At Aldeburgh you have to watch your back.

The beach is chilled, the Borough vents its wrath,

And whispered, ghostly choruses proclaim

‘Grimes’, as though in agony. Tormented,

A man prepares to sink his boat. Foghorns

Sound on nearby sandbanks. Night shelters shame.

Sweet morning comes, tearing at consciences

Of perky seafarers. Go, cast your nets,

And bring home lost m...

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I’m flying; I’m flying so high.

I rise without the slightest care

And feel that I could touch the sky.

I look down at the Earth, so rare –

Perhaps unique – yet compromised

By our neglect and non-respect

Of sacred duty to protect

The wonders nature has devised.

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It’s hard to understand;

From now on days expand.

The blue sky is set fair;

Leaves crunch in bracing air.

Though calm before a storm

Will flatter to deceive,

We fleetingly believe

That this is the new norm.

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Near the border, beyond the searchlights’ reach,

A child is born. No one is rejoicing.

Not his mother, too cold and scared to weep

The broken tears of happiness. Elsewhere,

The father fights to the front of the queue

For bread or rice. A truncheon lays him out.

Darkness: the boy is warmed, in straw, by beasts;

Cries echo mute and bellies run empty.

Then, as if from now...

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My long-delayed flight now fast receding,

The unfamiliar blankets my view.

I fail to recognise the city’s name;

I am waiting but do not know for what.

In this pandemic I walk straight and spare.

A frolicking heavy points through a door,

Where hard-faced boys are flicking bits of cake.

Bored, I join the queue at the pharmacy,

Hoping to find elusive masks and gel.

The man...

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Love survived a while, misshapen,

An anchorage in troubled times.

Grind had long warped its perfect form

And watered down its purity

To the blunt level of the street.

Yet it was still love, before bombs

Began to blow us all away.

Then it became a monument

Where people laid down wreathes and wept,

And dodged the bawdy public gaze.

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I’m mired in a pit of sleaze;

I'm sinking downwards past my knees.

I cast off principles with ease.

It seems that I’ve become immune

To shame which would make others swoon.

I'm mired in a pit of sleaze.

Just like a mouse who’s grabbed the cheese,

I only have myself to please.

I sup with porkers in a trough

And lay down vintage wines to quaff.

I’m mired ...

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A man I knew who lived in Paris

Painted his apartment red.

It was, he said, the colour of the dead.

That was his special trick:

To turn a rainbow on its head.

Last week in the newspaper, I read

That his bath tub was flooded,

His waters were muddied,

His habits, like insects, were studied

Under a microscope

Through the bottom of a jar.

Magnified, he seemed...

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We knew the pre-war world:

Lyrical, slightly decadent,

Subtle, though ironic,

A fabled land of make-believe.

We made allowances

And rubbed along, up to a point.

But post-war times are harsh:

Clean-shaven, dead legs, watch your back,

No loose talk, stay in line,

Rationing of love, smile control,

The ever-present threat of truth.

For some, the place where we now live

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Somebody has to spit it out;

To break news in a gentle way:

‘Excuse me, but you didn’t win.’

Merchants of hog-roast fantasies,

They won’t get it. Nor will the nutters

With bull-frog eyes. They will reject

The glaring truth, and counterclaim

‘We won! I’ve all the proof I need.

Even if I don’t, it’s your fault.

You are the ones to blame. Shame! Shame!’

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As a boy, Westcliff seemed like a foreign land,

A place of weekend fun, and frolics in the sand.

Later, he went there twice a month, for steak and sex:

For no other reason, whatever the season.

From their tiny window, they used to crane their necks

To see how pale, unsated passers-by

Would run towards the shelters to keep dry.

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Give me a break;

Cut me some slack.

I’m too ancient to be fast track;

Give me an old man’s job.

No stacking shelves

Or humping coal:

A comfy chair is my main goal.

Give me an old man’s job.

Forget late shifts

Or early starts;

I am more used to walk-on parts.

Give me an old man’s job.

Driving a bus

Is not for me;

I need too many breaks f...

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(England vs West Indies

5th Test match, 2nd Day,

19th August 1966. The Oval).

It was set up to be blue-sky perfection:

Pitch good, England batting, West Indies out.

Our schoolboy heroes would soon take the field,

But getting to the venue was a race

With others who sought tickets and a place.

