Where laced up leather boots so softly tread
Beneath spiral columns of spindrift snow
Time freezes in the ice where he lies dead

A gnarled old man with two teeth in his head
Prays to Chomolunga from down below
Where laced up leather boots so softly tread

One month before, Gray’s elegy they read
Whilst they waited for the storm winds to slow
Time freezes in the ice where he lies dead

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The leaves come down

And they’re orange and brown

And they fall in the forest

And they tumble in the town

And they clog up the gutters and gather in the grates

They're  the colour of butter when they shine on slates 

And they crinkle and curl as they silently lie

For this is the time when the leaves all die

In Autumn gales 

They are blown and tossed

As the sun tu...

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The leaves come down

And they’re orange and brown

And they fall in the forest

And they tumble in the town

And they clog up the gutters and gather in the grates

They're  the colour of butter when they shine on slates 

And they crinkle and curl as they silently lie

For this is the time when the leaves all die

In Autumn gales 

They are blown and tossed

As the sun tu...

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Morning sun silvered the poplar leaves

Somewhere others lay in the cut clay, waiting 

And I smelt the sea’s dead things

As I walked. 

Kelp, razor shells, crabs, limpets

We laughed and swam in sandy craters

And I walked

By Goat's Water, the Old Man looked down

As he had for all my life 

And all those other lives before

The smell of wet bracken, sphagnum, washed sl...

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On The Village Outer fringes

Lives the legend Rocketman

If it burns, explodes or singes

Pyrotechnically, he’s your man

His potting shed’s a bomb store 

He goes there when he chooses

To stack the shelves and fill the floor

with gunpowder and fuses

He plans every Guy Fawkes night

By astrophysics and geography 

Filling the sky with sound and light

And aerial chor...

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Get yourself a lump of marble

Twenty feet by six by six

Borrow a set of chisels

Or buy them from Screwfix

Empty out your garage or outdoor store

Of furniture and kids’ bikes from ceiling to floor

Grab yourself a mallet

Michelangelo liked wood

And get stuck in whilst listening to Johnnie B Goode

With every blow you will release

The body shape within

From a...

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Just because you can play it doesn’t mean you should

I’m talking about After the Goldrush or Before the Flood

or anything by The Eagles, Paul Simon and Stormzy

Keep these artists separate from your ukulele

Just because you know the words don’t mean you can sing

Paul Rogers is Bad Company, leave Fields of Gold to Sting

Give Roy Orbison numbers a miss

Don’t kid yourself you...

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Said Willie to the Dazzler 

As they settled in the snug

We’ll take a pint of Bushmills malt

To fill yon claret jug

Then the silver jug was lifted 

And held to Dazzler’s lips

To celebrate the winning

Of the Open Championship

In the sunlight on tobaccoed walls

As gold on silver fills the west

In black and white and green and red

The mythic Georgie Best

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Said Willie to the Dazzler 

As they settled in the snug

We’ll take a pint of Bushmills malt

To fill yon claret jug

Then the silver jug was lifted 

And held to Dazzler’s lips

To celebrate the winning

Of the Open Championship

In the sunlight on tobaccoed walls

As gold on silver fills the west

In black and white and green and red

The mythic Georgie Best

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When Lee Dixon opens his cliche cabinet,

We’re havin' it.

It was a game of two halves

The lad’s put in a shift

You couldn’t write this script, that’s a gift

Get in there my son, go on my boy

The phrases flow, sucked of joy

He pulls rabbits from hats

With consummate ease

He’s a mangled mouthed magician

Can’t you see?

His left foot’s just for standing ...

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Dear Friends and family members

Gathered here to celebrate

And rake over my life’s embers

So sorry that I’m late

I intended to be on time

For this, the concluding event

Commemorating in songs and rhyme

A life well spent

Only the traffic lights were down

And it just kept getting worse

With anxious mothers on the school run

Stuck behind the funeral hearse

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Greetings cards with wine or wellies

Gardening, golf and air guitars

Flawless lawns, beer bellies

For this is what you are

You’re slower, balder, fuller faced

Your jokes fall flat and stale

That bike you bought, still in its place

Another mid-life fail

The Lycra was more than a stretch

You ’re living in the past

Running uphill makes you retch 

And your tr...

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I lost my girl to a barista
He’s taken all I’d got
Wrote her name on her cup, then he kissed her
While she necked an espresso shot

I thought that I could trust her
But this is no minor affliction
Her love for the bean’s robusta
It’s a terminal addiction

I’m a has bean on the cafe scene
You could say at this juncture
Since I lost my Costa Coffee Queen
My Nespresso capsule’s punctured

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I love my perfect life
With my perfect kids and my perfect wife
And all those perfect times we’ve had
Being the perfect mum and perfect dad

And our perfect home where perfect friends
Adapt perfectly to every trend
Or those perfect days spent at the beach
Who says perfection’s out of reach?

We have perfect times when we go out
With perfect people round about
As our perfect laughter fi...

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I’ve got my eye on a bungalow

now I’m ageing fast and living slow

not much to do, nowhere to go

A remote-controlled garage door

An en-suite on the ground floor

These are the things I’m looking for

My rosy afterglow

I’ve got my eye on a bungalow

Where I can unwind, go with the flow

Touch the roof it’s only low

A resin drive that’s easy to clean

No moss, no weed...

