
I hear the robin
"For all my exemplary tweets
I have never persuaded anyone
to become a robin."
About my solitary walk
also the butterfly, the mouse
the ant and the squirrel.
Much improved
I reach a small church
spilling out it's congregation.
Obliged to offer "Good morning"
many 'Good morning's respond
...

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Peppering the rural landscape
like worn gargoyles on churches
like found horseshoes nailed to the nearest plank
how many of these weather-vanes actually work?
This one, set in it's ways
gives evidence for the unmoved.
The blacksmith fell deeply in love
with the ornamental, the old peculiar
village ways and impenetrable mysteries.
The blacksmith's ingenuity spun
from the earliest forge.
...

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Infinite varieties of phenomena
populate the deepest possible lake
under the thinnest possible ice.

I skate above in the prevailing fashion
working hard to stay ahead
of question and disaster.

This morning and a new work colleague.
A new member of the gang, buddy.
"... and so I voted conservative." He said.

He might just as well have said
I'm a paedophile, [racist comment cens...

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It's in the air, there's a bonfire nearby
the man who knows how to keep his wife happy
will bring the washing in
for a stone's throw around
animals that can move will move
but incriminating evidence takes longest to burn
and animals must live on their nerves
I know from experience
having cleared a jungle for an envisioned garden
painstakingly hand-copied musical notation 
combusts q...

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Jacqui didn't do the job
I say job because she took the pay
why Jacqui didn't do the job
Jacqui couldn't say

They asked her in a courtroom
there were gasps of shocked dismay
should we trust your colleagues any better
dumb jacqui couldn't say

She wields the comp'ny umbrella
but rain drops will find a way
the verdict of the jury is in...
busy Jacqui couldn't stay

Is it howling...

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Tomorrow I will risk again a dusty track
not looking for a perfect leaf  
find by chance one inspiring
turn there and then for home
press within a book of poems
the ideal gift and there it will lie
utterly forgotten.
Years, a lifetime, later
not looking for an answer
you'll find by chance the preserved leaf
It's magic will manifest in your tears of joy
it's power is to bolster your...

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I am to understand I swim in a sea of time
although this teaspoonful
is all I have at hand.
So thought Einstein
and the thought brought to mind
his old hero Archemides of Syracuse.
"My dear Archemides, a dumb soldier
put you to the sword 
despite the invading commander's order-
spare the great Archemides.
I am old enough to realize I am close to the edge
the edge that halted your b...

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Tempting the cosmos to cry out

like a child with a cut finger

the two of us take to the glancing rays

our only observer a disinterested cat

sharing expansive evening rays

at liberty to consider all eons

we could hear a dinosaur breathe

and should the Evil One appear

he will face the questioning of his existence

on our scrap of reclaimed land

now...

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The unforseen emergence of music
great blessing that we can be thankful for
came late in the singularly bright day.
Love had shone through the ubiquitous branch
then deepening dusk wrought a subtle change.
Imagination, all wonders, and fears,
came to parallel the world as given.
When night was found black and untrustworthy
music was the welcome light leading on.
 

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No one forgave all my mistakes
least of all my good self.
Assay these lines and see clearly
a picture of yourself.
What gain in recounting mistakes?
Trust we had our glory.
When both you and I are laid low
in another's story.
 

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Sit apart and be true to me
so says my blood-bathed heart
fear not steely daggers but
simple love confused and lost

overhead go singing birds
hearts blood-bathed as yours
and the silken racing clouds
they can never be still

Ruminate long and alone
says my heart, adrift
our audience chimerical
cool colleagues, imagined

Unmoved by the deep river
where loves go drifting past
...

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When, if, 
time capsules may be unearthed
is uncertain.
You put something in, everyone does,
but 
don't expect to choose what.

You unwittingly 'help' future iterations
know their past.
You know: that crowd of ghosts, clowns,
grinning inanely
peering over the shoulder to see
what happens next.

They have know from experience what happens
generally.
It's not that life is a catalogue...

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Once we saw angels and daemons by night
now we muse upon moonbeams and starlight.
skies -now clear, now dark- have not changed their ways
and nor have we through our swift rushing days.
Has something changed while nobody noticed?
Can something be lost yet never be missed?
We strive now as then always to fit in
each to their own quick mind the assassin.
 

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In waves not meant to drown me 
subtlemost feeling bouyed
quick spirit held aloft.
Trusting from saintly patience
metamorphosis finds
a sublime after-life. 

How much I promised to love
before I dreamed of you;
my longing never slept!
How Primavera makes bright 
meadows by her wish-
so each promise I kept.

Round and round the garden
sheltered by the trees
I spy the idol of my...

