Look close, look far

too far?

(too far)

Cars come, cars go

tortured, metal boxes, smudged colours

on tattered tarmac.

Pneumatic drill sounds, distant

hammering, dry clatter

on summer paving.

A man, newspaper

folds and departs kiosk

shimmered in sun.

The calls from traders

I heard them, then

did not hear them

(refused to hear them).

Stepped inside a p...

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I reach and cut a round hole in a square piece of card

and hang it on my wall, for all of mine to see

name it 'despair', that part of me, that

proceeds to extinguish all that touch,

frightens insects from the white

surface, scratched cold

barren, bereft.

But as, by whim

my friends they visit, I'm

found laughing at the trinket, how

and why this reason flew and set...

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I brush stones off cheap earthworks

marred in wretched waning light

in bars of concrete, platforms drift

and I climb, skirt a boundary.

True, they drift, and I a drifter

for four days now, take heart

(what little I can) from the sun

that broke the boats through glare.

Now shade, the evergreen snaps

borders straight rule I descry

fringing the house on the hil...

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Your projection leaves much to be desired

A preacher on a sphere barren, brown

Leaves fall at your feet, then washed away

By the biting tide, of dull and grey.

And since your last promotion you have

Been slow to react, blank, negative

The whites of your eyes never clearer

All ear for problem lost in the wash.

That I guess is the nature of the rise

The clear law...

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Poised on the plate the knife makes eight
The ceramic truth, the blackened rough grate
Downward-cast glance fingers fumble for silver
As the letters on the counter silently quiver.

Candles I lit, true I would have held them
But filaments waxen bleed through my slow turn
Crouching, I maintain the blank staring contest
With my reflection, the face of no conquest.

The crockery scurries fr...

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At peace
At last
At war
Stuck fast

Tied down
Cut loose
Turned up
Excused

Slept well
Kept tense
Clear words
No sense

I was once
So serene
Now this needle
Wavering

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You made yourself famous

And then what did you do?

You grabbed a lead hammer with both hands

Smote the thing with all your might

Saw the pillar crumble to dust, then

Shrunk from the strobe searchlight

Danced with the lowlifes

That flanked the waste ponds

Made life

Took life

Then revelled in all your failures

Trailing ragged, bleeding

Across the frozen hinterland...

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I hesitate before dipping

the rough edge, ripped shard;

ink screwed on, blue clasp,

scratches from the mind's eye;

call you up, embrace, descry

a vision from beyond my grasp, as

time and journeys flung us wide.

I listen for the creepers' hum,

the stirring, pollen still beside

the sparrows in the tangled verge.

From beyond rock walls, broken, cracked,

earth and...

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'No museum here' you said.

So I guess you had to make do

with a rusting emblem of the dead

time's plaything, your due;

a line from a prayer-book

a dusting of gold;

shattering a morning

of a bleak, mindless wanderer.

'Leave me the key' I said

and took the road to roam

gathering the crafts in arms

burying your trust at home;

a spring back in my step

a thou...

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I walked down a solemn, slow-trodden road

And breathed in the dust of fragments

That littered the beaten way

Memories leapt to greet me, old friends.

The warmth, the red flush on pale skin

The familiar motions and thoughts...

Submerging in the chill Winter light

Bathing in the cold Autumn rains

Swimming in the warm Summer lakes

Waiting for the first new day of Sprin...

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