Nothing should have been finer

Then Alcolu, South Carolina,

In the springtime.

People, segregated by rail tracks

White, on the west side, east side, black. 

All too poor to spare a dime.

George was raised to respect,

His church taught what was correct,

In life, he deserved so much more.

But he was let down badly,

By white justice, sadly,

Contradictory evidence...

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A century-old reel of film unwound,

In darkened light she stands, no sound,

My heart, captured in a thirty-five-mil frame,

This misplaced romance has only time to blame.

Tragically, my desire resides in a land mislaid,

When black and white movies were all the rage.

Buster Keaton smashed deftly through every screen

This bobbed-haired goddess, unheard, but seen.

Sil...

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Oh, how I despise this yellowed majesty,

This new dawn, this new day, this travesty.

Why must nighttime take its leave?

Why should our one night of passion grieve?

Oh, how I despise the unbrightened moon,

This new dawn, this new day, had arrived too soon.

Why couldn’t the now vanished face above? 

Continually shine down upon us and love?

Oh, how I despise tho...

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To effect an alteration,

To tweak or redefine,

To vary by transformation,

Or an adjustment by design.

To modify on reflection,

Adapting a future path,

Embracing the unsuspecting,

Reshaping the aftermath.

Change is like a book chapter's end,

Realise that it's time to turn another leaf,

Move away from thoughts that others defend,

Regard their stubbornness a...

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The wind, blowing from a cruel westerly,

mild breeze to full-blown misery

We had the sun once: a light in the world 

we’ve lost sight of you, once the tempest blew.

Unable to catch our life given breath

This storm takes hope to its grave in death

We had the sun once: a light in the world 

that’s now estranged once the tide had changed, 

In a concerted effort of wi...

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Newborn,

Body warm,

Slow moving,

Mother soothing,

Crawling, not walking

Calling, not talking,

First realisation of his reflection,

Mirrored face, mirroring self affection,

Universal imagination

Onward, onward without hesitation, 

Time to knuckle down and study hard,

Give his future its due regard,

Find a wife and settle down,

See the world and paint the town,

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Alice and Ted went early to bed,

Where Ted hoped that Alice and he

Could be satisfied, be gratified,

But Alice thought differently.

Alice once said that both she and Ted,

Were as happy as they could be,

But time flew by, that's the reason why,

Alice's love for Ted had fled.

Ted thought Alice, acted with malice,

Refusing his conjugal rights,

Her back was turn...

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There was a time when,

this world stood still,

when life had neither intent nor will.

When a cold snap became the age of ice,

when seas froze, not once, not twice.

When giant dinosaurs roamed the world,

and luscious leaves on giant ferns unfurled.

When meteors haphazardly crashed,

and Cretaceous life died out en masse.

When early man discovered fire,

warmed gently as ...

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Birth and death: covers to life's book

When reading we all wonder, where,

that cherished future’s disappeared.

Once baby's crib, now rocking chair

We thumb through those pages slowly,

skipping quickly past self-regret,

Flicking promptly through printed grief

That we're desperate to forget.

The contents page; our promises

made by one, to each, to others

...

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To sustain love,

make communication your key

understand that it's not just you

But you and me.

Conversations

Our two sides to one perspective.

Neither is more nor less valid

Both effective,

Respectfulness 

Shows our overriding kindness. 

Should we wander off course, let's let

love, remind us

Glib promises

overambitiously made

create uncalled...

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Dark schemes, meticulously planned,

Those who understood, could not understand

The anniversary of her birth returned

Any thought or concern for others spurned

Mediocrity took her by the hand

Those who understood, could not understand

Readying herself for life’s divorce

Yearning to travel a different course

Prescription tablets relished though bland

Those who un...

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Dark shadows surround

my days and my sleepless nights.

I desire to feel you near me

a willingness to hold you tight.

I long for your presence

harbouring me in my storm.

hoping your strength will yield relief

from life’s chill by offering warmth.

Recline close beside me

gaze into these tear-filled eyes.

Be inclined not to question

nor to ask for reasons ...

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Like driftwood on a deserted beach

Our love’s abandoned, far from reach

The past, engulfed by fires of liberties took
Reciting hollow words from half-read books

Fearlessly we had wandered love’s convoluted path
Arriving sooner than most, unaware we wouldn’t last
Through unclenched fingers, love slipped away
Togetherness uprooted, lost and gone astray

No consideration nor ...

