The days that I have been fighting for so long

Have finally come to a halt

A hot baited breathing breath beats round my neck

Made up of heavy wheezing pauses

And a middle c irritating cough

Unwieldy and often interrupting my thoughts

So, I sit with contemplation on my chest

A coffee in my hand as black as tar

And a breeze around my ears

A long-ago burnt-out lipstick kis...

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Every time you speak another

Pocket full of secrets spills out over others

And they are left there on their own clutching these secrets

Like they are holding on to jelly that may slip away

Falling into somebody else’s lap

And the stain that was contained has

Been passed on one to another

Touching all and any without restraint

And the secret that had no title

Has beco...

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I am standing on this corner

With two coffees hoping she will turn up

The girl I finally asked out

The one I finally managed to speak to

Say hi do you fancy grabbing a coffee sometime

I am wondering whether she will Still

Be the same girl as yesterday

The one with spring in her eyes

And summer in her hair

Will she notice the stains on my coat

And the stutter on my lip...

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And now another Christmas is over

And glad tidings are hidden amongst

Tinsel and mirrors

The smoke and choke of dust filled lives

Falling away into the in between days

Of hangovers too much pudding and turkey

Soon to be thrust into layers

Of left over mountains of mince pies and cheese

Whilst in other parts of the world

Little birds cry out for warmth and food

The cl...

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So, I said I am with child and it’s hard to move

And he says no way

And I said yeah way

And he said yeah, I know

And I said how do you know

And he said I just do, but we have to go

And I said go where?

And he said I’m not really sure,

But it’s all getting kind of heavy out there

So, I said I’m the one that’s really heavy

With child and I have to ride a donkey?

A...

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He sits at the old desk

The blighted strife of words stuck

In between then and now

An empty ash tray kept for old time’s sake

A typewriter with a half- eaten sheet of paper wedged

The re-arranged desk tidied re-arranged again for the seventeenth time

An empty pad and pen lay supine to one side

A cough that still nags

The racking hack of many years of abuse

The reminder ...

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Blue dress high heels and pursed lips

Stand underneath the tree

Watching waiting ever vigilant waiting for him to arrive

She straightens her hair for the fifteenth time

Checks her phone

The hours’ worth of make up on her face

That begins to melt

The promise she wants to keep

That simply can’t wait

She begins to question was this a good idea

But Wednesday was their day

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It’s Sunday and he stands underneath the tree

The cloud dark and smooth

But she is not there

He looks like a long- lost puppy

Another girl of the night passes by

She’s had a beating she says

Ignoring the blanket shrouded drizzle

By bus and tram he is at her bedside

Her bruised and battered swollen face knocked

From one world into another

A bunch of soggy flowers lay...

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Two souls underneath a brolly

At the corner of a park after dark

Business as usual transacted

She wants to find another

The rain pours in cobweb sheets

He wants to say

Do you want a cuppa

But is sure she will say no

Last chance gone

As it stops, she steps away

Into the night

Trying to avoid the congregation of puddles

Leaving him with same time Sunday

He st...

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Steam rises from vents and grates

The back-alley dumpsters are scattered

Whilst the smell of once fresh meat

And hot grease pervades the night

A guy in white uniform and lazy trousers

Sits on a crate making his smoke last

And looking into nowhere

Oblivious to the world

Oblivious to what is happening

A block away from the intersection

Oblivious to the freezing dri...

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She had that nervous lined smile

The kind that said this is my first date

With this guy who is more experienced than me

Or maybe she was just looking

For a way to say goodbye

A sting in the tail for a man whose confidence

Coud so easily be bruised

But she told herself he would quickly recover

As he joked about the menu

And a time he had

When somebody else had said

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Tonight, the night is mine to own, to hold

To walk with

To talk with

To share with nobody

To argue and to party

To laugh with and to parley

To parry thrust and take a

Chance with

The night I have possessed

And strolled under leaden skies

With polka dot spots

Holding it close to my chest

You see the night is mine

And when it is finished

When it has d...

