The whale is a big thing.
Jonah had three days in the belly of the whale
carefully considering, and I hear him now.

"This is a good time in the progress of the world.
I know a people of the earth contemplate 
hunting the whale to extinction. Yet
no captain Ahab plunges on his solemn mission.
Only Nippon company men after profit
whatever the cost. Call me apoplectic
b...

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The new traditions aren't as good as the old

where good means meaningful, useful, real and true.

So without the power to resist I'll live

in a world exactly like this

a squirrel through bare branches believing

countless leaves are sure to return one day.

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One of many, nothing special. He fled

his family to find his voice, toiled hard

for freedom. Having lost himself 

in the concrete jungle, he found 

himself unhappy in isolation.

Moods of cloud hold a lid on his sky.

At great risk our hunter, radically changed

closes in on human kindness.

Confronting granite like anyone

keen glows the eye of our hero

...

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Break me and scatter me
   crusts of bread
      across the mossy lawn,
thankyou.
For the birds.
Your super-power 
   as yet undefined,
        puppy-dogs employ you 
like a wagging tail.
In this ruby light
      fall out of marching days.

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Under today's cloud principles for the short term
place the poet, irrevocable, beyond recall
language at the cusp of comprehension.
And today's cloud holds no rain.

Under today's cloud clarity is golden.
Strange, poets lament with an ancient chorus
a gloomed brightness ending its play.
And today's cloud is toxic.

Under the circumstances, as this is the clay 
he must work with, th...

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Just like you
I can't tell the real threats,
best to fear everyone.
And I can't tell who to love.

Just like me
you give your all for Ceasar
learn all you can
under cover of mechanical seasons
but never get a pardon.

The labouring heart 
that brought us this far
knows only the road
to wisdom is overlong.

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only so high roll the sun up the sky 
that a guild of mists should profit thereby
that artists among us may train their eye
on those untouched sheaves of gold they so prize

silence between thoughts in the ideal world...
enter the whistle or pip of one bird
frame and magnify the lyrical word
for her plain song purport may yet be learned

bright is the morning, the shadow has passed
...

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Somewhere someone stands by twilight.
A short road mazing 
to sleeping or waking
confuse, confound, spiral, snake
it will mysteriously, magically, suprisingly
consciously or not
be taken.

For the moment there is time.
Shadows merge in air calmed.
Not immune to absent charms,
whistle slow the breathless notes of memory.
Or feel future promise, but crooked, tempt.
Sudden, sensed...

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But we have forgotten.
Archduke Ferdinand can't explain
Passchendaele or the Somme.
No evil Hitler or monstrous Nazis
weilded weapons of horror
blunt as a caveman's club but,
the toxic flames of inhumanity grew tall.
There are reasons but,
we don't reach for that can of worms.
There are many to blame
shame on them all but,
sleeping dogs lie.

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the queen of the lake is

the double of forever

enthroned and emanating concentric waves 

of awe confused with fear

fairly apportioned by humbled onlookers 

from the magic circle's edge

they expect evidence of change

a new perspective after movement

swan-neck greening over time

lake water less than pure

reflection less than perfect

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wake
and the habitual process begins
the rigmarole
clothed for a particular day
this particular sky

make the age old choice of a changeful mind;
to be comic or tragic

but all this sun shines on for good or ill
may as well be the paper-thin fictions
of a swiftly forgotten novel

for changeful minds dwell 
in their element
anywhere else but here

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alien silk balls
insects nurseries 

dot the underside
a child could see

who chanced upon that heap
and lifted up

a rusted and rotted
red wheel barrow

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Don't you worry
sanity could never be enough.
Raging against a northerly gale
and not blown off your feet
neither will your words be heard
but don't worry, this is poetry.

Don't you worry
there's no one right answer.
Raging waterfalls of hair,
echoing canyons focussing...what?
Before and after hell can reign
don't worry, this is poetry.

Don't you worry
silent, unhurried truth...

