Bruv, you know that thing, that thing we were talking about

when we went out for drinks and we almost passed out?

Bruv, you know that thing, that thing, the other week in the pub

we were chatting about when we were out

on the lash and I was up for a snout?

Looking back, I regret it, like what must you think?

This thing that I told once I’d had a drink?

You know ...

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We are cut  

from the same cloth

Our poetry, our words 

are mapping pins

The inner rip

The visceral tear

The internal cut 

Fist rage embodied 

in every silent tiny prick 

of the mapping pin 

Your pins,

in their cadence, their sound,

Gravity loss in my pins

Damn it! You’re clever

you keep my feet still on the ground

Your pins map the ...

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I’m going about my day

NEWSFLASH!

Unexpectedly

like a bolt out of the blue

my body interrupts me

46 years of chronic pain sciatica

has taught me the disruptive nature

of the body’s physicality

Visceral newsflashes

Corporeal shoots of pain

Physiotherapy and Amitriptyline only temporarily numbs

My body heckles me

Poetic, lyrical, unexpected, transformative interru...

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Following my feature set,

sharing poems about losing Mum,

the next artist started his

shouting something rather dumb

‘BIG UP ALL THE DEAD MUMS!

My Mum died years before your Mum, Lee.

And I was much younger than you

when my Mum died. So, I WIN!'

This woman in the audience then shouted back,

‘IT'S NOT A COMPETITION!

NOT A BATTLE OF THE MOURNERS’

I would no...

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HOW TO LINE MANAGE A NARCISSIST 

I used to work with Blowers-Browne
who gave everyone dirty frown
Though I line managed Blowers-Browne,
he thought it HE wearing the crown
A narcissist was Blowers-Browne
who liked to put everyone down 
He had this voice did Blowers-Browne,
everything else out it would drown. 

In Chelsea, claimed lived Blowers-Browne,
but bet he lived in Canning Town 
...

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Discover the same other

whilst under the cover

Creeping seeping peeping

covert operations

my teenage fascinations

awkward altercations

with non queer populations

Sensations that taught me

if ever they caught me

side cautiously er

deliberately blur words that infer derogatory slur

I got very clever,

very clever at seeing without being seen

...

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I’ve lost my body

Where is my body?

Has anyone seen my body?

Mum, I

miss you.

Ever since

losing you,

I’ve lost

myself too.

Life events

you prepare

yourself for

play themselves

out in

front of

me. I’m

a spectator

in my

own body.

The audience

in the

protagonist’s skin.

Like I

am watching

my life

...

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DAD BOD

Link to poetry film online 

https://filmfreeway.com/DADBOD2024

I spy, my eye

Summer day in July

Lee go lido

Know just where me eye go

Hairy chest bloke

over female breaststroke

Cute lad, sad sod

and oh my god his dad bod!

I spy, man boobs

Blimey, look at his moobs

Dad Bod swagger   

Hardly Moves Like Jagger

Quick flash, bum crack

makes ...

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Who’s sat there on that bar stool

with half a cider jar full?

Big Head Ben - dirty rascal

of Elephant and Castle

He’s never been to charm school

A handful and an armful

Up your Dover, partial

Like Dad, an army marshall,

the apple don’t fall far fall

At night as shooting star fall,

there underneath the tarpaul

in Ben’s Capri, his car full

of men eating ...

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Image: Me aged 18 at Maidstone College of Art in 1996

LOOK AT YOURSELF! 

‘PAINT! PAINT! No, you ain’t!’

said Mike Addison, my Graphics tutor

to me at Maidstone Art College in ‘96

‘PAINT! PAINT! No, you ain’t a graphic designer!

LOOK AT YOURSELF! You’re covered in paint!’

Hands in paint! Mate’s complaint

I can’t stop painting hands

The words ’BLOODY HANDS’

gr...

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(Image: Me at Maidstone Art College in 1996, aged 18)

‘PAINT! PAINT! No, you ain’t!’

said Mike Addison, my Graphics tutor

to me at Maidstone Art College in ‘96

‘PAINT! PAINT! No, you ain’t a graphic designer!

LOOK AT YOURSELF! You’re covered in paint!’

Hands in paint! Mate’s complaint

I can’t stop painting hands

The words ’BLOODY HANDS’

graffitied in black pain...

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Word famous landmarks. Wonders of the World

Golden Triangle, California road trip, 1993

Me, twink. R.E.M mix tape on my Sony Walkman.

One of the things I remember most, what I still carry as a souvenir,

is being winked at by guys sitting outside a bar in West Hollywood

as I walked past them sipping cocktails

If I had only had the confidence back then and known my true sexual...

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I spy, my eye. Summer day in July

Lee go lido. Know just where me eye go

Hairy chest bloke over female breaststroke

Cute dad, sad sod but oh my god his dad bod!