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Teetering on the platter

A treat for human senses

It’s food to make you fatter

Crushing all of your defences

Its snowy dunes and hollows

Of flouncy sweet meringue

Are made for ample swallows

Of dessert sturm und drang

Ignore it at your peril

Its appeal you can’t deny

When hunger makes you feral

Reach for lemon meringue pie

Its gaudy citrus layer

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William Wordsworth and Walt Whitman have alliterative names

For Norman Nicholson  and Stevie Smith  you may say the same

Sassoon with his Siegfried and Porter with his Peter

Were destined to have mastery of rhythm, form and meter

Marvell at the metaphysical, let Pope raise you higher

But the best poet’s name is Benjamin Zephaniah 

Some poets’ names onomatopoeically enth...

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Standing stock still on the Storyhouse stage

Purringly, the poet poked, parried, proselytised and punned

It was a wry, rhythmic romp, a rhyming rampage

With fulfilling Fibonacci fables, felines and one Frisbee being flung

Meteoric, metaphysical, making mincemeat of the Mail

Wielding words with wondrous wit

The Lemsip Laureate left a trail

Of moments that will hang about ...

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The primrose with its glowing face held high

Brings promise of the softer days of Spring

And gazes up towards the wind ripped sky

Through branches to the sunlight, filtering

New leaves unfold beneath the solemn frost

Where clasped they lie and frozen to the earth

A voice like yours is permanent, not lost

The primrose glows to celebrate your birth

And now each year it brings...

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We’re locking up the poets

And throwing them in cells

They’re dissidents and show it

Via odes and villanelles

Collected incantations 

Against the status quo 

Acerbic observations 

Couplets in full flow

We’re exiling the muses 

To be banished somewhere grim

With Terza Rima that confuses

And volumes that are slim

Wokey right-on anarchists

Who kid...

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If dogs were made world leaders

There would be no futile wars

And laws and treaties would be signed

With inky prints of paws

Chihuahuas and Alsatians

Would respect each other’s space

There’d be no United Nations

Just a favourite sniffing place

Summit sessions would be held

In playing fields or parks

With flashing collars de rigeur

For meetings after dar...

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Parish Councillor (after Betjeman)

I am a Parish Councillor; no job’s too small for me

From facilitating Bonfire Night to lighting up the tree

In every avenue and byway of our village small and neat

You’ll find me surveying the highway and examining the street.

Who’s that? people say as I stride along the lanes

Frowning, nodding, peering down to investigate the drains

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Six Nations wake from slumber

As winter turns to Spring

For tribal warfare on the pitch

It’s a Celts and Saxons thing

They’ll be singing hymns and arias

From the Tiber to the Tay

And the week feels that much longer

As we wait for Saturday

And the squads are called together

From places far and wide

There will be sunshine and foul weather

There will be shir...

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We said goodbye to my sister yesterday, a teacher for 34 years at St Paul's C of E Primary School in Manchester. She was a brilliant actor as well as being a great teacher, bringing every story to life. Her classroom, outside the main Victorian school building was simply known as "The Prefab". She also loved her garden and Spring was her favourite time of year. Writing this poem has helped bring s...

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Tread gently beneath the fragile fanlight

With its curving carved ribs

framing rippling glass

Glance up to the Venetian arch with its Canaletto morning sky

And the uncoiled mahogany staircase

Treads echoing to the creak and clatter of murmurous ghosts

Peel the plaster skin from the wall

Withies within, woven by dead fingers

Stiff reeds droop with the stilled pro...

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This is for my dear sister Carole, whom we lost on Monday. She was a member of a very traditional and, dare I say it, quite mysoginistic suburban tennis and bowling club. She played neither, but was by far the best actor in the amateur dramatics section, which sadly folded years ago. She was a brilliant and inspirational primary school teacher, who loved telling stories, especially in verse. She a...

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The invitation came from an anonymous source

With a hint of menace in a note of force

A resolution has been passed

By our High Command

For festive entertainment we want your band

This is not optional, there’s no way out 

We’re ready and waiting so don’t hang about

Be at the Village Hall on the Thirteenth of December

And prepare to deliver an event to remember

There’ll be...

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It was fun while it lasted

Now it’s time to leave the crease

Take the plaudits, raise your bat

Let the innings cease

No need to hang around for tea

Just take your bag and shuffle off

And please, don’t go near the cakes

With that painful, hacking cough

Looks like rain, did you check the covers?

And coil up the boundary rope

Without proper preparation 

I’m ...

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There’s a shoot-out on the bowling green

The pianola’s full of holes

The Man with No Name’s

Got a Zimmer frame 

And a tray of sausage rolls

He’s a High Plains drifter 

Not from round here

The strong and silent type

Got a dance partner, can’t lift her

They practice moves on Skype

At the monthly hoedown 

At the nursing home 

He wears a felt ten-gallon hat

It’s ...

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It is our extreme pleasure

To cast open our doors for you

And present for your lifestyle and leisure

The incomparable Urinal View

Imagine yourself on summer days

On your balcony facing the strand

Absorbing ultraviolet rays

Where the lavatories stand

Twenty-two exclusive apartments

Designed for the fortunate few

With an open Northerly aspect

Overhanging the public l...

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When all around is crumbling

And there’s nothing left to save

And the economy is tumbling

It’s time to call for Dave

He’s super and he’s Tory

His haircut is so smart

He would be great on Jackanory

He just looks and sounds the part

He once called a referendum

That left us lonely and bereft

Wrote a memoir, an addendum

To a career lacking heft

He sat...

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