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The news comes down from ancient Athens-
a follower of Dionysus, dressed to kill,
is unaccounted for. So,
what efficacy in the search;
some insight shone might stop her?
Rich generations or poor 
civilisation or civil war
can't put her in a cage 
or through a mincer.
The aged and crippled wish
just to live a day longer.

Growing noise makes music 
impossible but not obsolete.
The noi...

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this haiku I find

curled inside an ash guitar

reaching for the strings

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Little, pathetic, countless moans

seeming sunk ocean deep,

no way to trace them or proof

they ever existed but

profound and accumulating

certainty this must be

the regal tale the Earth spins.

Tiny, sorrowful, hopeless cries

they could not be lost, dissolved in some ocean,

nor even turned away from

by minds such as ours.

They are caught in the net of stars

f...

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Here we stand, in running shoes.
These days pass like bullets. Near misses-
snapshots taken at the speed of light.
What might be around the corner
vivid pictures come to us all.
Take the morsel of contemplation-
when some blessed bell sounds. 
Then that's it. Let's go.

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Who run the darkened world
but vendors and customers?
Fanfares come over the treetops, theirs
their writing carved in stone.

Am I assumed to go to market?
Then turn back my muse, my genius
my unbelievable guardian angel.
All turn grey as the speechless ones.

Who, spying, run from tree to tree
as if their shadow isn't perfectly clear?
Exemplars all but eluding me
meanwhile I hav...

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There's a thundercloud sweeping earth with shade

a man juggling a hammer in one hand 

     Irises grow wide and tall 

in spring, and mid-winter 

ice on a wren's garden bath 

gently tapped to crack

There's a moody wave bites the granite face

darkness and stillness retire hand in hand 

     Our future steps we sleep to dream

ranged further f...

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Fourteen silent meditative years passed
before the ascetic returned at last.
The man of common sense, a twin brother
asked what "years of denial had amassed"

Whence in fourteen strides the ascetic led 
to the wider river in its deeper bed
and calmly walked over. The twin brother 
paid a ferryman for crossing, and said

"See! With two pennies I have done what you 
have wasted fourt...

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Before the drama is over

shall we leave for a simpler place

before the level drops lower

can we learn of our saving grace

a way to apprehend beauty

through this forest thick with duty

there is a world we might attain

might recover, ourselves regain

there will be no bells set ringing

but still this work it will be done

already ...

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One is, bewildered, left upright under the sun
while the other, speechless, slipped faraway for shade.

Now those pretty bands making sense of this dumb rock
lead down, like steps, the one who will not leave.

One set in his ways in this age of the critic
reliving the days when poems built up in praise.

Pretty the bands of rock, pretty the rings of trees
pretty your crumbling steps, can...

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In an English country garden I roam.
Because there my dreaming mind percieves you.
Your place in my heart is all I hold true.

And where do you blossom as a poem?
Where do I find you complete my rescue?
In our English country garden I roam.
It is there my dreaming mind recieves you.

All your wishes like arrows find their home.                                                   
And ...

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Once more- to haunt the country lane;
the hollow and secret bower
of a melancholy refrain.

So fit it should begin to rain,
Autumn send her gloomy shower
once more to haunt the country lane.

We persist in similar vein,
in thrall to a timeless power
in the melancholy refrain:

Set free all sprites to walk again
if only for a brooding hour,
once more to haunt the country lane

And p...

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I'd give the petals flying 
in the hurricane today
the peace they found in the bud
though it may never be.

The dark side of the Earth
encroaches on the day,
run to my heart for shelter
though it overwhelm me.

In the dohyo, immovable object 
meets immovable object.
All eyes turned that way
discern a kind of victory.

Thru this burning away of evil
giants stand, grow clearer.

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You might have struggled to escape me
yet your tendrils held me to you.
I was far too implacable for any living thing
though strangely bound to you, sweet-sight.
How could I not recognize you as my wife?
We were as one standing for summer.
Now you see me, by fractions, 
fly madly from this child's bow.
Yourself carried off: 
a fine subject...

