I dreamt about you

last night

for the first time

in years.

You were in a hospital

or refuge

or somewhere

like that.

I climbed a rope

with a rose

between my teeth,

up three storeys

at dark blue midnight

to your bed,

slipped in beside you.

There was a man’s voice

murmuring

somewhere

off-camera

and I felt the warmth

and the firmness

of yo...

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Little Jack, he’s on his own

In the wild American night

Chasing down the mystic road

Trying to keep his star in sight

He last saw Neal three days ago

When he shot his arrow into the sun

Now his magic shirt is hanging down

His mouth is half undone

And the kids in all the mid west towns

Are hanging on his tongue

Jack yawns and gapes and scratches hard

Says “Jesu...

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Goodnight Colleen

Its time to sleep

And there’s not much more to say

I could try again with calmer words

But you’re not listening anyway

When next we see the morning light

Could have dreamed up something pure and bright

And those excuses that you so detest

All drifting on the sea of rest

Goodnight Colleen

My eyes are hot

And my mouth is dry and dumb

Yo...

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He fell to earth put down his roots

Beat the ground with an iron fist

Built him a station to call his own

Tied himself to the door by the wrist

This place is not for sale

This place is not for sale

Selling out and buying time

Wasting strength and saving face

Stood by his values, sat down by himself

Assembled a cast iron case

This place is not for sale

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Supposed to be stood like statues

Supposed to be sad like clowns

When I’m lighting up like Christmas Day

You’re supposed to bring me down

There’s a black crow by the roadside

She is pointing to the south

Train set to leave at the station

Farewell half-formed on your mouth

Desperate words wont stop this journey

I fought the hungry wolves of doubt

No broken fi...

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Saw you turn into a swan

Where once you were a crow

Think I thought much more of you

When there was less of you to know

Picture book and greeting card

And a diary full of hate

Take me back Atlantic breeze

Before it gets too late

Did they break you up and bring you down?

Did they leave you feeling small?

Well what I really meant to say

Wasn’t what I s...

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I dreamed of Philadelphia

1935

I had a pair of black and silver boots

It felt good to be alive

My room was painted green and white

I lived above a bar

My sweetheart’s picture on the wall

A shotgun in my car

Remote control piano house

Necklace from the stream

Need to wake up someday soon

To raise some self esteem

I had hearts and diamonds up my sle...

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Cars are on the front way

but these shoes were made for walking

and our year projected saving plan just blew.

The weekend has come round once more

the horses they’re all set to score

and all girl groups are coming back in vogue

turn them up, they’re on the radio.

Bars were packed to bursting

and our pockets they were burning

but that Billy Hill is no good frien...

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Say goodbye to freedom

Kiss the life you held away

And the storyboard you locked up

Filming starts today

She decided after fifteen years that his drinking didn’t suit her

Said goodbye, said good luck, said good that you’ve gone

When he rolled off the roof in a stupor

Packed the kids up in the car

Dropped them at her mothers

Spent the weekend in bed

With her ...

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London could be good for me

Paris even better

Watch her face just fall apart

When she reads this letter

But oh no tears

No last minute plans

Making my exit as fast as I can

East coast

East coast

Caught the Sunday ferry boat

A lifetime left to spare

The evening sun had burnt my back

Didn’t even care

But oh now what’s this

That’s sticking in m...

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It was hotter than that summer in the seventies

when the ladybirds swarmed the washing  

and the sun was blinding white

and our mouths were alive with lemonade lollies

and the council stopped the water fights

I’d been telling them all about this how it was a

long time before they were born

but it was too warm for bedtime and they were both starting to yawn

so we started cha...

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Remember me when you’re asleep

This life will be the death of me

Lay me down and pray your soul to keep

Say goodnight and fall asleep

Push me aside when it’s light and you’re full awake

You can make these days all dissipate

Don’t let me in, try not to break

Just forget me and keep awake

And you think you make it better

But you don’t

And you think you’ll...

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What purpose served by the tongue of a snake?

What good is an insect that shines?

What good eyesight when left in the dark

And you're being tripped up all the time?

Come on brother

What's the word?

We should not have a single care

In the world

Who is it screaming in the dead of the night?

And where are the second hand stars?

Who'll call you home with a kindly ref...

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She looks up and laughs from the back of the car

I draw some wings and cut them out

Late that evening went down to the waterside

Sat down by the waterside mapping it out

Send me flags

Send me tickets

I can’t get my back up off this bed

England’s so cold

Was it you who told me

That my arms are laden with lead?

Loved that story, the sacks and the teeth

Carv...

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Wrap yourself tightly so the rain can’t touch you

Pull over the covers so the wind can’t get through

I remember your dark hair

Scraping on your neck

Don’t stand out there in the cold and wet

Our average contents don’t add up to much

I got friends in high places but they don’t stay in touch

Neighbourhood.