We sprinted from the tube towards the queue,

Which stretched by n...

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I love you. What else matters?

Is there any more to say?

Note that I say ‘love’ and not ‘loved’.

Our lives would be so different

If our paths had not crossed;

We have formed our current selves.

I carry you with me;

Yes, I cling to a memory,

Fading away, I’m sure,

Though not quite disappearing,

And so never in the past.

But there is more to it than th...

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‘Love? One word’s like any other.’

I find it hard to disagree,

Or to take the time to ponder

The relevance of this to me.

‘Love’ is a word, lost in the crowds:

Unremarkable, floating past,

No special features make it proud,

Its letters spelled from first to last.

Which begs the question, not so new:

If all of the above is true,

Why is it that I would go...

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There’s a rhythm to the morning:

A rhythm of insects and birds,

A rhythm of running water,

A rhythm of early rising,

A rhythm rich in such delights,

Not in any way surprising.

There’s a rhythm to the daytime:

A beat of plausibility,

A rhythm of passing and drift,

A pulse of journeys never made,

A shunned availability

Of sunlight and a pledge of shade.

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A middle-aged man nearby

Is clearing up some leaves.

He swings the blower round;

Enjoys its phallic whirl.

It reminds him of the time

When he could get the girl.

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He jerks and spins with his white powdered face;

His path to this new style was quite bizarre.

Before, he was magnetic standing still.

There was no rage. There was an inner peace

Which audiences felt within their souls.

He held them in the palms of silent hands.

Why did he change? Why this sudden frenzy?

Since when did he become this irate ghost?

We needed what he...

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I knew her. We were at work together.

I had not seen her for at least two years.

‘I’ve left Mike.’ The news came as a bombshell.

‘I’m with Vince now. You know, from the office.’

‘But you seemed so happy,’ I said, weakly.

‘You have to seize the moment,’ was her reply.

The moment? Vince? That lazy sofa slug?

‘He’s exciting!’ she snapped, smiling hungrily.

‘The momen...

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The geese will reach their end one day and die,

More elegant than some who take this part.

Young lovers and whoever passes by

Believe themselves far from this noble art.

Yet feathers and the piles of ageing bones

Remind us of what one day lays in store:

Condolences, sincere but in cold tones,

Bowed heads which move in lines across the floor.

We should take ti...

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The middle class are ruled by hate;

They bully and manipulate.

They deal in lies and twist the truth,

Corrupt the innocence of youth

And cheat on friends to keep what’s theirs:

A place above the creaking stairs.

Ambition will keep them ahead

In bank and castle and in bed,

But it is cunning, raw and low,

Which helps their favoured winds to blow

To worlds of ...

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The grass grows, too slowly;

The world revolves and bakes.

A river bed cries out

For all that might have been.

A painted flower wilts

To some second childhood;

Youth secretly envies

Its fading contentment.

The old, as usual, waste

Into next to nothing.

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At some football clubs (one, at least)

They don't need a manager,

They're looking for a messiah.

Will he help to take them higher

Up the league?  Does Europe beckon?

Alleluia! Alleluia!

Too hot to Handel, I reckon.

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On this rueful menu

Of sprawls of blanked windows,

The world seems in retreat.

Nowhere is idyllic,

No place remains the same.

Our damp minds shed some tears

Of unknown provenance;

Nothing belongs to us.

The old ones, lying flat,

Unburied, unreplaced,

Stretch out beyond our dreams,

Beyond our memories.

Lost in our foulest mood,

Are we still visible?

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You can burn the books,

You can burn the man,

You can burn the woman,

You can burn the young,

You can burn the old,

You can burn their goods, bought and sold.

But you cannot burn minds,

You cannot burn the heart,

You cannot burn the spirit or the soul.

You can’t delete with kerosene

Love, hope and all that’s in between.

You cannot burn the memory, not yet...

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In dictators’ architecture,

Neat and tidy form seduces.

We make the railways run on time

And chant a patriotic rhyme;

Till gradually we come to see

That freedom’s jumble has its uses.

When the inquisitive explore,

The enquiry usually finds,

By asking some awkward questions

And by risking indiscretions,

The one insurmountable truth:

Clean shapes don’t sign...

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At dusk, perched on the lines,

Honing barbs, passing time,

They seem to pose a threat.

But is it real? Are they?

We wait for them to move;

What do they have to prove?