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There was no pond when you came here

you have stood and your tears have pooled

now I stand by though summer may call

choosing the site as most suited

You are the willow bending over the pond

and just as time's appointments are meaningless 

to you, I'll be your close correspondant

but forgive me if I obtrude, understand when...

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That which ought be
with a turn of the head, appears.
With a blink o' the eye- right there.
One step forward. There.

Who is not familiar 
with the powers of the angels
second nature- you'd know it 
with your eyes closed.

For who has not awakened to 
their revelation in dawning light,
birdsong nigh perennial wisdom
and dew-fresh the simple gifts giv...

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We are all authors
rabid shorthand relates the feeling
just before the lightening strikes
We are all artists
painting the runaway wagon
ravenous for time to eat
We are all builders
balancing skulls, no mortar
leaning tower, such a view
We are all inventors
I'll show you if you show me 
wild ideas saving lives  
We are all explorers
our trail of breadcrumbs sniffed out and gone
what t...

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The friend we have to consider
    settles his accounts on the last day
        it is the worst possible time.

'Today's the day' his good motto
    bright eyes shine on
        a glittering stream of todays.

His darker eyes raw from seeing them
    love; tragedy; cavort like little devils 
        along lanes of fading recollection.

what should our likeness expect to find ahead
   ...

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A gong struck once holds the attention forever 
and ever in the meaning of moonlight
describing the limbs, drinking 
doubles in a dry land and 
moving as statues, silver the hue.

We are communicating at last
through music and poetry.
Bark and croak of howling beast
should persuade us no longer.
Above the din, on the highest peak
we make our home.

Days made sweet blending
pure min...

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guilty and innocent were keeping score

one step into dark, one step into light
a dance macabre betwixt wrong and right

to the boil they came together and cried
the greedy fed on fears, the hungry died

how could their minds murmer lest we forget
while trampling to oblivion their debt

the greedy and the hungry went to war
weeping and wailing grew just as before

one step to th...

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Ascents most extreme scaled only by fools
he returns; he returns not; O the fools

The finest, most elevated branches!
There perch incessant songsters! And the fools

In this limited form they face the void
blue eyes closed the better to see, the fools

Prepared to take flight? Then loosen your grip
encircle the rock with this flock of fools

The...

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the new world requires smooth elephants
hirsuit elephants go back into the earth

your eyes abhor an emptiness
people a desert with figures

the new world requires hirsuit elephants
smooth elephants go back into the earth

arms severed long ago reach out
to you the phantom hand of peace

the new world requires smooth elephants
hirsuit elephants go ba...

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Crime follows crime until the gods intervene

all my free hours I wonder

who and what these gods are

Day follows day without a break

this much at least I know is true until

stark as the eclipse a free hour steals in

A runner unaware of the race

signals the smooth ways where possible

one of many I could believe flying

Impossible to...

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A town like this 
whole skies passing over

those words
had a need to be written
they don't satisfy me
I know they don't satisfy you
they had a need to be written
being written
they are satisfied

I have seen the great poet
go down to the sea
hurl a great weight of verses 
into the greedy waves
it would take so great an effort
to ensure they float
an effort too great for fles...

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      when we see that
      we are still afflicted
      but we are happy

      For the life of me I can't say
where it came from but, this fragment
made a home in my head today.
A teardrop of honey
in exquisite slow-motion, yet to fall.

      "When we see that"
I imagine THAT in capital letters.
Jesus Christ, the incredible itch
wondering what 'that' is.
Then again, that cou...

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Before now was
      a song: 

You go to the graveyard to talk to yourself
      by black night remembering stars

More have sailed away
than can ever return
you have loved them all
and your love still burns

More still remain children
while trees around them grow
lilliputians of emotions
yet you love all you know

That love caught up with a miller
as he set out to sea
his sails ...

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A poem can not be read slowly enough
no safe passage into dear reader's care.
Extreme as Ireland's Atlantic cliffs 
where shadow and light like imperilled life flit:
the places words snatched by shrill winds collect.
It is there we must direct our steps, only there
signal moments caught from passing time,
occasional anniversary cards dry in drawers.