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I sit in my cell dressed in the clothes they provide

The ones they say would suit me

I feel strange and awkward

It’s been nearly three years

I’m nervous and sweating

What will she see in me

What will she remember

Will she really care

Has her mother made her come

Does she want to know

All of the questions circulate in my head

Falling over each other

Never findi...

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There is the guy with the paunch and

The hat that’s too small for his head

Looking kind of bemused and confused

The two young lads with a dog

That just won’t move

The guy with cropped down cargo pants

And long grey beard parted in the middle

The edging traffic

The chippy with nobody in it

The tight-fitting girls with a child in a buggy

The older man at the bus stop g...

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He knew that summers would never be the same again

He had wanted to brush away

The smear of days

That still hung around his neck

That which had found its way

Into the landings on sword gold Juno and Omaha

The implacable concrete machine gun bunkers

He had wanted to soak and scrub

To relinquish the very nature of all that had gone before

The bodies floating in the sea

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She soaks her body

Scrubbing and peeling layers of invisible dirt

Flushing away the undue haste

Of the last two days

Letting the shower taste her face her body

The weeks of anticipation

The grieved upon tears

The streaks of hair

The makeup gone wild

She carefully dries and scores every

Fibre and cell that clings to her flesh

Creasing and smoothing fresh sheet...

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And it’s just another day

For the secret satin sheeted lover

Who hides behind the days of curves and covers

Avoiding the serves of each and any other

Nights alone at home

Pretending he will turn up

At the flick of an invisible switch in her head

She will hear the purring sound of a stingray or corvette

To do the bedtime tango

Enough to make the neighbours curtains twitc...

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So here we are again

We have turned full circle

Or so it seems

But we have turned another year older

And no matter how we try

Our resolutions to change all that was

To all that we feel it should be

Only grow bolder

This year I will lose those vital pounds

Shedding like so much Christmas wrapping

Or the unwanted brightly coloured pullover

My Gran knitted with one...

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The last vestiges of lights strung across

Doors and house hang on defiantly

Trying desperately to deny the season

Of goodwill and merriment has ended

A gap of yawning wind and rain fills the void

As people nudge themselves around

In a kind of semi-conscious semi detached

Where am I

What day is it anyway

Where did all the bon vivere go

And the retailers brush away t...

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So last month I’m done the pub

Minding me own, like you do

When I comes across an old mate named Joe

I call out to him as he passes by

He’s in a bit of a hurry

Turns out he’s with his new missus

A quiet girl named Mary

Who’s carrying one if you get my drift 

He’s got her on a donkey

As it turns out they are doing one

Something about an angel told them

To go s...

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When mercy sleeps

Compassion dies

And love cries for all that’s gone

Because grace has stopped searching

For the lost and vulnerable

And pity has become a dirty word

That lines the rubbish bins of those that have

And all those who have not are perceived

To bite the hand that feeds them

Because they are apparently

Filthy scrounging and greedy

As the needy and...

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She leans in close and I smell her very essence

Hanging on the air

No longer just a cardboard cutout dream

She is the real deal

Her eyelids do not flicker

Her eyes say nothing yet everything

She breathes in slow and careful

Exhaling through her nose just a hint of what

Might be available to he who is prepared to wait

Her lips rich and full down beside my cheek

Her ...

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This is my time right now

Until it is not

My time to hold to covert

To share and spread around

Until it is not

This is my time to sit and be silent

To do handstands if ever I could

To watch to listen to cry and to laugh

Until it is not

This is my time to expand and contract

This is my time to acknowledge

All I have been

All I have done

And sometime...

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She lays still hardly daring to breath in the dust

She has her baby boy on her chest

She and he are under a wardrobe

She has no sense of time in the dark

She has nothing to eat or drink

She tries her own breast milk

She feeds her baby boy every time he cries

She had tried crying out but there is no one there to hear

Until she hears muffled distant words and drills over...

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He dips out from the world of swords and spears

Dropping his shield

Dropping his head between his knees

He watches the colours floating behind closed eyes

Swarming and flooding the well-worn tears

The claustrophobic chain of events played out

Twice three times a day

Until with all of his heaving sobs he jumps right in

Into the numbing pools embrace

Lost in a journey of u...