I spy, my eye. Swimming pool in July

Fee, fum, fi, fo, get me bum off lilo

Dad bod, back stroke, butterfly or front crawl

Towel fall, all pool sees daddy fully frontal!

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He gets home

and locks the front door

Confronted by a sound

so deafening, so loud

Its noise goes in one ear

and out the other

A hissing sound with a frequency

as devastating as the fear

 of being eaten alive

by white noise

He sits there and imagines

she is in the other room

Even though they often spent evenings

in separate rooms,

they were together...

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Keep on the bics

Keep off the box

Keep on the kicks

Keep off the cocks

Keep on the dicks

Keep off the dox

Keep on the fix

Keep off the fox

Keep on the hicks

Keep off the hox

Keep on the icks

Keep off the ox

Keep on the jix

Keep off the jocks

Keep on the licks

Keep off the locks

Keep on the nicks

Keep off the knocks

Keep on the pics

Keep off ...

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Cut off your pee

Cut off your piss

Cut off your bee

Cut off your biss

Cut off your sea

Cut off your sis

Cut off your dee

Cut off your diss

Cut off your fee

Cut off your fist

Cut off your gee

Cut off your gist

Cut off your eye

Cut off your iss

Cut off your key

Cut off your kiss

Cut off your Lee

Cut off your list

Cut off your me

Cut ...

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Boys’ changing room, Dan hid my towel

School bully boy, he not my pal

So, I nicked his, nicked it somehow

He lucky boy, so well endow

The size of it made me go, ‘WOW!’

I knew right then what I’m still now

I’m into boy, not into gal.

I fancied Dave off Emmerdale

Made straight things gay. State not allow

gay pics back then, that Tory cow

Thatcher threw men lik...

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Teenager in Nineties Britain, always had in my hand

a pencil to make drawings, to help me understand,  

the world I was born into, which felt like foreign land,

my homosexuality was not what they had planned

Me drawing in a straight world, but mine was gay instead,

I made drawings in secret, hid them under my bed

I drew the world I longed for, imagined in my head,

I wishe...

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** Italics means Polari slang – some translations like ‘nosh’ into English (not ‘food’ in Polari) are too rude to print ** 

State school in ‘90’s Britain, near posh boy’s private school

From working class background, those posh boys were so cruel

Laughed at Dad’s Ford Cortina, my Iower class accent

For them a double no-no - being common, being bent

They shouted through the s...

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Losses

are also traumas

Embed themselves

in our bodies

May be surprising or shocking

after several years

That you're still living it

almost as if it's the same day

Immediate kind of rawness

when something first happens

Like the top layers of your skin

have come off

Ebbs and flows, not linear

Comes and goes

in waves.

Can't always know

whe...

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Memory Scents

I used to buy Mum flowers

Put them in a vase

Their petals fell where Mum

looked out the living room window

Their scent filled the room.

Dad now buys Mum flowers

Puts them in a vase

Their petals fall where Mum

is now buried.

I urged Dad not to buy plastic flowers

because the scent of real flowers

fills me with memories of Mum

I be...

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In for a penny, in for a pound

In for a benny, in for a round

In for a hurry, in for a half

In for a murray, in for a laugh

In for a penny, in for a poke

In for a jack, in for a joke

In for a smack, in for a smoke

In for a sack, in for a soak

In for a penny, in for a pop

In for a tip, in for a top

In for a blip, in for a bop

In for a slip, in for a slop

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Handkerchief on his behind, has this gay guy called Frankie 

Know what’s on his mind, just from the colour of his hanky 

Red means only hands, he wants just winky wanky

Shower, if it’s green, must clean your pinky panky

Black, the flip of that, he likes it minky manky 

Blue hanky, his behind, has our guy called Frankie 

He’s feeling so inclined, up for some hanky panky 

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Mum, I

miss you.

Ever since

losing you,

I’ve lost

myself too.

Life events

you prepare

yourself for

play themselves

out in

front of

me. I’m

a spectator

in my

own body.

The audience

in the

protagonist’s skin.

Like I

am watching

my life

and I’m

in every

scene but

my body

is elsewhere.

I , the

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‘Anne Campbell’s

birthday today,

June 4th' 

just now

on my

Facebook feed

popped up.

Yesterday was

my birthday,

June 3rd. .

Happy but

sad birthday.

First birthday

since Mum

popped off.

When I

blew out

my candles,

I wished

that Mum

had for

my birthday

popped round.

I’ll do

like I

often do

a...

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MR BRIGHTON BEAR ’24

I’m in the finals, guess what for?

Brighton Gay Bear ’24

Guess entry made selectors ‘Phwoar!’