I have a prediliction for serious trea...

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And there is a time to imagine:

through drought to finis.

So long on the parched plain,

the city of the earthquake becoming

real as myth; silent and still.

Time to feel spent sorrows fly

drinking in the desert, the ruins,

of  sorrow multiplied. 

Unable to imagine a future

in stillness a wind prepares to blow

in silence, of anger unawar...

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I don't judge the flock born to this hillside

but lay down my burden to get the outlook.

So it is with the heart up the hillside and down

I stop to hear, even falteringly repeat.

It has been shown, it is believed, 

It would only be my own heart weighed

and climbing up become falling down.

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Waits, noise and mess its camp followers.
The crowd is
always waiting, waiting for a festival-
music or literature even.
Awaiting the mardi gras, the revolution
the carnival, some kind of orgy.
A requiem for someone known to all.

Of course none of these things can help them
but, what could do them any good?
All our children rushing to enlist.

We have tended a patch of land
...

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     Outside the box the river I know snakes.

Crawling over the earth, days send
their shadows to the east
sit at last, drunken, leant upon a bench 
exhaling laughs.

     Inside the dreams are small, familiar.

Days, like words, made up of meaning
make sense by the sentence;
a necklace of pearls strung together
effort's reward.

     For the time being all is not lost. 

And...

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How the porpoise was drawn into the seas

holding a pace seeming stationary

and, bagged on a shelf in a store of years,

who would believe: love is perfected yet.

Moon-proud a sillhouette over our seas-

a second sight at the antipodes-

curving like the rainbow before she fades

just as never was: love is perfected yet.

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At the house of Mr. Biswas

we'd evesdrop: a bond between us.

On moonless nights like this, I swear

we had a light leading us there.

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There falls an almighty darkness
in this most voracious of cities
but one side of the mind is not yet victorious.

Being on the eve, all that is plentiful is hearsay-
new dawn carried off by black knight;
students of fashion seek martyrdom.

But like clockwork the day breaks
glittering, aircraft set their scars across the sky
a show of power 

as empty 
to the universe beyond the...

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There is light at the end of the tunnel
and it is light these eyes were made to see.
My self I have imagined, reflected
in countless frames busy with wild designs 
to my left                                            and right,
likeness after likeness for company.
Portrait of the times each step of the way
shadow caught astrals, they reach out, would speak.
How many would change their...

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Five minutes ago I learnt of a man
child of a child, windsock of an airfield.
The world of slavery is robust thanks
to him for both slaves and slave owners hang 
in his family tree. Y'see, children of slaves 
do become, sadly often, slave owners.

Red herrings swallowed could burst the guts
of infants born to slowly fade and sink,
but this world of slavery is robust 
for there's a...

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Anonymous plays his outstanding tunes 
outside the concert hall
unencumbered by laurel or crown
anonymous beauty grows enrapt on the green
christening the field Elysian
satyrs, staggered, remark in their dualmind
remembering the vow humane.

For sweet hearts torn and modern minds shredded 
in machinelife anonymous donates red blood,
gives higher love where low quotas are imposed.
U...

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     Dropped into a transparent sky;
carried far more than sight could bear;
tied to the last migrating bird;
these dreams spilt, from vagrant hearts all.

     Coalesced to a melting sun-
the daze of rare celebration.
Or taken individually,
starcount the ways to be explored.

     Written light in pencil, no more
than faintest echo waited for.
Like breath of air these words that ...

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I don't know the names of these flowers...
but wait, that is the road back.
I found myself here when I forgot
the royal road and the mission.
Camouflaged, a cat brushed past stems
certain of an afternoon's handful of things,
one being-  these flowers reject names.
I'm pleased to know just so much 
as some darting creature bound for rest 
when the closing sky suggests rain.
A flock l...

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No need to confess
hair infused with smoke
hand red and burning 
from slapping a snowman hard
and all these hours late!
Once a man stamped a boot on the moon
the rest of us need no name
no need to confess
from Beijing to Bogata
the cakes are disappearing.