They could stay where they are,

Or take themselves away.

The sight of them entwines

Round our unease, and yet

For now they crouch and mime

Today’s events. That said,

They sense what lies ahead...

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The lava’s molten rhythm flows,

And down below our whole world slows;

As thoughts turn upwards to the heat,

We learn to measure our retreat.

The first sign is a rumbling sound

Which chills the spine and moves the ground.

The liquid rock spurts out and pours;

The mountain murmurs turn to roars.

With this inferno holding sway,

Inheritance is swept away;

...

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Land

This is the land of dangerous love,

Of amorous experiment;

This is the land of freezing football,

Of floodlit cloggers with intent;

This is the land of the mangled sweethearts,

Of boyfriends too careless to repent.

This is the land of gloating towers,

Of the neighbours’ warning shots;

This is the land of the quick backhander,

Of the under...

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Climate Change and us

The planet turns, the planet turns;

The adults fiddle while Rome burns.

And children yet to be conceived

Have every right to feel aggrieved.

And us? We plunder wealth from mines

And join the back of frantic lines

In shirtsleeved January sales,

Pursued by ever-warming gales.

Exhausts and power stations spout

Unheeded warnings all ab...

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The cricket season reached its end that day.

We mothballed all the stumps and pads and gloves

And pondered over matches not yet played,

The stolen opportunities for some.

We thought of runs we scored and catches claimed,

And contemplated England for a time

And what impending winter may well bring.

How many years would pass till we again

Undo our bags to twirl our ...

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This was his plan: imitating their dance,

Massaging their myths, storming, by surprise,

Their sand trap of conspiracies and lies;

To step on, by default, the greatest stage

Which life or spite could plausibly advance.

Lost in their bazaar, his slight repertoire

Propelled him to a failure by slow rage,

Though in the end he rallied to make par

And saved what could be traded a...

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It’s hard to forget the road signs,

Emerging from the Memphis grey,

Electrified and hoisted up

To the edge of the stratosphere,

To counter the obsessives who

Came with telescopic ladders;

The copyright mark on the grave

(Was that usual? I don’t know);

The heaps of tacky souvenirs

In shops at the end of the Earth,

Where only the gas stations hear you;

The deodo...

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Getting ready for bed last night,

I heard, in the distance, a cry.

An owl? A dog’s bark? No, a man

Howling at his disappointments,

At his bad luck, his one mistake,

His limp, his pain, the sucker punch

Which floored him when caught off his guard.

Then, all at once, the silence fell.

As I sank into the mattress,

I thought of his long night ahead,

Of good deeds tha...

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Gary and Barry were as happy as Larry,

But Larry was really quite depressed.

So were Gary and Barry

Feeling all that happy?

You may have already guessed.

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Drop the less obvious, the cryptic clue;

I expect that from others, not from you.

Your talent is to give it to me straight;

Which is why you remain my friend and mate.

So please, no subtle hints, no secret code;

My kind of game is where all hands are showed.

Discreet intimations just leave me cold;

I need the direct, the up-front, the bold.

Inklings and whispers are no soli...

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‘Bang-Bang’ Johnny loomed large above my youth:

A cowboy hero shooting baddies down,

He made the world a better place to live.

Part comic-book, part black and white TV,

He had the most profound effect on me.

I never questioned what is right and wrong

Or asked myself about the shades of grey.

I just assumed that guys with guns and stripes

Would constitute a proper ...

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You ask if you can buy some piece of tat.

You ask how far will go this winding road.

You ask to where this raging river flows.

You ask for the stars, the moon and the sun;

All day you make demands,

But you never float on the weightlessness of a melody,

You never breathe the clean air of the prisoners’ freedom,

Never die a little during a string quartet,

And never ...

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The Peppers lived at number three;

Our house was at number eight.

We used to see them every day,

Crouched down behind their garden gate.

Mr Pepper’s hair was snowy white;

His stare grew ever bolder.

Mrs Pepper oozed the glamour,

Though was twenty-five years older.

They had a mangy dog called Fred

And at least a hundred cats.

They were so pampered that t...

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Our television crew arrived today,

To celebrate his age of eighty-five,

Perhaps surprised that he was still alive.

The film ‘Nigel Thing at work, rest and play’

Was always bound to be a non-event.

All we got was a sedentary old gent.

