Imprisoned thoughts dribble down my face
while forming patterns damply drowning
like the long-awaited swollenness of
babyfaceless not so darling gentle
crowning from the queen of hearts

Ice-olated stalactites sung low
with unappreciated bluntful
breasts of blinkered glory on the edge of
trueless stories told by heartless mothers
frantic to absolve their blame

Seagulls ...

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When dragon footprints stride across the sun
intention's wallet — empty — opens wide.
I tried to count the virtues one by one;
such diligence could not be justified.
For when the emptiness of mouthing ploys
reveal their dull derisive jeering taunts
I feel the frosty cold dark counterpoise
to all entreaties (then the shortfall haunts).
But all such grim considerations pale
to i...

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Standing on the edge of an ocean shore
on the sand shimmer surface of the swell;
my arms thrown out wide to the water’s roar,
I listened for the tolling of the bell.
Strange screeching birds were circling overhead;
“Into the water, if you dare!” they cry.
It felt as if my life hung on a thread;
“What if it’s cold or too rough?”, I reply.
Then a wind like a hammer hit my back
a...

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"Were you looking in your rearview mirror
when the crash took place?"
"No, officer. In point of fact my weariness
from all the disappointments of the race
had deflected my attention
so the driver in the dark
took advantage of my state
and she sneaked up on me
from behind. Thus, I'm truly guilty
of whatever charges you can find".
 
"You should pay more attention, son,"
he...

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I stand before the Sun — she waits for me
with splendid orchid sighs upon the breeze.
I bow before the Moon — she cries to me
with orchestrated whys and mysteries.
Inevitable emblems of our tryst
are haunting my perception of the path
which stretches out before the lips I kissed
in vague galactic visions’ aftermath.
So then the Sun and Moon before my eyes
did blend their molte...

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Just one puff falls fruitly from my lips
and lighter atoms scatter —
not from any words I quip but through the fact
that to their pride what I say matters
(not in any helpful sense for I simply bend
their rigid little ears, unleash their inner fears,
send what tiny calm in them was left
into some frozen frayed forgettery).

It's all so plain predictable
you'll see it in thei...

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Each time I write I hear a voice opine:
"Take not one grain of salt from what you say,
nor cover it with saccharine or wine.
This is no time for bards to hide away."
The urgency which underscores that word
instils the verveful sinews of my verse —
to every highest mountain I am stirred;
all doubts of my ambitions are dispersed.
But yet the ruddy feathers of my quill
are quiver...

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[Dedicated to the memory of all the poems that
I thought of in the night which I didn't record]

if the brain is space infinity
and I owned an endless spaceship
then I could float
and thus rip free
that verse
which I dreamed
in my half-sleep’s
amnesiac sea

millions of words go down that black hole
etheric anodyne limbo
apparently
(devouring reams)
there’s s...

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Words are what I love above all other
components of creation’s rainbow rain.
Fulfilment beckons when I am smothered
beneath the stream of alphabetic skein.
For words can dance and sing and paint the sky;
they sculpt the night and heighten solar flares.
They influence cold minds to tears and sighs
and take the hardened-hearted unawares.
Yet, I say fulfilment only “beckons”,
for...

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I’ve got a little sieve
and it’s sitting on a shelf
in my mezzaninal mind
where it works its sieving ways
keeping fruitlessness at bay —
interference left behind

It’s an automatic sieve
so I never have to force
such a little sieve to work.
In fact the sieved-out parts
make it function with their hearts —
their sievedoutness well-deserved

My sieve sits on that shelf
...

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My ears prick up when I hear the phrase “The Land of the Free”;
it neatly rhymes inside my head with "raw hypocrisy”.
Now that’s a perfect lyric-line which needs to be hard spat
by cowboys who have long outgrown their huge ten-gallon hats.
To celebrate their “freedom” on the 4th day of July
is an insult to those mill-i-ons of Indians who died
by the violence of the white men who rif...

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“There comes a point when words have all been used
and nothing is the space that’s left to rhyme;
when even every thought is self-abuse” —
That’s what he pondered as he stood in line.
He wasn't waiting at the pearly gates
(though how he wished the game would reach an end);
he floundered at the point where truth conflates
with mortal coils which never comprehend.
“If only I could...

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[Dedicated to Mike Robinson, poet & philosopher]

"I am of the street", said he,
excusing what he thought to be
his uncouth background's
strain of dark vulgarity.
"Vulgar" was the term he
(over)used, esteeming his fine
self to be devoid of lakeside
views and tender music's
much-refining me-defining
ever-shining undersea.
 
Why does he believe the street
should always...

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Fearing untamed animals
on the dark and lonely moor;
seeing only wintry sunset
vastness through the door,
we take the lowest road,
the line of least resistance,
the better safe than sorrow way
to painful raw existence.

Frostbitten, frozen, we resist
those things which have to be,
while secretly (resentfully)
wishing we were free;
rebuffing those within whose
hearts ...