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If the book of the universe be written
in the language of Mathematics,
a bad scholar swindled at market
and mocked at home, such as I am,
hopes yet for another book, written
in a script less fit for accountants
and truer to common, sustaining dreams.

All that's valuable has ever been
a windfall accepted not meant to last,
all that I crave so unbearably
at once so close while so beyon...

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Philosophy and poetry, unaware 
of kinship, each alone take to a den.
A thankless calling they follow
as much as an endless task.
Constant their desire is, not less than
the full destruction of cynicism.
Glory, if words could summon strength,
to all who fight the war that won't be won.

The professor's words ring loud
and proud of the universal.
The bard cannot abandon the unique
...

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Creatures of a gloomy nature
blunder into each other,
chance crossings accounting for all
knowledge of fellow travellers.

Then there's us in the spotlight.
We love our neighbours as best we can
but more than smiles traded on steps
point us to where we would be.

Creatures in a grey evening
fight the foe they meet,
the bright shock of morning
tells who are the new mighty.

Then...

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We don't make a language of a dozen words
cant build a city out of a thousand lego bricks
or a duck with all possible resources.
The bird would not get off the ground 
if it were a few bits of plastic snapped together.
(Well it might but it wouldn't lay a fucking egg would it)

Stars must explode; violently produced treasures
spraying out into space to coalesce under gravity,
formi...

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The name belongs to the body
the body belongs to the mind
the mind beholds a mouse on a corn stalk
stoops to its subject like a falcon to prey

The name is called, a button pressed
the body turns, all but a machine
the mind collapses a cornfield in an instant
and all the mice in my England run free
 

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The Egyptians were great to the Greeks
Because Egyptian mathematics speaks.
Pythagorus led out of old Egypt 
the sacred embodied in number, but
from the beginning the devil broke through
along the length of the square root of two.

Here's one deceived lover, there's another;
those failed, and gaoled, and bound together.
Soonest they learn the rhymes of a sad world
refuse to have gau...

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I don't have my father wandering
huge fields, fixing fences
making plans; no concern
for anything outside his patch of land.
Someone somewhat similar stomps
the fields stretching inside of me.
Of the tribe that heeds no warning
indifferent to all the others
and their noise.

Trained from birth to wear the smile 
of civilization, the moderns
with their claim to be interchangeable
...

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Sirens howl, temples fall.
Oh, to come to my senses,
to return to Greece.

The sun has caught fire and I am burning
my only love is up to her waist in the Ionian.
Apollo and Poseidon conspire;
flaming sun and restless wave
project through a fathom clear to sands
already impressed with a giant's fingerprint
their bright ghost net around those precious feet.
Golden immaterial threads in p...

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We found this cradling valley
men of the world will never reach
unthinkingly.
There was no map,  no road to follow.
Without a plan, guileless as it must be, 
we brushed aside overhanging leaves
for our beginning.
Unrecognised, lain all around
machineries of the joyous spirit
curative, creative
were picked up again and again that day.
Perfectly fitting, like a smooth, cool pebble
i...

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Beautiful are the petals that drop...

     on every side see the fight
for flowers that do not wilt.

And the Sun who dies day after day...

     hear a sigh fade among reeds
"I tend an eternal flame".

Like the truest friends come through the fog...

     adequate feel the weapons 
that secure a stone bunker.

To carry sorrow and grief away...

     yes, the sigh fades among ree...

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Little butterfly
I have followed you.
Yours is an act of generosity
mistaken for an act of pride.
Deeper into entwined branches
I am elated while scratched.

Little butterfly
you are leading me.
Suspected of telling your own story
flight reaching the height of anonimity.
Stumbling a meadow below
I am breathless and lost.

There's a net designed just for you
also a glass-fronted to...

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There's a shadow-hid, ravenous tiger around.
At least an untamed beast to be wary of.
Walled and fenced enclosures are made
to blunt a sharp wind. Rarely will they admit
this roaring danger. Encounters with monsters
are feared, and so, obstacles litter a free path.

That kid rolling down a grassy slope
has all he needs. There is no America.
No warm nor cold- no Goldilocks anxiety.
A...

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     Only so much can be used 
to benefit the Machiavellian man.
The disorientation of others
through chaos, their depression
under cursing skies.
     Wartime is the best time
literally or poetically
for a Machiavellian man.
Times of the distraught cry
the stunned, helpless stare
later to be dubbed "dark ages".
     With a flourish of the matador's cloak
-our Machiavellian man.
...

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Where momentary views  
reached out to the next county,
now focus is all close-up.
Long views are screened;
the season of the leaf has enacted
its stealthy revolution.
Neighbours pressed close ensnare all;
the tangled net of detail.
Proof weaving together wins
over frantic competition.
Commuters all 
numbly decrying the same old trip
slip the season of cool, deep thought
emerge in...