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May be read or unread
that is not our concern

it 
bloom spontaneous in hermetic mind.

May be misunderstood
or diluted in time
no matter

it
restoreth a most ancient faith
by a most novel innovation.

May wield the harsh weapons 
of a vengeful orphan

it
distracts a fool from his folly
installs a world unnoticed.

May be a phial of stage blood
to stain the sea red

it
...

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Look- all is reassembled in a year.

For a pastel fleck comes the bee, the thorn.

But seeds who still wait lay frozen by fear

under the wheels of a machine. Unborn.

Look- flowers are walking, summer to spread

across so fine a landscape warm and green.

Yet more- and on a pitted tarmac bed

to sun, from shadows owning them, will lean.

How shall I hono...

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You don't understand, do you?
It's okay...
we'd lie under a crushing trove by now.
You're the dead man walking. Slowly.
Lonesome George, you are the last of your kind,
the cut already made. But you don't understand,
do you?

Going back to sleep an hour is a long time.

"Upon a hillside, sheep-dotted
a shepherd and soft flute player 
enacts the old tale without end
...

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Of the utmost pliable nature
I picture an enduring surface
the skin of a planet.

Between intolerable molten core
and absolute void where chaff may disappear
ouroborus; mobius; this surface
observes all and only the laws of Pi.
Wrapped around as on a bon-bon
its intricate designs kept clear and shiny
by all who feel entitled or obliged to care.

And here is water, somehow,
not an...

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I.
So long do I study burning sand in my flameproof palm yet 
certainly I know it must slip through prodigal fingers.
Through floors of taverns 
and the centre of the world as easy.
And the gate between two stars; 
the void blowing shining galaxies apart.
So far, it will be true at last- none of this ever was.

II.
Clear streams chime on smoothed rock.
Hidden birds proclaim blessed...

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On this day a brightness stands against blue
blue overwritten by shape- white-
an ornamental chimney
lidded, blessed with a little roof of it's own
white of paper outshone 
by vital integral scissored-out shapes
dainty as a pottery oil-lamp.
What is it to you, T.S?
Nothing significant on this day?
What can truly be said, Pablo,
on this day, how many people?
Oh, Seamus, What should ...

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Just when it seemed I would live forever
not troubling a dentist for ten years
nor yet too gross to ride a bike
well it is said it's all downhill from here

And as it seemed that fairytales come true
'twas I saw a shooting star to be caught
so plucked three wishes too quickly
raw strength, wicked cunning and fierce beauty

But all that needs to be said has been said
so very well my...

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Here in these fields- all battlefields,

and day bit fiercely into night-

call not for final victories

but sing glad of tommorow's fight.

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With a wash, a milky sky,
she is wide awake and at the canvas.

Swallowing an olive or
sipping seawater soup
she's chuckling away 
the hours that pass. 

It's a brightening morning-
she must attempt a blue more intense.
Ultramarine, titanium white?
More, less? One thing for sure -
not everyone can be Rembrandt.

High noon and gold is fierce
as her brush now primed: 
blinding mirror...

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Tell us all the origin
    how you live 
on the edge of town
    how you manage 
to miss the village maypole
    the fireworks over our grey river
how your wife's friends 
    are not your friends
how your hidden ways
    make sense among us.
Tell us again
tell us whenever
    we grow curious
tell us
    who really need to know.
Faraway and wild places draw you
    away from your...

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It dawns on me at last
the storm clouds I have turned and turned to evade
yoke firmly to the schist beneath my feet, 
dark with familiar paths I can never scrub.
From here, say summer picnic leftovers, 
no bee would buzz far. The opposite of a poem, 
a passing sportscar suggests, is a bad poem. 
But a true-coloured reflection, 
the old ram at the fence boldly declares,
is indulged gl...

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Figure of fun, stinking of piss?
That old man is Wordsworth in the field,
patriarch to small capped heads. But you
fail to recognise Socrates in the market and there 
springs your catastrophe. Yours 
is now the society of a bullet entering the head
repeated in slow motion, repeated ad nauseum.
Take pride in tall towers if you must,
who now can record faithfully their collapse?