The foppish young admirers had left

To chatter somewhere down near Charing Cross,

The critics had forgotten who he was,

His last ...

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At grubby winter’s evening time,

They waited in the cold and dark.

He saw her run across the park;

Each changed their taxis in between,

To take no chance of being seen.

He opted for a jazzy blue;

She wrapped herself in guilty green.

Later, beneath a small squashed sky,

They looked back at the empty room,

Scraped featureless by some new broom,

With all scraps...

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He had said: ‘Don’t give it a thought,’

So I did not;

But later, in the shade of a waking moment

Of a quiet spot, I did.

It was not the thought, but the memory;

I had opened that door

And seen them. It couldn’t be erased

Or picked up off the floor, not now.

She had come after me, rearranged her hair.

Then his turn to explain,

Or try to, but I was in no ...

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The global rat,

He’s on the prowl;

He may be eating local fowl.

No time to talk,

No time to play,

Global rat is getting away.

He’ll never been caught, the global rat;

He’s fallen down hard and hit the ground,

Yet signs of his presence still abound.

The autumn leaves, the apple tree,

The family down at twenty-three,

Can testify he’s still around.

W...

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Once demos held the highest ground;

We marched against an unjust war.

Now what the hell do they march for?

These folks (mostly blokes) like the sound

Of their own voice. What do they say?

Why should we let them have their way?

They talk of choice and being free

But do not know what these words mean.

They disbelieve all we can see

Through face masks and the plastic s...

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Come Sun, drop down, defer to light;

Defer to stars, soon twinkling bright,

Defer to the Moon, up above,

Defer to unlit, sombre love.

Defer to silence in the sky,

To floating clouds which tiptoe by,

To owls and their nocturnal shriek.

The dark, by dint of huge physique,

Enjoins the light to stay away

And shields the secret lives at play.

At least till Earth compl...

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The plight of such seniors is well known:

Stripped of a status they once used to own,

They still play a part at eighty years old,

With faces flushed and extremities cold.

Retired from cavorting on the stage,

With spouses well beyond the pension age,

They favour shop clothes and elastic waists,

Count Berg and Stravinsky among their tastes.

With no further...

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There is a limit to the size of Earth;

We have to learn to live within this sphere.

This air, this land, these seas are all we have;

We can’t make any more, no matter how

We play and toy with innovative fakes.

No annex on the Moon, no Mars estate;

We work with what is here, without complaint.

There’s progress, there is fantasy, and then

Wet dreams of schoolboys wasting...

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Raw data swirled around my head;

I should have been in love instead,

But I was not. Time and again

The mechanism of my brain

Seizes up with dancing numbers,

While the worn-out city slumbers.

The next day, through some early mist,

I hesitate, but don’t insist;

Convoys of data trundle by

And each one tries to catch my eye;

But, for the sake of you and I,

I steel myse...

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The crushed-ice boy in the corner

Has both his eyes fixed on the cup,

But the old hands near the dart board

Have the tournament sewn up.

Though cocky, preening juniors

Contest the calls across the net,

The veterans the other side

Win at a canter for a bet.

Gun-waving youths are boasting that

They’ll stop the flight of helpless birds;

The grey campa...

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One evening as I dig and hoe,

I chance upon parades of souls,

Proceeding past the garden’s end.

Electing not to comprehend

The point of our respective roles,

I follow, distantly and slow,

Then stop, astonished, in the woods.

For my intruder’s eye can see

The souls span humankind, of course,

But plants and beasts are there in force;

You find a man, an ass or tree:

O...

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Five minutes past sell-by,

Near perfect to taste,

A plush gourmet banquet

Is tossed into waste.

Misshapen apples,

Slightly ripe pears,

Twisted bananas,

Soft kiwi squares

Are spied by the sorters,

Discarded as scrap,

While all the world’s starving

Present arms and clap.

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I still cannot believe

He is in Number Ten.

I’d seen him more in films,

Cavorting on Big Ben.

As Fay Wray screams so high,

He gives the girls the eye,

And spouts the practised lie

Of all such gilded men.

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Getting something for nothing

Seems like a pretty good deal,

If perhaps a touch unreal.

The moment when you break the bank,

With no one else but you to thank.

Getting something for something

Puts you on a level pitch.

You swap a bit of that for this,

The balance, in the end, of which

Depends how much the something is.

But getting nothing for something

Is ...