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A disembodied voice was in my ear
with layered tones I never did expect
to come from her. Its sound was full, sincere,
with laughter there and always star-bedecked.
To dance upon those suns in playful praise
produced in me a joy I hadn't known
for many moons of empty mournful days —
at last, my melancholy overthrown.
But while that fluted palette fills my mind
some other, lowe...

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If life was a Happiness Workshop
we'd all be waging inward war
with every little knock upon
the door of mistook opportunity.
For happy[ is a fleeting flash
of nothing]ness in children's
trashy fairy tales is an ever-after
dreamlycheating scam[bling
face to hide our pain behind]
 
Alarm bells ring with vibrancy
whenever voices say to me
"I only ever want to see
and hear...

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When frightened people run this broken world,
this broken world will not remove their fear;
for fear accumulates and, like a pearl,
in secret grows until it domineers.
When frightened people feign to be one's friends,
that friendship will not take away their dread;
as phobic apprehension never ends
but yeastifies like sour unleavened bread.
However big your axe-to-grind becomes,
...

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I never knew what turncoat meant
until I met you
                    r alterego
                    other half
posing proudly like
   a stained old scarf
draped around my
   stranded neckline
             bent
        out of shape by
                 treacherous plotlines
your face (like your coat)
a looming warcrime

That ability to turn yourself
with gusto into s...

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Does familiarity breed contempt?
Comparatively so, I have to fear.
Comme d'habitude will crumble dream cement
and with a film of blindness it will smear
fool's eyes. How easily we lose our joy
at seeing something close before our face;
our sense of wonder it will soon destroy
and sink surprise's seedlings without trace.
Look in the tree! "It's only a sparrow",
intoned a weary ...

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When within you my inner landscape bursts
I am both giving all of me to you
and lavishly loving the way you birth
me in reverse (your cardinal virtue).
All of you. All of me. Floating and free
as through your labyrinthine temple doors
a fleshly part of me pampers your needs
while all my hearting hugeness heaves and soars.
And yet I hardly have your full depths plumbed:
Even th...

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The other day you asked me what I meant
when (distinctly feeling somewhat spent)
I said that we could never be as one
because — to put it bluntly —
you have some thing running through your soul
right across the longtitude and latitude
(the breadth of our derisory domain)
which flies into the fleeting fading face of me:
your Attitude, to coin its proper name
 
Trying to expla...

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Loneliness increases exponentially
according to the vastness of the crowd
which is surrounding me.
A cast of thousands
sends me underground
while being with a carefully chosen few
still means that I just graciously withdrew
to lick my wounds
(which were extensive
notwithstanding
it may seem like nought to you
but my threshold for withstanding
seepage not appropriate to
...

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squeeeeeeezing my way
down this slimy tube no
doubt about it it needs
no lube happening so
fast voices I hear two
of them I’ve heard
before the rest I
do not know I
figured that
the way to
be was
just go
with
the

f
e
a
r
f
u
l

f
l
o
w

a
n
d

t
h
e
n

errrrrrgggghhh

I’M OUT!
and what a change I feel
so cold it ...

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Snow
in May!
In the fullness of the day!
I could forgive
a violent vigorous squall
or a wind which bent all
the slowly budding trees;
but a frostful freeze
in May?

I could have sworn
that her skin
had been sufficiently
global-warmed
to avoid a glaciated
misappropriated
fall of snow,
after April’s
intermittent flow
of soothing showers.
But sleety spontane...

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You can lead a steed to water
but you cannot make it drink —
a testament to nonconformist beasts!
How strange it is that
(horses notwithstanding)
you can steer a human being
to the hugest pile of bullshit
and
regardless of the stench
the whole decaying heap
whatever the expense
will be by her devoured
 
[Obiter Dictum:
For those with sensibilities
to sexism in word...

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There’s something about April -
  the way she wears her clothes:
    loosely fit. One button more
      and September is exposed.
        The veil removed, her flesh reveals
          December’s naked trees;
             Springtime lurks behind the bark
               and drags me to my knees.
 
               I kneel upon her dewy cloak
            And make her moss my bed;
...

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Have you ever felt the icecold
gales of aloneness?

I do not mean
lone lee ness
which is something altogether
different –
simperingly subjective
and even desirable
(artistically considered).

I do not mean
dejected
forsaken, forlorn,
deserted or desolate,
neglected or torn;
for those words are shallow
compared to "alone".

I mean aloneness –
some subterra...

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Do it how it's always been done!
(that is, if you want to get along).
Never rock that stationary boat!
(that is, if you want to stay afloat).
 
[Stage direction: Pause…
 while we wait for the strains
 of a grovelling applause]
 
Fuck the rules, I say.
They aren't really rules anyway.
Some fossilised turds
carve their ossified words
into pseudo-granite structures
whic...

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the Point which one can reach
when there is little left for which to live
is like a repulsive magnet
pulling you upanddown
in the costume of a clown
while policemen narrow their dragnet
It is a mindless moth and a candle
a superglued door handle
like heavily salted apple pie
the cigarette pack which says you'll die
like throwing up and making love
at the same time
as you...

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