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A lifetime of wide-eyed skywatching but now 

a glimmering lantern I blindly clutch for

 in or out of this world. A sober Moon incises: 

songs and spells of comfort tell

she is great, synonymous with real magic.

Every part of herself from nothing to all

given and taken through every season.

Long through my benighted dramas, selfish episodes, 

never ...

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Lay in the trench 

bean, barley, corn,

twisted in silken sheets

your love dreaming.

In all the lord's land they lay 

shark-jaw traps.

Young englishman,

walk the safe way home.

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When the caveman met the civilised man
impressively, one did not kill the other.

Each had skills the other understood
would take long practise to equal.

Instantly created sign language
deepened their understanding.

Each was amused, wondering if
they could make it in the other's world.

For simple joy in the parabola they threw 
between them a small green sphere.

I...

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Emerging from grey, a cool green garden 

has no audience at all.

As the music you practise

you practise for its own sake.

As aerial larks have sung, always sing,

for very particular ears.

Resisting analysis an artwork

in silver much clearer than gold.

Your prophet's tears dew on foxes

returned to the hole for the day.

And aerial larks have sung, always si...

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Just for today, let us declare,
there is an amnesty on dangerous words-
before slammed doors, smashed cups. Broken hearts.
Calmly, quietly, lay your shocking words on the table.
In honesty there's no authority here and no criminal,
Steely words come softly from both sides of the table.
Shorn of spikey rhythm, long-writhing rhetoric 
lies still, lamb-like; object of sympathetic tears.

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Your depths wait like

a sombre boy's rockpool.

Focus of a cornflower-blue dome,

catching echoes of those

animalicules designed to hide.

Yes, your depths wait.

Fevers you feel will subside

with the blinding sapphire blue- 

loved ones consider lightly;

the kraken thinks best to hide.

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    As loath to cease breathing

the briefest interruption -count in minutes-

of young lovers begins, as so much,

with an exchange: the parting kiss.

    Thoughtfully curry-combing horses before 

one long dark trek; sharing silently 

the feast to safeguard against famine.

    Art's lady, you draw a timeless moment into time;

giving the perfect answer wit...

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Is the gulf so wide
that we no longer look over clearly?

However great a part of humanity: 
apart is not nearly enough.

When reason borders on unreasonable
where do you draw the line?

Conquest confounds poetry
in the soul, a trophy never enough.

Will efforts to camouflage the obvious
spiral into loveless isolation?

Alien antennae pierce armoured skies.
Beyond the pale is ...

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Silence seems to be practising on me
from that uncertain distance 
where the sky meets the sea. 
Looking so far without obstacle
I don't know what I perceive.
Is that the other bank of a vast river,
and how might things be viewed from there?

On a day like this great ocean is
laying foam upon the sands
awakening my toes way down there
miles above my head wide sky is
throwing halcy...

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Handsome oak tree, one grand thread,

but split, split, split. Tangle of limbs,

cloud of leaves, your thread is

a network of veins; what is more

alive than you? What years have you

not known, and intimately:

their seasons have a particular ring

in your meticulous soul.

Unaware of my second nature

still you know how I plague a world

-it is in the air that sustains ...

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They're making trees out of paper!

Oh, it's all in a good cause.

One leaf says "I wish I was better."

So many others are much worse.

What leapt out at me in the cold 

corridor, where anyone might pass 

was a crinkled leaf I had stooped to pick 

from the tiles, which read

"Am I going home with you?"

Well, no one paints just to cover the canvas

...

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An April morning in silence crept past the night

but she the dreamer had woken and found 

lodged in her mind a bare line...

At once she knew it was a poem's title

as an egg in a nest is known to be sacred

and more- from her other world- she'd seen it

writ large for scholars on the old blackboard

When she told me- yes, forgive me

I am the most fortunate of men...

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Here we are again for self-improvement

I see a hippo-like creature
has become a whale

and though her soul be polluted
with poison through unfair ages
she has pledged to pilot the man to safety
whose fate is with the cruel sea

here we are again

excavating on waking
at the site of the mirage

and there our nightmares are piled high
with all that cannot harm us
oddities brought u...