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Eventually, memory of everything fades.

Footprints in the sand lost to intertidal waves,

What was once visually sharp has now ebbed away

The colours of daylight bled into nightly grey.

All that we once held, and all we once knew,

Wanes, forever disappearing from view.

ever-fading, just like yesterday's dreams

Vanished subconscious, no more to scheme.

In the fallin...

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To our young men, war is an opportunity

for posturing youthful swagger.

With arrogance and recklessness

head first or by cloak and dagger.

Half-cocked, without a sensible thought.

No consideration for what’s ahead.

Forward. Running into eternity. 

Future decided, they’re already dead.

To our old men, war is considered a just cause,

detached by age from rea...

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Prologue

The balladeer sings his songs, sweetly sung.

Balconeyed, she listens from high above.

Juliet: Verona's otherwise rose,

Though star-crossed, she must obey courtly love.

Earlier, love’s soft light broke from the east, 

like brisk fireflies on a scented breeze.

His lyrics besieged virtuous walls. She. 

surrendered subsequently, with ease.

Romeo

Fair la...

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Form a queue boys, form a queue,

Stand still in line boys, stand still in line,

It's coming to you boys, it's coming to you,

One at a time.

Your country needs you boys, your country needs you,

To fight in their wars boys, to fight in their wars,

For the right and the true boys, the right and the true,

You’ll likely die for this cause.

So march with the band b...

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She spoke soft ‘’Are you ok?’’

‘’Not quite yourself today?’’

‘’ Is there anything more to do?’’

‘’To help bring yourself back to you’’

I’m not feeling so good right now

You are aware of why, and how

you’ve taken all I had, it’s gone.

One has lost, the other has won

Before: Considered our unhappy time 

love was then not a pleasure, more a mime

Unappreciated, ...

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Her song, sung in a sing-song pitch

Musically hemmed with a Giocoso stitch

Chords played Staccato in different keys

Rapid Toccata, stylistically free  

As a young boy, she was my first violin

The major key to performing life as it begins

Dancing carefree, rhythmically to her beat

Tunes of the sixties, nostalgically on repeat

The unison of love, my Mother's embrace

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Welcome, beautiful viewers,

This year's celebratory reason

The annuality of time 

the gloriousness of the season

Let's relive those quivered moments  

Holding ourselves, no longer to linger,

Harsh winds herald from the north.

the onset of subzero Miss Winter

Frost, paints hung abandoned webs

Snow glistens upon your bluing nose

freshness of the air, patterns,

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The ancient art of conversation lays frost-covered, almost dead

No one's listening anymore to what the other person said

Defiantly devaluing the nuances of syllables heard

Randomly clipping, unquestionably, necessary words

Discussions typically hurried—no mutual listening.

Group communication resembles children's Chinese whispering

How frequently have you heard someone ...

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He went down fighting,

Tasmanian Devil still sighting,

His Oerlikon gun skyward blazing,

All hell in hell-raising.

HMAS Armidale evasive,

Bridge captain persuasive,

Manoeuvring this way, then that,

Avoiding the Japanese air attack.

He went down fighting,

Dropped bombs dynamiting,

The ocean whipped in fury,

Teddy, keen, but weary.

HMAS Armidal...

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Pitter-pattering, soft translucence,

An unseasonal summer rain,

Refuged 'neath low-slung boughs

In a tree-lined Cornish lane,

Fine mist-splattered spectacles

impairs sight with every spurt

Drip, drip, drip down the collar

Wetting this warming undershirt

Cascading from the leafed canopy

Tramping slowly to the ground

Flickering rainbows glisten

As diamonds ...

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Oceans, believe me, will never run dry,

Whilst flooded tears fall from my saddened eyes.

I'm unloved, now you are gone.

Neither can I comprehend, nor explain,

The reason for storms or the driving rain.

Or figure, why you are gone.

Or why the frosted field, now whitened cold,

Is abandoned as my heart, frightened, old.

Lonely, lost, now you are gone.

The Art...

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Deep down, this old heart sings a love-lost song,

A dirge, slow sung, how did our love go wrong,

Gently tuned, with a melancholic verse,

Strange how sensualness, falls back accursed.

First verse is about how two lovebirds met,

Umbrella shared, not willing to get wet,

Laughing as they watched others in the rain,

Strange how that first spark, ignited a flame.