But what dare ask, is there in store?

I’ll make those voters drop their jaw

when I get speedos out the drawer

Strip down to them on Brighton shore

And if I must, I’ll strip down more!

Yeah fancy week in Ecuador

If I win prize, oh what galor...

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SELF-COMBUSTING LIFT

(written in response to seeing sign displayed by lift in Vienna)

It’s best to give this lift short shrift

because it’s known for giving gift

of you inside it, in the midst

of fire!

FIRE!

Lift sets itself on fire!

When you saw sign, you look quite miffed

It’s too late mate to catch my drift

Best have a brandy, have it stiff

Yeah, fir...

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Sat in the sun and most awares

of cubs giving them quite the glares

On Brighton beach, in their deckchairs

sat Goldilocks and his three bears.

See cubs like us, like men with hairs

all over their bodies and everywheres

And boy they knew, they answered prayers

did these Brighton beach burly bears.

Hell yeah I’ll stare at Ben’s, Pierre’s

meat, potatoes, their pom...

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Take me on a journey with your

words.

Let your words  soar off the page like fire

birds.

Take me on a journey with your

verse.

Let your verses cast a spell or even 

curse.

Take me on a journey with your 

rhyme. 

Let your rhymes create new rhythms in space and 

time. 

Take me on a journey with your 

beat.

Let your beats turn up the volume, turn up the 

h...

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HOT MESS

You made

me feel

I had

to hide

everything about

myself when

I was 

much younger, 

whilst I

fancied the

hell out

of you

straight man.

Tonight, I

bumped into

you on

way to

queer poetry

night in

London Bridge.

That second,

I became

hot mess.

Pulled on

strings of

your backpack

to stop

you and

say...

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HOT MESS

You made

me feel

I had

to hide

everything about

myself when

I was 

much younger, 

whilst I

fancied the

hell out

of you

straight man.

Tonight, I

bumped into

you on

way to

queer poetry

night in

London Bridge.

That second,

I became

hot mess.

Pulled on

strings of

your backpack

to stop

you and

say...

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Try educate the ignorant straight,

doubt anybody could.

Doubt Jack the lad does contemplate

and why he ever should

learn all about queer history

and those misunderstood.

History shows ‘gay’ beyond Pride day

and sex up Hampstead Wood.

If you think true, Jack, your IQ

is size of your manhood

when you told me, sure as can be,

‘You gays have never had it so good!’....

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You know those

dreams where you

do the unthinkable,

where you stand

on your head,

do something unimaginable

because you know

you are dreaming?

It’s almost like

you are awake

when you’re asleep.

I love those

moments when something

totally unbelievable happens,

the penny drops

and you know

you are dreaming.

Knowing your dreaming,

as psychopatholo...

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Wearing a palimpsest 
of the past 
in the present.
Smells mark those 
we have lost,
but made alive
again through the 
power of scent. 

I’ve been wearing 
perfume left behind.
Calvin Klein’s ‘Contradiction’.
Its label reads
‘unisex’, I would 
wear it anyway.
Its scent helps
heal my pain. 
Just one spray, 
immerses me in  
olfactory sensations that 
bring Mum alive 
in the pres...

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Link to poetry film https://filmfreeway.com/QUEERINGTHELANDSCAPE

Bluebells stuck in-
between toes of 
gay man laying 
alone in woods.
Queering the landscape 
with every breath
as leaves fall. 
Feeling an affinity
with changing landscape,
the liminal lure 
of woodland wonderlands 
that appear unexpectedly
in suburban sprawl
where green hues 
paint their palette 
over concrete gr...

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Go in the loo, do number two

Won’t flush away, poo in the loo

You wait a day, reflush the loo,

can’t see the poo, shout a big ‘Phew!’

Look back in loo, still in the loo

Somehow it grew, eyes times two

Poo in the loo, looking at you

Face turns blue. What can you do?

To wit, to woo, you say to poo,

‘Fancy a brew? Often come here do you?’
Not getting through, ...

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Bored in Cafe Nero 
Music was so damn drearo
Male candy, nada, zero 
But what pricked up my earo
My eyes then towards veero
Beard razored Richard Gereo
Short hair, had fight with shearo 
Beard sat beneath a Miro
with book by Gerrmaine Greero
Japan man named Akiro
Served salad cav’lo nero
Then two lads they appearo 
I knew they gay, both queero 
Kissing whilst here in Nero  
Thought h...

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‘If you must’, 
us teachers told,
‘do it appropriately’.
You from Japan.
English language lessons.
Sitting shy at 
back of class.
Gentle Japanese man.
Summer-intensive class,
you bought calm.
Learning English to 
study Violin at
Royal College London.
Moment seeing you 
smile at my 
lucky dragon shirt.
Blue cotton shirt
with three dragons.
Number three is
my lucky number.
I wore...