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When the poets hear my name

   they are humming bird tongues

burning spears converging

   they would dissolve

   the only way they know how

speak of all things past

   refuse to concede and think it victory

   steeped in sweet intoxication

   deep as death and no more
 

words

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I knew her mother
christened her Untold
nobody has found why
my lot call her Mary
when they call her
Mary of the storm's eye

"you know I love you..."
her old poetry
nobody could resist
following closely
only to repent
the visions madly wished

I do not blame her
call her to account
nor denigrate her
in words less craven
the portrait painted
feeds our brooding nature

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Eased into a situation...
Erased without explanation.
Quick to sing O but wrong notes flow-
Quartet, trio, duet. solo.
Upward citizens of the light?
Underground? Wed to endless night.
Another change is due, is due
As ever the struggle doth prove.
Led to believe the old gestalt:
Less than an angel by default.

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Nightingale piercing

Near nearer morning

Around the roses the buzzing

Among stars still twinkling

Time's jaws a lion's kiss-of-death

Tomorrow equal to yesterday

Unless dreamers cede to fog

Unless lovers would love less

Remember summer and winter

Replay their saintly favours

Etching into eternity

Each captive heart's sonnet

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Last chancer president makes sure to win before he plays

   like a foxhunter with his fox for the hunt in a cage.   

         How the same should a watcher make rare birds appear?

Why, clockwork gate of bravura movement

   (lent from the suite museum of nightmares) 

      determine the fate of him too long away?

Close on him as slow as the hou...

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Just tell me straight
why are your poems so hard, so abstract.

Well, I certainly can't say I don't have a past.

A hairbush on the table
the couple parting
specifics laid out sadly as cliches
the state of the sky in the evening
all your anecdotes more and more burdensome

No. I'm stuck with my style
and when my rocket-fuel runs low
I'll be writing about another side of the unive...

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I am an idolator and all my works are good

I have long fought shrieking cutting air

Wrest free at last these few words I have

Now to mould them for my gentler aims

I am an idolator and all my works are good

The ideal image holds children giggling

Waving their feet in a watercourse sparkling

Warmth of the lone Sun glow upon them

I am an idolator and all my works are good

...

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A plectrum in the dust I saw today
   a blast from the past it made me smile
      knowing so many wouldn't even know
         what it was it brought to mind the poem:

Kingdoms Without Letters

Unfamiliar yet frightful all
The shell-thin skulls just like mine.
An incomprehensible vortex of their movements

Resolves to nothing while I catch up on sleep.
I might speculate on thei...

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I present myself as prisoner 
all the while 
I present myself as lord

Sighing the crass song
"Dear Vanity, Your Uncertain Steps"
eyeing the Greek statuette
my straight borders, monoculture lawn

I have thought my garden a model
in good taste, now I cannot say
I have thought it 
a mazing absurd joke, but no.

O, Amazonia you are wild and infinite
I hear you rage from my shallow...

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A star already cold has sent you a poem

Poetry, if said often and loud enough,
has the substance of a rock

Come, make yourself comfortable
find one that suits, smooth and human-sized,
sit half-way up a mountain just for the view 

Trusty pen and paper wouldn't pretend
to capture a complete panorama
rest your mind- this gets easier

These lines now tell 
of people as you know and lo...

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mama lives in the past
she's been in her element
since the advent
of photography

papa looks to futures
for insurance purposes
parallel universes 
all well catered for

they fight as if for their lives
only to share all they have
bequeathing to you and I
all that is now dubious 

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A patch of dry powdery soil
perfectly square (it has been measured)
only the shiniest conkers
mark the boundary at two inch intervals.
It's a desert or a chinese garden or 
the ideal worksite for mini-diggers,
it's a project of my son and heir.
Only now do I read and write
and keep abreast of the news,
and speak to you on the phone
but let's keep it brief okay?
I'm also his assista...