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It’s not ours, our ‘own’ backyard;

We pitch a tent and borrow

This patch for our duration.

By diversion, we consume

At an ever faster rate,

But for the same reasons – sex,

Greed, guilt, jealousy, revenge –

As ten thousand years ago.

Are we happier today?

Contented and more fulfilled?

Brainier and better skilled?

We think so, but do not know.

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A tango, a foxtrot, a waltz :

They danced until the night had gone.

This was, by now, their greatest love,

But not their consuming passion.

That stopped years ago : a booze-up,

A handshake and out of the door.

All efforts of return rebuffed.

So now they twinkle starrily

Around the glitter in the halls,

Their sunset years a rare campaign,

A chance to live their li...

Read and leave comments (3)

We used to live in packed societies:

Packed trains, packed clubs, packed shoulder to shoulder,

The crowd squeezed in and sniffing next door’s sweat.

Think back : no room to pass on the pavement.

From now on the word is to move apart,

Keep everyone out of touching distance,

Disinfect at will, no song or shouting,

Forbidden seating, air hellos and bows.

Our use...

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Up there, two lovers trembled, face to face,

While life raced by, at its frenetic pace.

Some days and nights passed by; the people talked

And in the cool of autumn time some chalked,

Upon inviting spaces on the wall,

These drawings of the lovers and their fall.

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There is an moment prior to a storm,

Just as the wind is piling up its force,

As clouds prepare the deluge soon to come

And light dims slowly into daytime dark.

A pause to quietly evaluate,

In fat, adhesive air, perhaps too late,

The shaky balance of our bite and bark,

The precipice of life, the total sum

Of highlights and a chance to alter course.

Now we retreat fo...

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Groupthink, doublethink, we’ve all had enough.

The very act of thinking is unwise.

Sit back and let this truth wash over you;

That’s the idea. Nobody will notice

The interruption of your whirring cogs

In the red letters of the global brain,

Or miss your spit-smart, jabbered online views.

There’s a new world out there; wide boulevards

And joyous, sunny escapades await

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A group of my neighbours, past middle age,

Run every Tuesday, in the dead of night,

Like the wind to the end of their garden.

Rain, snow, hot, cold, they strip off and make love.

‘So what? It’s a free country,’ you might say,

Unless you know that most are Generals

Who don't want the place to remain that way.

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The truth is a mountain

Encamped in thoughts above;

Revealed in cares and woes,

In daily highs and lows,

In whispered tales nobody knows.

Truth is the chainsaw

And the fighting cocks,

The rolled umbrella,

The undistinguished socks.

Truth is East,

Truth is West,

Truth is what you once did best.

Truth is those who fail the test.

The ones who...

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To a vintage film director,

A naive drifter was ensnared

By the wiles of a platinum stunner

And liquidated husbands in his rage.

Nowadays in the service sector,

The drifters come better prepared.

They ring just the once and do a runner,

Venting anger at the minimum wage.

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Big Dave Diff was a local bloke;

He liked a laugh, a risky joke;

When no one watched, he cadged a smoke.

One day he told us he was broke.

Though usually a blow to pride,

He seemed to take it in his stride,

But soon great chasms, acres wide,

Would open up on every side.

His savings short, surviving thanks

To social credits and food banks,

Dave’s loan sha...

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What she remembered was the sound of seagulls,

Not the burning eyes of the eager boy

She had come away with for a dare.

Harold. Yes, that was his name.

She could see he had it all planned out.

‘I’ve brought some,’ were his first words.

Frinton. She had gone there because that was where

Mum and Dad had spent their honeymoon.

Where she was conceived, almost certainl...

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I remember him all those years ago,

Ploughing through the sleet and the mushy snow

One late December night at Upton Park,

Where pre-Christmas fixtures lit up the dark.

He made his move in his late middle age,

Flaunting his body on the public stage.

Far from Charles Atlas but certainly male,

Folds set to wobble and skin turning pale.

I recall the cold steamed ...

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They needed a short paperback on love:

‘A hundred pages,’ explained the letter,

‘Airport stuff, a Christmas stocking filler.’

Simple enough, I thought: a poem or two,

A few choice quotes from the usual suspects,

A photo of a couple by the Seine,

Plus memories of passions at first sight,

Delirious summer days of pleasure.

‘The Little Book of Love’, I shall call it.