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GREEN

First date.

Instant spark.

Called you

obscenity as

term endearment.

‘Don’t shag,

first date’,

you said.

You let

that kiss

turn snog

linger linger

longer than

any shag

I’d had.

Invite you

to my

shows. You

come. I

act dumb

around you.

Like you

just some

bloke I

know. All

I wanted

was you.

Everybody el...

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‘A right piece of work’, so the story goes

that’s what Mum said or the truth she chose

about Mrs Jeffreys of Tunbridge Wells 

Mum’s great aunty, her Aunty Rose

Despite her rather dowdy clothes

and crooked teeth and her wonky nose

My great great aunty, Aunty Rose

looked rather sweet in old photos

Like parents, both tight so and so’s

My great great aunty, A...

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Don’t lock yourself!

Don’t lock yourself!

Don’t lock yourself!

Don’t lock yourself!

The lock is broken!

Don’t mock yourself!

Don’t knock yourself!

Shake up yourself!

Wake up yourself!

Wake the unwoken!

Don’t lock yourself!

Unblock yourself!

Unlock yourself

and shock yourself!

Speak,be outspoken!

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JEREMY HUNT

MY DATE IS OUT THE FRONT

MY DATE IS OUT THE FRONT

I’M GONNA TAKE A PUNT

I’M GONNA TAKE A PUNT

I’M GONNA TAKE A PUNT

I’M GONNA TAKE A PUNT

CALL HIM RIGHT JEREMY HUNT

CALL HIM RIGHT JEREMY HUNT

CALLED HIM A JEREMY HUNT

CALLED HIM A JEREMY HUNT

WAS OUR DATE UP THE SHUNT?

WAS OUR DATE UP THE SHUNT?

WAS OUR DATE UP THE SHUNT?

WAS...

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BEAST

There’s a beast in me, it’s lurking

It don’t make any sense

He comes out when I least expect it

He’s watching through the fence

The beast brings out this side of me

that likes to cause offence

I tried to beat him out of me

but the beast is too intense

There’s a beast in me, he’s lurking

His beat is so immense

Tried hard to make amens with him

but can...

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For the unreciprocated,

the obsessive,

the infatuated,

and the envious,

a late night lament for the reckless homosexual.

Only in the calm of the night

and the quiet of an alone bed

at midnight, can I write this

only now, twenty years on.

Only under flickering screen

in the cold light of night, with memories for company,

now I see it, plain as day.

...

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Sunflowers perfume, eau de toilette

Mum’s favourite by Elizabeth Arden

When I catch its scent, the memory I get

is embarrassment in my mate’s garden

In the Eighties, we both lived in rural Kent,

just outside the village of Marden

I once caught him gardening in the nude,

my good mate Gary Barden

Little seeds in me had been sewn by he

I said ‘Ooh, I beg your pardon’

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WINSTON CHURCHILL’S  PROSTATE

Mum worked as a legal secretary and known throughout the land

for her impressive skills  in the art of SHWPM

That’s the rate of words per minute you can write shorthand 

As a child I’d find Mum’s notes around the home wrote in way I could not understand 

All squiggles and doodles and funny letters weirdly written full stops and ampersand 

S...

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Sun in my eyes 

Warmth on my face 

It’s a surprisingly warm day for March

I’m on the beach at Clacton 

Mum is on a cruise around the Med with Aunty Jan

They are on the top deck 

sipping Malibu and coke 

Topping up their tan 

Sun in their eyes 

That’s what I tell myself

Everytime I get the sun in my eyes

I think of Mum

From that photo of her

before s...

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https://youtu.be/moEx8wdf80Q

It’s early Summer 

Dad is out the back again

Gardening in between cricket from the Ashes

If it’s not football, it’s the cricket

He’s digging a hole to plant a bush

Not digging where squirrels stash their Winter food

It’s now mid Winter 

Dad is out the back again 

Squirrels feast on nuts and berries  

He’s digging a hole to bury ashes 

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https://youtu.be/RBtG8fBmjrI

If you can’t find what you’re looking for

If you can’t find what you’re looking for

If you can’t find what you’re looking for

Why don’t you look in the fridge?

If you can’t find the cheese that you’re looking for

If you can’t find the keys that you’re looking for

Or the birds and the bees that you’re looking for

Listen please, look in ...

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Oh God, I hate these station stairs

Anticipate my mind despairs

Commuters looking everywheres

Like I’m the weight of fifty bears

Go down with mates in twos and pairs

Push past the mums with their pushchairs

Or overtake me if you dares

Exaggerate but so unfairs

They escalate all kind of glares

Downstairs I go and want to swears

Tip toe and slow but still what flare...

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