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Here memorialised in verse
a family inclined to curse.
One by one lifted from their hell
portrayed as fair as time can tell.

Here's mother, father, sister, brother
grown apart but chained together.
Numbly to submit in monotone
their evidence sworn bone by bone.

The spirit of joy, pushed or fell,
into the deepest dankest well.
As one for once they make the claim
it's not them; i...

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You must see this fish!

You must see this fish caught in a net

You must see this fish caught in a net
hoisted high out of the waves

You must see this fish caught in a net
hoisted high out of the waves
by men who care nothing for him

A  blazing vision of his beloved
occupies his mind, delighting in his beloved
he would not exchange places with anyone
enthralled this way by lo...

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A motorbike gang has roared ahead.
Threw a leg over a cause and rode it
for all it's worth. The loud gang- 
mouthpiece of the needy minority
whether they want it or not.

But you are the meek 
they say shall inherit the earth
and you can be proud to be left for dead.
You are considering 
the vital songs in the silence of your mind.
You conserve but also improve.
When the time is r...

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Can any one here find me
catch me; cook up; crochet, create me

just a little felt blanket
for the rubber farm animals
work-horses, pigs, triceratops
bandaged in paper
at the busy animal hospital.

Deliver your offers here, and here
there, there, there.
We're talking everywhere 
aren't we? Then the job is done.
Are you not then flying birds
like all things natural as the tides 
...

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Into a cleft in the earth.
No extensive cave network greeted me
 just a small subterranean parlour.
The light was still good.
You should know I brought with me Orpheus
Theseus, Lazarus; what have you.
Is it odd that I quickly dispensed with these shades?
They quickly dissolved at any rate.

There were no sweet wrappers or plastic bottles.
There were no bones or cave paintings.
Ther...

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You know as well as I
the music most popular;
which films will rank as must-see,
and what sells newspapers.

But the musician will, searching,
haunt a barren wasteland
where aeolian harps play still
far from booming towers.

And every individual
held in a captive audience
enshrines their own favourite
however obscure the love.

That the spotlight of the day
should sweep ...

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This rope paid out, and paid out
so unfeasibly far. My spirit's life 
to this point: how to explain
the meander this tributary takes
being one unbroken Zen flash? 

In this non-stop festival of breath
how would I compare the chosen course
with offers untasted? Surely 
the dish not tried keeps it's mystery
leaving comparison chimerical.
But only now do I sail on with my love
free of ind...

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This far down the road, a cloud of dust 
raised and stirred by writhing dragons
is his history, should he care to look back.
Today he will focus on frozen explosions 
flowers, solely for the beauty. 
Truly enthralled thus, the old man 
is not yet so foolish to imagine
he grows to understand them, or himself
any better. A certainty is
the power of good taken to heart
wilderness kept ...

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Why direct attention to a swan with ripped-off wings?
It's a good question, and we'll come to that.
Now, a heirachy established
to benefit those on the lower rungs.
This is a unicorn. 
Bread and butter to a poet.

A poet in fashion must now describe
a horse, sprayed white, narwhal's horn
screwed into the forehead.

The mythological creature
inspirational epitome of beauty
remains...

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     Two girls on the swings talk
now in harmony, now not.
The elder tells of a planet
so far distant that we can never learn
of the lives of those likely living there.
     The younger will not understand
why her sister confides it makes her sad.
     A nursery rhyme, a song of the valley;
granddmother's whisper, the elder explains.
Over the mountains it is unheard of.
And news fro...

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I'm minded of Achilles and the heroes
but no; they fought to the death.
We compete for gilded laurel leaves
sports men and women of the world.

Now banished to kick up grey lunar dust
in this couch potato's thought experiment.
Let the games begin, mere games, that's the point
sports men and women of the Moon.

Unimaginative knuckleheads. Us?
Look here: a novel satellite event
"mar...

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This brushed stainless steel landscape.
Where DO flowers grow?
Now it's crossed my mind I'm seeing
them everywhere.
And I think I've worked it out-
it's them fucking people!
As a population of extras, a mob of cynics,
they play their part badly.
Propagate the most unlikely dreams
and tend the ground for any chance bulb.

This office in the sky
glass tower impenetrable to vision
...

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write a poem
everyone's a critic
read a poem
everyone's a philosopher
fold the paper carrying the poem
into an origami aeroplane
aim high, let it go
everyone's a child at heart
hopeful dreamer, lover of the good 
unschooled slackline walker, poet
write a poem
do it for mama
it's the least you can do
do it for the cause
every little helps
televise the performance
in the company...