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Come out today! Come out today!

To see this first of June display!

The pinks, the whites, the blues, the reds,

Emblazoned on well-tended beds.

Fuelled by spring rain, still in the soil,

The fruits of nature’s ceaseless toil,

They preen themselves till summer’s heat

Brings shrivelling and sure defeat.

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A drifter rides into the town,

Soft-spoken and quite roughly dressed;

His smile and manner win him friends,

Three others are far less impressed.

While he relaxes at the bar,

They gather, spoiling for a fight.

The plain folk start to peel away;

This is a match of wrong and right.

He swigs his drink and spins around;

He picks off one from either side.

The...

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An uninspired singer,

A rather plodding song:

Zero voters can't  be wrong.

No offence, mind;

I'm sure they did their best.

I just wanted

To get it off my chest.

Read and leave comments (6)

Your loveliness faded with the morning.

At first sight, this may seem strange. Why should it?

The daybreak, with its blaring rays of sun,

Perturbed, with its sudden glare, our idyll:

The twilight just before impatient dawn,

When your beauty had attained perfection.

Illumination disarranged the mix,

Removing the refinement of the dark.

Will we see again this rare conjun...

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At the time of colours, no one came here.

The sea-red sand, compacted, stained the floor

Of the yellow valley. Some way above,

Off-duty mountains in teardrops of blue

Topped hedgehog browns in bark of trees. At dusk,

Venus shone, white as glass. No one came here.

Alleged sightings of a stagecoach, a cart,

Or a bicycle, easily disproved,

Confirm this truth, with proof t...

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As he looks out past prison bars,

He magnifies the unkempt world:

Sees leftovers for Sunday lunch,

Dry sandwiches, with corners curled.

The paint is peeling off the doors;

The once-thumbed books are brown and frayed.

Through windowpanes, opaque with grime,

Lie bills piled high, as yet unpaid.

Most words recede in faded ink;

All vivid colours dim with age,

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Now is not important;

Nothing really matters.

Your latest wheeze in shreds,

A whole month’s work in tatters.

This is not what matters.

Your ego is the thing

Controlling this charade,

And in a cowbell’s ring,

Lines spoken by a bard

Or low skies dappled red,

All timelessness is stored.

While close by, in the head,

A devil’s dreams are moored.

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The college master lurks behind the screen;

The innocent young student is his prey.

‘My experiment!’, he cries, triumphant.

Inside a church, remorseful priests clench hands;

Dog-tired wives can stand their fate no more.

Jealousy tears the fabric of their dreams.

Slow-witted boys are beaten to the punch;

An old man’s lust awakens from the dead.

Ambitious workers sl...

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Poems, deep on many levels,

May end up nowhere near enough.

At such a time, we should give thanks

That Mister Larkin did his stuff.

It’s true he had a gloomy side

And used the odd indecent word,

But nobody would claim his work

Would better be unseen or heard.

He wrote about the everyday,

Of unspent childhood, wedding feasts,

Sullied posters, non-co...

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We ordered him to write a verse.

The poet laboured night and day,

With little rest and with no pay,

And penned the best he could muster.

But as time passed, we feared the worse;

Now his ode has lost its lustre.

Its shiny eloquence has gone,

Its bounce and pace is weighted down

And, like a fading seaside town,

The content has slipped out of date.

There is an ...

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From her balcony, she scrutinised

A man’s strong hairy leg below.

“A very impressive one”, she purred.

“But I have two,” was his insistent reply.

Peeping downwards, he panicked, rose,

Unexpectedly lost his balance

And rummaged through the undergrowth.

She leaned over and waved something;

Enticing him up with the prospect.

“Is this what you were looking for?”

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I want a revolution now;

I want to smash the state.

I want a new society

To end this cruel stalemate.

I want to stop the lockdown,

Some lines of police to knock down;

The walls are going to tumble,

The edifice will crumble.

Hang on, they’ve opened up the pubs!

Oh well, mustn’t grumble.

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They’re lying at the bottom of the hill;

Not destined to climb back up to the top.

Face down in mud, their bodies stiff and still;

Their untold stories blasted to a stop.

We knew them once, as neighbours and as friends;

Their crime was being on the other side.

Once peace arrives, we’ll try to make amends,

But there’s no bringing back the ones who died.

For on...