Second...

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I have no faith in faith

that gives little hope to the already hopeless,

Nor am I fascinated by fanaticism

or the intolerance shown by their obsessiveness.

No trust in grey suits with greyer faces,

stumbling forward from fumble to bumble,

elected despite the world-weary apathy.

Democracy grumbles, ultimately crumbles.

I applaud the science of science.

Others bl...

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His sensual ruggedness, closer

Her rouged cheeks, surrender

head softly caressed, cradled by

masculine fingers, though slender

Hold that puckered pose

Crimson lips tender

Anticipating gentleness

She’s a love defender

Hand-picked blooms

Threaded through reddened locks

Petals stroke barefooted soles 

Verbena, Primrose, and Phlox.

Robed in gilded weave

Poli...

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If my tomorrow should start without you

I'd shed a million tears and watch them fall

I'd find the grief unbearable

Unsure if I could cope at all

If my tomorrow should start without you

The inner pain I'd feel would be immense

You were my reason for living

My purpose and my present tense

If my tomorrow should start without you

I'm uncertain of just what I should...

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Leaving home, my new tomorrow 

Leaving home, life without sorrow

Leaving home, for somewhere better, for sure

Leaving home, I’ve escaped his gaze

Leaving home, from mis-fathered days

Leaving home, pleasingly, slamming the door

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North Carolinian slave

Her beloved mother. Slave.

Her rejected father. Their owner,

A plantation master who disowned her.

An exceptional level of intelligence shown, 

A yearning passion for learning grown.

Whilst outside, the barbarity of the Civil War brought 

not only bloodshed but, the emancipation sought. 

For Anna, a God-sent opportunity

An escape from thi...

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Perfect triumvirate. You, me, our love,

But passion soon died without majesty,

Muse, as I sit north of the Rubicon,

Recollecting Julius's strategy

Let us cross to a point of no return

Where former foolishnesses lay unmasked,

Let the die be cast, let those thrown die, lie,

Show the falsehoods that peppered our past

Spitefully conniving, you planned and schemed

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A new century of enlightenment beckoned

The age of women’s suffrage had begun,

A young girl born in downtown New York,

Unaware of the greatness soon to be won

Eight kicks, one stroke, the eight-beat crawl.

Propelled like a torpedo down the lane

World and national records blown from the water

Seven in one afternoon. This was her domain.

Paris, nineteen twenty-four,...

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Audibly warmed, such mellifluous tones

a subtle mix of soft sexual moans

Transported in song to different worlds

Moments of pleasure in her every word

Visually Wowed, an alluring sight.

Provocative, dreamers Dreaming delight

The man with child's eyes since seventy-eight

Sweet vision. Aroused my pupils dilate.

Forty-six years on, I'm listening, still

A...

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The bigotry of racial prejudice,

Multi-racialistic injustice.

Views distorted by xenophobia,

And an irrational paranoia.

Islamophobic or Negrophobic,

Antisemitic or Pantuetonic,

An ethnocentric attitude belongs

In landfill sites with all the other wrongs

Discrimination and segregation,

Dehumanising demonisation

Unwarranted tribal castigation

Racists shoul...

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Silently, I walk, wringing anxious hands,

Crossing acres of once familiar land.

Fast-flowing memories of what was then,

that'll forever stay as my former when.

Mainly unminded though unforgotten,

Desires driven that were once begotten.

An age of optimism and attainment,

Where possible dreams feared not containment.

My future holds with little certainty,

My pres...

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Reminiscing nostalgically,

I ask. Have you pursued life ecstatically?

Have you chased it fully with determined tenacity?

Have you gained your life's well-spent validity?

Or, tragically and drastically

Have you succumbed to someone else's gravity?

Given in passively to their selfish vanity.

Their unending capacity for indulgent banality.

There’s always an unenviable possibil...

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You could never understand, not even in an eternity.

The subtle intrigue in this mystery

Our present, once lived, becomes history,

That had a splendour and a beauty

now lost, as you glanced sideways into periphery

I was caught in a spell of your bewitchery

Wishing I was your mainstay, not a mere auxiliary

Loving you hurts, it mimics a ruinous injury

You could never understa...

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It's impossible to catch the north wind that blows,

Or quick snatch the breeze from a lover's sigh.

It's inconceivable to pause rain as it falls,

turn the tide of tears that a lover cries.