Your smell on my t-shirt

Sleeping there beside me

Been...

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Our Christmas and our Easter thrown away

Bonfire night and birthdays thrown away

The garage and the kittens claw

I recall the day before I threw it away

Holidays and homelight thrown away

Bedtime and our bruises thrown away

The razor and the hunting hat

The hard backed chair in which I sat

I threw it away

I’m no Indian Brave I’m no Indian Brave

You’re the grown up hop...

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The Harpic Brothers are clean round the bend;

they live in a house at the end

of our street, with a kitchen full of chip fat

and a garden full of rust,

a Mam on medication

who they wheel down to the pub.

Albert’s the one with the gravestone teeth

and hair that stands up

like a cartoon cat on heat.

Trevor is the brains of the team

his tattoos all spelt right.

They p...

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The lines of our communication

Pulled and left to die

And all those spoken words unspoken

Fall and then collide

One to waste a shipwreck

Two to fly in style

My favourite girl came home last week

And I can’t raise a smile

If I could see where we went wrong

I would not change a thing

And the sky just won’t stop crying

And the grass won’t grow till spring

I started...

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Come down, throw me a sign

Disappear in steady dark

The pale room, your eggshell skull

Your glass is empty, let me make it full

Been a twenty four year wait

Seen places on the way

All thoughts you kept inside

All the thoughts that you gave away

Wait for the cavalry

With one eye on the clock

Wait so long to seize the pearl

Started up now I don’t think this can stop

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I’ll kick your tent up she said / with a table full of breadcakes hot from the oven / the sink and the shaving brush and a pan full of eggs / Saturdays on Boothferry were the best / the tenfoot and the back way where all your cousins played / a football rattles the garage doors and the greedy greasy seagulls flap and fly away / don’t forget your aunty / she can’t get to the shops / she’s wasting a...

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Rex Everything came ambling past my door

No longer addicted to chocolate or pot,

no longer taking photos,

he sat in my kitchen and

I saw the absence in his eyes,

and remember, this is the man

who had built a papier Mache monster

seven foot in size

big blue eyes and big red lips

from the pissed on wrappers of patty and chips,

who had politely asked permission

to hol...

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It’s a magazine on an unmade bed and a broken pair of shoes

Endless days of don’t go home, thunder in the afternoons

It’s a freezing bath at 3am and the meal you couldn’t eat

The sudden truth that struck you blind in the sickness of deceit

It’s the clothes you thought you’d thrown away

And the job you couldn’t start

The light left on inside the house when you thought the house wa...

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used to have wallpaper with

racing cars and a lampshade

a fringe on the bottom

mattress on the floor of

a child’s bedroom

and a grown up, forgotten

plans lost in the fog and

scabs like red jewels

teeth black and rotten

voices on the radio

music in another room

yellow sheets sodden

stain on the barrel and  

dro...

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strolling past a phone box

that suddenly erupts

with unprecedented clamour

puncturing a slow summer afternoon

with the possibility of drama

a wrong number, surely; a misplaced

finger, a digit missing, I mean,

who uses these cream

coloured coffins

for anything other than drug deals or pissing?

well, how can you resist?

step inside and lift the speaker

from t...

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The words installed within me

a deep unease :

DEAN LICKED MY BALLS

four foot high in white

beneath the underpass

I was eight years old

and driving from

the backseat of the car

going to pick up my Dad

from work.

A brush and emulsion job

white lines running down the wall

and blurring quick

as the words loomed past:

DEAN LICKED MY BALLS

I do...

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Y cardies and wedges

Finger and flick

Bleached and bobbing

Like a nervous tic

Lurked beneath the fly over

With tubes of Evo-Stik

Summer saw a multitude

Of sniffers, psychos, skins

Floating skulls

With eyes like pins

Gathered in the evening gloom

With plastic bags and tins

Chased by giant Mars Bars

Glowed electric green

Through crackling fiel...

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I met Tony round at Marce and Micks

one night after the pub.

It was summer time, which I later found out was his favorite time;

the way sunlight smashed the treetops in Pearson Park

when you slipped in off Park Grove

and you’d get that sudden flashbulb in the eyes

like the leaves had all exploded,

but anyway, this was night-time and we’d lit up long past dark

and Tony was t...

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Stark white light in corridors of blank and endless time

squeal with soles that trod these paths

a thousand times before

and their joking and jeers, heavy handed slaps.

In regulation grey and green they go,

inked-in necks and hands,

medicine eyeballs spinning slow.

A merry-go-round of men;

nothing moves in here,

the pale green walls crumbling year by year,

the tables ...

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