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Below the stairs is where I want to be;

The people up above are too consumed

And sickly in their self-congratulation.

The air downstairs is pungent yet perfumed.

No rueful, unrequited love dwells here;

This place is where our follies are exhumed.

There’s no plush carpet like they have up top,

Just dingy crumbling concrete on the floor.

Some tenants may be flawed o...

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In that one orbit of the Earth,

He must have understood far more

That any human mind alive.

Think about it. Not just the view,

But actually being there:

Above the trifles, the low plod

Of puffed-up order, the slow deaths

In crowds pressed against shop windows.

Above the bile, the pious chat,

The mush of mediocrity.

Above the relevance of air.

Seeing all t...

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Glad to belong to the mainstream;

Delighted that my boats are burned.

I’ve joined the crowd life passes by,

The columns of the unconcerned.

My friends will never admit it,

But we are all set up just fine.

The ink, still drying on the page,

Initials with gusto each line.

There is now no way back for us;

The contract is sealed, like our fate.

And what is ...

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The cynics are the enemies of love;

Though cheats and low deceivers have their faults,

A part of them is driven by their heart.

The cynics know the fickle candle’s flame,

The ravages of time, the wilderness,

The unaccomplished ventures of our dreams.

But isn’t it delightful when they’re wrong

And one condemned liaison turns out long?

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As soon as they cast eyes upon

Our muddy shoes and soaking socks,

The other kids and parents knew

That we were from the unmade roads.

Of the school’s catchment area,

The fraction we made up was small.

Reputed brutish, we compared

Badly to the pounded pavements.

In truth, I think that they envied

Our potholes and rough traditions:

Card schools, brisk tra...

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The horny-handed sons of toil

Roll up their sleeves and till the soil.

They function as a perfect foil

For lovers, hidden in the trees,

Who cool with pleasure in the breeze,

In huddles which nobody sees.

They wander later back to home,

Each one tired from their labours;

Here they will subsist as neighbours,

Friends, dispensing valued favours,

Gossips, s...

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The blossom sparkles on the trees,

And now spring time is here.

This should be a new beginning,

But it is not, I fear.

For infections rocket upwards,

The situation’s tense.

It’s as though someone is having

A laugh at our expense.

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Last night

I walked upon the water.

I really walked

Upon the water.

You who do not believe me,

Come back tomorrow and

I will tell you

That last night

I did it again.

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Our centre forward, just before the game,

Downed quantities which put us all to shame.

The dressing room was strewn with girlie mags

And at half-time we puffed on full-strength fags.

A few jars at the club then down the town,

Towards steak joints and strip clubs of renown.

Back then you could stagger to your motor

And fiddle overtime on the rota.

Those were t...

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Let’s give three cheers for public schools;

They fill the country full of fools,

Whose birthright is to make the rules.

In places not displayed on maps,

The locals queue to doff their caps

And show support for these fine chaps.

The playing fields, the blazered crowd,

The exhortations shouted loud,

The offside goal not disallowed,

Space reserved for each re...

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It’s such a waste when people who

Spend half their lives engrossed in chat

Perceive that they are having fun,

With pallid mates, all underdone,

Or hangers-on. They chew the fat

Until there’s no fat left to chew.

The world spins round

And time goes by

And then they die;

Once they are safely in the ground

We wonder what they could have done –

What they woul...

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(As we approach the anniversary of the first lockdown, the theme of this poem from March 2020 may still be familiar)

At six o’clock, the hour strikes;

The fragrance of the flowers still remains.

The man about town stays home for dinner

And churches are closed to every sinner.

This March twenty-twenty,

In the land of plenty.

At eight o’clock, the hour strikes;

The ...

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If you pay me,

I’ll say daylight is black,

I’ll say the sun is blue,

The moon’s held up with glue.

If you pay me.

If you pay me,

I’ll say the square is round,

Your friend fell through a crack,

The world is safe and sound.

If you pay me.

If you pay me,

I’ll give you the nod,

Get you in the squad,

Make room up on the stack.

If you pay me.

I...

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Awake at dawn, with almond eyes,

The queen is seated on her throne;

Confronted, under leaden skies

With prospects of a life alone.

The taste of young and tender shoots

Was too soon soured by the storm,

And crushed by soles of marching boots

Which flaunt their predatory form.

In some far field his buried feet,

Anonymous, lie, like the rest.

The one who m...