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The scapegoat role intact
as high festivities begin
hard on the heels of a time
ringed by those who despised him
now to show no recourse to anger
small breasts exposed to enrage him
with pebbles to the head
the young will forever test him 

"I count on those penned in a bowl-shaped church
the congregation of the basin pooled 
and a simple word preached over- voila"

As grown from...

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What silhouette fills the archway  

heavy shadow of another life's war?

What giant against the sky dominating parent

who has found you out- where you are the authority- 

here in your own dream ? Look again. 

It is the green knight reaching to fulfill his quest.

Why you, and this night?

The night papillon muses on the wall

wishful the sky be filled with ...

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...returning your stare. She is

too small to speak, she is

dying. She- gone, ah, football!

And what's this? Going through 

your bins. How you hate it so

close to home; the cheek of it. 

Invalid old crone, dirty thing.

Ding dong. Jesus Christ. Now what 

do they want? You don't 

have to answer that...

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    This is good- we are in each other's dream:
quilling ribbons, pastel slivers 
like as moonlight, as a feather
strong as bronze or marble together.
It is good, a double helix in smoke.

    History sets a shipwreck on the reef
it's lesson torn away by howling winds.

    So early in the day without fail
hear the tortured creaking
rise to the present crisis.
This caricature depi...

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he goes as the crow flies
she in her own fashion

slow, slowly she approaches
the huddled herd lain for warmth 
so persuasive the weighty mass
she will decide when to abandon them

he sketches spires and hedges
she knows the edible mushrooms dell

he will see her before they meet
his hand in the fire by choice
in silent frost-crisp morn
who has the power cannot be said
frost-gr...

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That's me
swung on the climbing bars like
a hero from tales of long ago
lost or won the battles
more forgotten than remembered

Unconscionably fortunate am I-
I have a new history, the one I love
steers close as on a river and all 
the banks are green

Light mesmeric but reflects itself
dazzles and pleases where
illusion fails to cool the air
no attitude ungreens contours
lay down t...

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Leave the door open
for me to take what I like
okay
like a poem
and I'll not frame you
as the final scene
feel free to whisper my name
anytime
hold back the winds
let's keep this valley, its sirens, quiet
for after all we know well enough 
it's a storm in a teacup
sugar?
Thankyou kindly you wait so long
I know you have so much for me
for you I have a whole world 
under my ephe...

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The Truth-
I am an octopus
carried up and down in truth
an unborn child immersed
with no need to speak of
the truth

who has truth conjoined with proof?
they don't rhyme well except
for impatient men, for them
proof is of the past, there has been a test
now truths in the pocket
tumble safe as coins

look up to the blackboard
constellations to be named
plough, macaw, rhishi, which w...

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As foreseen the lion's jaw widens
and through it's moment of perfection
becomes a teapot losing its lid
in the nature of clouds to alter and collide
up there are examples to follow for the while
my small print checking weevil
becomes your firebrand cuckoo
faces slam into mountainsides
and palaces lost to the landslide 
leave mere quills from the goose
bountifully high white pillows
...

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The facts lay spread out
like a liner launched on film
the Englishman looked where
it all made sense, to him
the young lady he'd found, who'd found him,
found it all added up to her
time was made- as it should be,
allowing that they should learn

The englishman made himself a shed
his specialism he refined
young lady too specialised 
their common ground was never mind
and how they c...

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The crew read the heavens above as a chart 
and below the barely moving moonlit waves.
Some poets take up their pens to write.
Seasoned wood and strong ropes creak in the hush
and SPLASH- a young lad meets the ocean.
But why?

He believed the heavens to be more than a chart
and he proved himself the ocean is deep.
Afraid the bards had festered, he would only go
his own way.

Now I...

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Another sea-city has grown up
sand upon sand, what else
stirrings of the deep so loud
it is a wall and little else

of designs fantastic and outlandish
made to survive their day in the heart
here is the latest-

channels open to the sea,
whose crashes, sprays and roars
move closer

defence repaired and repaired again
embellishment imagined, as quickly
put in place

an orderly...

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