It's hopeless to reverse the direction of time,

Realign the planet's path in the sky.

It's unthinkable to relive a love now past,

acknowledge our truth: Let sleeping dogs lie.

I...

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Did I hear the drone?

Or hear the air around it moan?

Did I see the photoflash?

Or how close the rotors almost clashed?

Did I view the guiding lasers?

Or the defender's stream of rapid tracers?

Did I feel the aerial explosion?

Or the small arms bullet’s detonation?

Did I feel the overwhelming heat?

As the missile landed in the adjoining street?

Did I suffer the m...

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Like rain on a summer’s afternoon,

A sexual climax that comes too soon,

The morning post that brings only bills,

Excluded from both parents' wills.

You're my disappointment. 

Like a hotel room with a brick-wall view,

A pint of beer with an inferior brew,

A firework that's a dampish squib,

A left-handed pen with a right-handed nib,

You're my disappointment. 

...

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As I watched our mutual world, I cried.

Bruised and buried deep inside,

this saddened heart of mine had died.

Realistically, was it your choice to decide?

the time when happiness would be denied.

Whilst I enjoyed the emerging ride,

you had plunged down the other side.

You told me once you were satisfied,

but now open-mouthed I’ve realised,

how much you’d fed me bare...

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Your world moves on greased rails, sleekly

Twitches and twerks hijack mine uniquely.

Orchestration of vulgar sounds and ticks,

life with Tourettes, this lousy box of tricks.

Dancing a rhythm that no one else can hear

This herky-jerky jackass body bucks severe

A mind, full of whirlwinds, where random thoughts collide,

Clinging on to this whirling dervish, what a ride

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She changed

love rearranged

No second thoughts

His approval no longer sought

She’d absconded

Love unbonded

No looking back

Or papering over the cracks

She’d stirred

Her love deferred

No hanging on

To conditions where love's gone wrong,

She realigned

Love reassigned

No longer they

Pledging self-success in her way.

She breathed

T...

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His love delighted her

Shirley Valentine would have been proud,

Intertwined, on sun-bleached sand.

Quietly tender, both breathing loud.                              

Unlike her suburban life

Every moment, utterly forgettable,

Together yet separate, final vows unfurled,

The sadness of marriage, entirely regrettable.

His love delighted her                           ...

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What does it feel like to be unloved?

Feelings hosted, taken for granted

What does it feel like to be ignored?

Inconsideration's planted

What does it feel like to be alone?

drift aimlessly through familiar crowds

What does it feel like to be unheard?

When everyone else is shouting loud.

What does it feel like when all hope's lost?

A future much bright...

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Before, a taught rope, you pulled on life's haul

Feet planted firm though you never stood tall

Mostly, enjoyed the seven deadly sins

though you're struggling now to gain any wins

The absent smile, from the faces of clowns

Our world straight upwards, whilst you're upside down

Lost within, though there is no maze around

One of life's bankrupts, currency unfound

Time...

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Within you lies a refuge,

Where wild vexations are tamed,

And consolation releases

those happy thoughts, now unchained,

A sanctuary from your chaos

Ocean's haven from life’s storm,

Moored securely port-side

Leeward safe and sheltered warm.

Anxiety takes a back seat

Worries find release.

No scrutiny from others

Your troubles ebb, then cease

This precious sel...

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You know,

that doesn't excite me anymore,

Making love,

it’s not unpleasant, though a bit of a chore.

Intimate thoughts

No longer whirl inside my head.

when you and I

lay close together, at night, in bed.

There’s no reason

for you to be so upset,

after all

We move on, hold no regrets,

We've been there,

done that, it was ok back when

we were young,

I...

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Deep within, a bounteous fountain springs.

That inwardly cleanses what self-doubt brings.

Be kind to yourself and to those close by.

Uncertainty drags us down in a sigh.

Stride courageously, break untrodden ground,

Urged on by the kindness of others, found.

Be undeterred when a fraught journey's long,

With inner confidence, step forward, strong.

Despite any blackn...

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Amongst emerald-coloured fields, where nature's dreams unfold,

Lush verdant hues paint vibrant tales, as yet untold. 

There, between the mystic realm of love and life, serene,

Landscape blankets woven, composed in shades of green.

Beneath canopies of majestic leafy boughs,

I lie silently alone and casually browse

an arborous ballet; mellow breezes reanimate the scene

Plié...

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