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year

But for who?

Those who can’t pay for gas and electric

It’s the same old tired songs that pour out

Of every outlet

Every café bar

In every town

Where shop staff in red and green

Looking like shelf stacking zombies

Try to ignore the fight for carrots in aisle 5

And the guy that’s at the back gate

As queues form at checkout...

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So, there were these three wise guys see

All with fancy clothes riding camels

And they had servants

And all manner of things

They were dripping in wealth

Like they were kings

They had come a long way to meet this big cheese

Who had just been born

So, they could pay homage to this new kid on the block

But they had quite a time trying to find the kid

His parents had ...

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What light is this where light is lost

Through dappled shroud

Where no song of bird can be heard

From the autumn blast and snickered breeze

The willing wilting leaves

Who shed their chameleon green

In favour funeral yellow orange and red

Those willing leaves

Who give themselves

For next year’s rise and sap

What light is this that spreads its wings

Upon the op...

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This is my mother’s earth

Except it is not

This is the earth where she was planted nurtured raised and grew

This is the earth where she blossomed

Threw out a shoot watched it flower

And that was me

This is my mother’s earth

Where she has been tried and tested

Through all seasons she has been weathered

Battered and worn

This is my mother’s earth

But not the one s...

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I have heard the words across the wire

I have seen the sombre faces

The black-tie evangelists

Of all that is seen to be right and proper

The heraldry and the trumpets

The heartfelt worldwide words

The barrage of ringing bells and gun salutes

I have seen the sea of flowers

The cards

The handshakes and nodding heads

The watery eyes and sorrow

I have viewed the coins...

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He shouted out his lectern promises and curses

Across the park

Talking to all and everyone who might listen

Even if they did not want to hear

His spat- out rhetoric

About them and they and those invisible others

Those indivisible masters of the cloaked off words

Who cannot be named

Yet he states everybody knows

And the dire consequences that will be metered out

To th...

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Too often we forget about the potholes

And the craters

Filled with water and booby traps

We focus too much on the long cool tall grass

That waves to us in beckoning days

The hills to roll down

The lush trees under which we sit

But we forget the potholes and the craters

At our peril

Those places where we can so often slip

Back into with such consummate ease

...

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Another day of endless senseless idle traffic

Of puerile conversations about the weather

Another day of imbeciles and continuous cigarettes

Of rattling off adjectives and verbs

In order to find the right words to describe

What is actually seen and felt

Another day of endless itching that can’t be scratched

With merciless rantings about the state of parliament, the country

...

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Hey its 2022 and we are still talking about it

That which should have been wrapped shipped out

And told to leave long long ago

But it’s 2022 and it’s still a place for any rat faced kid with sneakers and zits

To make a name for himself or because he has a beef

About the way he’s been treated to pull the trigger

To let rip on all and any because that’s what you do isn’t it???

...

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The pills that I have taken

The stories that I have swallowed

The stories that I have told myself

The rumours I have passed on

None of which were true

The blank black stars that surround my bed

The lies that I have found sitting in my head

That I have opened up

That have filled a room

Getting bigger one on top of another

The days that have become years before I hav...

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I stood in the long silence

With almost Kafkaesque anticipation

A long suffocating silence

Shrouded in a blanket of quiet and guilt

Where time moves so very slowly

It was a moment spread over a series of moments

Interjected in the distance by shouts and screams

Men women children crying out

Words climbing over one another

One above the rest

For god’s sake help

I a...

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What good is Friday

When good is only good for those

Whose gold is still wet and warm

Recently taken from the neck’s arms and hands of others

Not that of a king’s ransom fair and square

But a fool’s gold

Of blood and deeds done

To pick the wealth that lies upon the ground

From battle fury fights of shame

Claiming this is rightfully theirs

Digging deep into the pocke...

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I have felt insincerity breath out of every pore and

The wind blows in on cue

As seagulls wing and float askew

Bending the air to suit their mood

The perfect patterns of history burst in upon the day

With all the predictability of unseen coves of hidden gestures

And secret codes waiting on the tip of a tongue

Never really explored until it’s too late

And I begin to wonder...

