THE HYPERTENSIVE SPARROW

It struck me as odd whilst adjusting my tax

How sparrows never drop dead or suffer heart attacks

So I turned from my tax form feeling quite tense

Trying to justify my thoughts and make sense

After all, what pressures intrude the nest?

The birdies can’t be too stressed or depressed

Why should the birdies be blesse...

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I wrote this poem years ago after a particularly frustrating day where I felt that supernatural forces were at play in shaping the community. I speculated what the reason for all this madness was, hence The Wager. Hope you enjoy it.  

THE WAGER

I imagine a hole in the ozone layer

over Manchester

Where God sends his angels down to

stop the drugs trafficking and j...

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RETROSPECTIVE

Over the years I think I’ve changed

I’m a bit more manic, a bit more deranged

I’m a bit more lonely and a bit more sad

For the nights and the days that I’ve never had

I’m a bit more distanced, a bit more scared

A bit more worldly and a bit more aware

I’m a bit more uncertain, a bit less “full on”

A bit more a “m...

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I was in Weatherspoons (for the uninitiated it's a pub chain) the other month and there were a group of girls near the bar. They were moaning that they were too fat, too thin, that their breasts were too big or too small that they were too hot or too cold etc and I got to thinking that everone was dissatisfied in one form or other with their lot and then I felt a poem coming on..............

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It struck me that when I worked with bereavement counsellors some of them seemed just a bit too happy in their work. I speculated on this and wrote it down. This is the result. It bears no resemblance to any indivisual person and is a generalisation of events.     

GRIEF VOYEUR

Julie was a voyeur person, a voyeur person, Julie, was she

She'd morbidly watch a train crash ...

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This poem is true and it is cathartic for me to write it. Not all my work is bleak but this needed to be told as the futility of a broken society is not commented on through poetry as much as it should be. It appears to me that a great deal of writing and prose appears to be a subjective and romanticised version of events and I feel there is a place for what I call "reality verse."

A ...

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