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Out of sight of land is where it's at
if the land is you and you
the agonising details
won't stop with the raising of mountains

I was offered the moon, no strings attached
words like germs I later found
and cleansed by the sea I'll take all the sea
thank you very much

Adjacent to the dog star a bird
impressive of wingspan, eager of eye
hangs over me (a floating feast?) so grand
...

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I shall meet the challenge
of a robin stood in my path
with the morning's maiden sigh
not a photograph.
For mummification never saved 
a gracious soul.
Take care, my poets, erase each word
before it grows cold.
 

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They have lounged on grey midnight grass
wondering at the infinite stars
and their own smallness against them,
their fire-fly flash in time's eternity.
They have touched the sublime
and could only laugh.
It's a case of celebrating their poverty.
They have no defence against the prowling tiger
and are powerless against the raging seas.
They will never see as an eagle sees
and the que...

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This community has moved online.
That is, it no longer exists,
transformed, trivialised,
corrupted and abandoned 
as a powerless fantasy picture
wherever cyberspace can store it.
"If it's not honest, it's not real."
the old tramp dryly croaks.
It's true. The only engine capable
of carrying a sensible traveller
one inch closer to the goal
must be fuelled by honesty.
For a can of sp...

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Fossils planted in the hillsides
by a chuckling god tricking us all:
These are today's poems
unrecognised for what they are.

Justice
scratching the gilding from her shoulder
finding she is mercy

innocently waiting 
for broken promises to be fulfilled

knowing the job is beneath her
but if she doesn't do it, who will?

She contemplates, communes, with the stars
surprised ever...

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In lines they sally forth-
they could be chained together.
But each is engrossed in a different world.
Each one is the motionless Buddha
mind ablaze with questions.
Each one vows to erase the evils
besetting their world. Now,
a solid-gold Buddha is something to be.
Meanwhile, lines keep marching forth
to allotted places in a grim creation.
This world of their own making.
 

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Swift and graceful lemurs
occupy the canopy.
So swift, so beautiful
feet don't touch the ground.
Swift, graceful, beautiful
abreeze through treetops
too many to count. Here's one 
-but wait-
for whatever reason
the accustomed leap
now second nature
still breathtakingly acrobatic
fails. 
He has lost his grip. It happens.
The back-up branch snaps off in his hand
here's a real pro...

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We're to edit this book, not read and discard it,
not, heaven forbid, burn it.
But a bed of nettles can't be approached
and the thorny bramble stands impenetrable,
we're to soften the edges of this picture
not whitewash it all, frame included.
Though the stench is strong and the danger clear
our minds, already gardening, work fast.
We're to strum this guitar as a student
not polish i...

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Then the roof falls in. Walls built over years
topple in a moment heedless of tears.
So we are levelled like a house of cards 
all that's left to us, our view of the stars.

To every one fate strikes as unique.
The latest hero from the ancient Greek.
And Love, once again of no fixed abode,
send forth sweet arrows down the chartless road.
 

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The labouring world hastens by, fretting 
"forward... forward..." bleary-eyed 
as commuters at the lap-top early
aboard hurtling trains through fallow fields 
where we'd lay singing; fa-la-la rising.

We've rode that train and laid on that moor.
Altogether we've yelled, "Forward, forward!"
And each silently cried "Return, return."
So full are the days required to learn
strains as pl...

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You may know from bitter experience
a workhorse in society
is someone deprived of his basic rights.
Broken, and forced to do another's will,
by untold little acts of unkindness.

And then a horse whisperer comes along.
She has no time
for bullying by dishonourable,
callous congregations.
She works a magic they'll never know.

The running meadows may be illusion
may be real, and stagna...

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Appearing in a scene from a film
smoking at a bus stop
takes all the concentration a youngster has.
Us oldies have it different.
We must concentrate 
being full of aches and pains
to appear light-hearted.

Worlds will emerge like music from noise.
The kingdom of ends (see Kant)
grows from a huddle against bitter cold.
In the long meantime, 
practically infinite for the short-sight...

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You don't understand anything
lookng in someone's eye, in general.
Time comes you look in someone's eye
and gather you both
find an orphan long lost family
and would take scarred prisoners as gurus.
Look away fast but too late
each recognised in the other...

Perhaps it's put best in poetry
but that has never touched you.
It could just as well be illegible scrawls
bright graffiti ...

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Obvious as walking into a bar
goes the soulful companion, poetry.
Commences a surprise, no history about it, 
submits to fate leaving no debris
for the field must be left clear, pure.
Fashioned in singular language 
like nothing more than an inaudible voice,
if noticed at all it will be disregarded.
I think invisible as gravity,
I think just as crucial.
Obvious as the sea we swim in
...

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