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The tears that build up are never easily shed

By the old man with the walking stick

That beats his leg to make it work

The youth that stands at the bus stop

Blinking into the sun

Waiting for the bus that will never come

The little girl just out of school

Holding on to mummy’s hand

Wondering what’s for tea tonight

But mummy’s’ only thought is to keep all men away

As sh...

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There is some old blood on the carpet in the dining room

Where I once cut my hand

Snow on the roof and frost in beautiful floral patterns

On the glass of windows that have survived

There is ash long dead in the fireplace

Where the rain now comes down the chimney

In slanting waves

In the bathroom the chalk white tiles are smeared with somebody else’s lies

And the bath has ru...

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So, there I was minding my own business keeping bar

Cleaning glasses and looking no where

But everywhere if you get my drift

The place is heaving

And in he walks like he has been a week in the saddle

But all dressed to the nines in fancy rags

The best money can buy

From head to toe

He comes up to me and says he has travelled far

With his two friends outside

The camel...

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The sound of a desperate man blows hard

Across his chest in great heaving waves

The lungs that lie and flare

The starving eyes

That burrow into sockets deep

The hungry beast that can never be satisfied or sated

Rubs his hands in anticipated delight

In his lust for those close to death

Ultimately lost among the stubborn cries and pleas

Of rusty skin and bone that billows

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If love is sex and sex is love

What hope is there for us?

What hope for love?

The dying decaying current

Of this week’s model running cold and free

Through the veins of all who think they know

Is love a femme fatale?

A fumble in the dark

Ten straight vodka and cokes

And the futile gesture of words

That speak open mouthed

Yet say nothing

What hope has love

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But for words I wouldn’t be here now

But my pencil is blunt and broken

And the words I would have spoken

Have all fallen

Blown away on that first nervous gust

Of inward breath

Hiding and crying the verbs and adjectives

I had once proudly used

Now I stand naked and bereft

Of all that I have practiced and rehearsed

It seems that all that I had won

Is so ready to ...

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Put aside a kiss for me

A solid state embrace

Not just a cheek by jowl shake down brush

With someone who could not care less

That is not what I want

I want to feel the tenderness of you

Pressed against that which is mine

To push away the crushed flower tears

And stagnant powdered scent of vapid breath

I want to feel the warmth of the love

That has for so often be...

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There’s a bloke over there sitting on a bench

Rolling a cigarette

Long ginger hair in a pony tail

A beard glasses and flat cap

His dog and a can of coke

Now there’s a bloke slightly older

With a stick who sits down beside him

And starts to chat

Mr ponytail dog and beard doesn’t seem to mind

Because they are having the chat of blokes

The chat that chews the weathe...

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Too many times have I have been tempted to cross the line

Of pink pinched and blistered flesh

The red sore scored and lined weal’s

That accompany the opium

Of raised and blooded battlefield cries

In that place of constant feud and ravage

The inner sanctum of the unrested

That you and I and they would call

A state of war

The shout and scream of blood and savage

De...

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Over soaring seams of smooth

And finely woven cloth

I stretch out my hand and let my fingers

Touch the undulating run of green

Allowing a single finger to sketch the unfolding line

Of raised and proud gently lurking downland

Hills and meadows

I watch a distant hawk waver on shimmering waves

Of unseen sullen heat

Then dropping my hand to sweep across

Beaded heads ...

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I feel nothing except the noise in my head

The unspoken questions

The soundbite words

But this is my day

Much like yesterday and the day before

As I walk through the streets

The park meeting uneasy smiles and hellos

Some blank looks as if the world had been switched off

And back out on to the street where

A woman padded out with too many coats is shouting

Swearing cur...

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Disinterested drizzle begins to hit

The screen thickening into hail

As the cloud moves over the car

Leaving just the hard worn short change breeze

Further on a volley of empty

Beer cans are carried into the wind

Full of rolling chatter across the road

Discharged from a discarded

Dead body black sack

And then the sun

Gives its full blast best

It’s one...

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