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In sunny times outdoors,

They will drag down the tone;

But when the weather’s foul,

They come into their own.

They keep at bay the mud

And swallow up the rain;

They fight the bitter wind

And, best, they don’t complain.

(From "The Shape of the Trees"). For all gluttons for punishment, this book is available free on kindle (Amazon) from Friday 26 -Sunday 28 Feb...

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So, it has come to this, I hear:

The total sum of human existence,

The very germ that led to our creation.

Don’t give me that, I’m a busy man;

I can’t be bothered with such things.

What I have to do is resolve

This argument over who can fill, or empty,

The dust bag in the fastest time.

Let battle commence:

The referee checks his watch,

The seconds are r...

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Listen to the spring: arriving

Discreetly, like a masterpiece

Of understatement, noticed when

The chilly air melts in our hands.

Then longer days of time relax

And pass their message to the world.

This is no moment to forget

But, by nature of reminder,

A step upon the path we tread

Towards our better selves and lives.

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That’s not me standing there;

It’s not my face I see.

The music is so beautiful

And I yearn to be so free.

I want to float up on those notes,

So sweet and gently lilting;

I want to sail in heaven’s boats

And feel the blue sky tilting.

Never more will I feel this way;

A unique moment has now passed.

He has nourished my perfect day;

Banality now seems ...

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During their sixty years, it was him:

Always the one thinking big, dreaming

Of contour maps of the shires,

The rapid spread of forest fires,

Views of the moon, magnified,

Deserts, stretching far and wide.

How the diamonds glinted

And his projects hinted

At non-stop, love-soaked fun,

At daring days blessed with sun.

While she focused on the miniature:

Coll...

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In the woods, unkind glances cascade down;

Corpses howl as they dangle from the trees.

Bored beasts run wild and roar at every pass;

Trespassers beg for life upon their knees.

The night-time tunes of childish thirst for blood

Make matters worse by willingness to please.

The rain drips through and drenches body parts,

As errant spouses plead outside and freeze.

Armed hu...

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I was born in Essex,

But I never really lived there.

In truth, nobody does.

The county, like its cricket grounds,

Gets up each day and does the rounds.

On one hand, there’s Basildon:

‘A Taxi Town’.

On the other, Kelvedon Hatch,

Where next door’s son or daughter

Is ‘something of a catch’.

Misplaced commuters, left to roam,

Walk streets near Hornchurch...

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Those socks that Dad gets at Christmas,

Sellotaped in packets of three.

The monosyllabic young man

That your daughter brings home for tea.

The fair to middling result

Of your son’s prestigious degree.

The mediocre performance

Friends and family had come to see.

The soufflé which for once falls flat,

Reminding one of molten brie.

The putt ...

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Behind the door, true love awaits,

But not like any love we know.

It is a feeling stronger than

A star-crossed tango, taken slow.

The peak of amorous delights

Lies beating in air mountain-thin.

The wordless, unrepentant act

Sinks deep beneath our shedding skin.

This is a force beyond control

Of any stable, settled mind.

Obsession is a gentle term

For...

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It began when a man discovered a hole in his trousers.

A bullet, a burn, an assault? The police were baffled;

They had no answers, only theories.

A suspect was arrested, then released.

Discontent rumbled in the town.

The victim made a tearful public appeal.

Vigilante groups were mobilised.

Journalists probed, going door to door;

An on-line team led a large-scale e...

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My perfect day

Begins imperfect, flawed,

Even downright miserable,

But becomes a little less so

With the passing of the hours,

Until the sentinels of sleep,

Calling from above their towers,

Say : 'This, in its unlikely way,

Has turned into your perfect day.'

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We dash around and do

The things we should not do,

And then enjoy our fun

To countervail the pain

Of races we have run

And will run once again.

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Somewhere out there exists a voice,

Distinctive and unique as yours,

Which shuns the norms of rise and fall

And spits out harsh staccato roars.

Though issued from another place,

It soon seeps through inside your skin,

And, once you bolt too late the doors,

Invades your conscience from within.

At first you notice minor traits:

You say things that you do not...

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One dark Sunday afternoon in the gallery,

We watched the people stream out of the theatre.

I remember the men, identical,

All dressed in sharp, grey suits;

And one sparkling woman of a thousand kisses,

Trying, with inadequate translation,

To explain each one.

(2019)

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