We sour, in the throes of some disaster
of our own demoralised unmaking,
abjectly pining for lord and master,
with crown, throne and sceptre for the taking

if they would but lead us to salvation
and make us strong again. We want the myth,
we crave security for our nation,
the ruthless rule of law they'd hold us with;

we'd sell our freedom cheaply for the chance
to pretend that our wor...

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Dear, sweet empty vessel, rattling loudest;
I often wonder if you know the choice
is always yours to still that irksome voice?
Or is it when you feel at your proudest,

causing butterfly thoughts to rend the air?
Teeming morphemes tumble in profusion,
filling space between us with confusion,
thus leaving logic lost, and in despair.

It's futile having a conversation
with Dunning-Krüge...

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How so in lockstep with time is nature:
leaves drift in waves with the passing seasons,
marking an arrow's flight to the future
as the fate of life, which even treason's

high schemes and plottings would fail to outwit.
Each year i watch them through my window fall
to earth as they to nature's laws submit,
and am thus reminded i've bugger-all

to feel cocksure about: all things must pass...

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Love: just a quack cure, or panacea?
Could it heal all ills, like romantics say
or is what's actually revealed here
a deeper need, to keep hard truths at bay

with rose-tinted fantasies of 'The One' -
meeting your matchless other in a soul
who'll not rest 'til your loneliness is gone;
who'd nurture you and catch you, should you fall;

who'd be both free spirit yet faithful muse?
That an...

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Say, pretty caul, what sweet treasure you hide!
How few of us grasp its proper function
(much less the sensitivity inside,
nor the joy derived when giving unction.)

Perhaps some instruction might be supplied
by each owner, upon application?
For should this motivation be denied
it would stay a loss to half the nation,

while t'other half would remain unaware
that what's once given would...

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Cherished in my dreams, you've remembered me,
relishing those few brief moments we shared
just as i've held you in my thoughts, and wished
i'd had the bravery to say something
more - perhaps my number, hinting to ring
as soon as you got home - but i finished
off leaving you convinced i hadn't cared
enough, as i recall, to want to see

you again. Well, Donna, that's just not true!
I've ki...

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Worn weary, to the edge of sleep my feet

ache, blistered in lead boots, all topped by burn

of calf and thigh; my sole urge to return

to Leafy Glades, i head down Spencer Street,

where it hits me: i've not been here in years.

Forty-seven, to be exact. A flood

of memories overwhelms me. I stood

on this precise spot then, when, in my ears

the first inkling of a revol...

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Scars gouged through wood - whittled, age-worn grooves,

angles and curves releasing someone's name

from the desk they once called theirs. Each line proves

the testing of some long-forgotten fame,

some cock's reputation, whose ego's claim

to eternity's been overwritten

by a succession of hands - lives bitten

and chewed by history, the very same

hunger to be remembe...

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Check out those two kids! Only ten years old

and wasting their time in beating with sticks

the corpse of that shopping trolley. What kicks

can they be chasing? They've never been told

how to play well, i guess, so they don't know

any better (i can see in their eyes

they're barely enthused.) Soon they leave their 'prize'

abandoned, with one last, lethargic blow

and wand...

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