Thanks to all who took part in the poetry happening at the Oldknow, there was liberal variety and sheer quality throughout.

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to all!

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Swansea waves words at passing poets

The twenty-fifth day is long and in others souls,

A week later we enter the next chapter with

New raging goals.

Kissing capitalism's ass and not mine

Highway traffic moves in waves,

Or should that be it crawls like a crab

Marrying a woman from East Texas

She cooked Christmas pudding for dinner each night

In peanut and r...

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Here is the Oldknow Xmas poetry event poster. Note it will start at 8 PM, not 7.

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Gossip is simmering internal fathoms deep

So crazy for you I’m petrified by love

Witches watch the children cry,

As the jazz man freezes at what is here,

The Tesco Ghost floats like a butterfly

But gets stung by a speeding lorry

Freezing weapons like bullets

Then swallows wanting to come home

Crazy one-upmanship,

Leaves no more to be said

Frozen in...

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Birds in their time

Snatched by roaring winds

To dream of whatever is there

In the shadow is a haunted face

As another lies awake waiting now

Water, rising, frogs, fish, fins, brushing

The legs as they passed by

The hazy days of summer

And all that racket

From next door

Wish I could sleep!

To dream is to sleep

To sleep is to dream

The myst...

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Boxes of snore, law and war

Old soldiers in days of yore

Endless revising for the school dance

Go West across the park and guess

Who Fred could be

The black lab drags behind

Whilst a parrot swears

The social workers say it's OK

Not that I'd wish it on his people

But isn't it a shame that Kim

Can't have the wrath of Irma -

Or was it him that caused it...

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Dave left to stab an unwary autistic

The loneliness of sand.

The man with the photo left

Leaving small details which invoke a hidden world.

IT’S OBSCENE!!!

Freeing slaves from hidden bondage

Pandora had a lot to answer for

Sand in my toes

Sand in my boots sinking in rotten socks

Memories of Mumbai with my daughter,

Waiting for the monsoon

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Army recruiters indeed focus their efforts on C2DE youths in northern cities:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/09/british-army-is-targeting-working-class-young-people-report-shows

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/british-army-targets-young-working-class-recruitment-military-marketing-drive-campaign-uk-a7833086.html

https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/11324/reports-find-brit...

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An apt public hanging, packed treasure

Not like mine

The past zooms into focus in blow-up

In camera obscura

No-one spoke,

And the silence said volumes

Spuds and carrots and don't forget

To pick up the horseshit!

All sit in Domino rolls

I never told my students of stories

Waiting to escape

Pictures of matchstick men

Waiting to escape...

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Baggy trouser party I will vote for you!

Faded flowers, flowing emotions

Jumping over invisible cats

A stucco heron stalks a halting river

Three bags full, why three, why he, evil be

Evil wears many faces

Ginger Dorris offered peanuts

I bruise easily. My shelter is flimsy

And fragmented. It tastes of shallowed wounds

Sometimes it's a blessing

When a tra...

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Here are the contact details regarding 'Read Regional 2017', which Martin was talking about. It  appears be an initiative to encourage people to both write and read books and poetry within the context of the library system with some sponsorship from the Arts council.

There is a website:
www.newwritingnorth.com

There is also a local contact listed for Stockport Rachel Broster, senior Librari...

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Gunpowder walk around, a spark was sobbing

Underneath secrets hopping alongside humans

Inbetween trees weeping in regret

Wet willy, slippering down the slope. Pointing at

Your directionless forehead. Hop aboard the bumpy ride.

Wear a helmet. Your tongue is like a whip... but why!

Tip of the tonge. Sharp or soft

A host of feminist vegans

Lie in a pool of his o...

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Great poets inspire; we aspire to write only the adequate, the good;

Perhaps the funny or the emotional; and we are satisfied.

Are you the poor homeless beggar that was given

A good kicking by Paul?

Different people from all walks of life

Sharing their love of the written word

Swallowing our different realities

Confined in the rhythm of Thomas

And the dirtiness of Buko...

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White marble windowless womb

Seals inspiration inward, like a skull

Fenced by a colonnade and oaken doors,

A maze of steps and echoes.

White marble magic walls keep back the night,

Exclude the loud cheap town - its angry sirens,

Stumbling traffic, its cut-price ugly crowds

With inbred voices raised - our culture cuts away

These vicious tumours.

This purer place...

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Blue enchantment, starlight pallette

Nazi visions of underworld clowns

An evening of art, newborns, and profanity

The clown is still king.

The bubbling, squeaking sound rising

Shaking in a frantic situation

Blood swept under a script

I saw the fox and he saw me

Creatives of the underworld

Bleed out onto the page, voice rage

We sit in a kaleidoscopic wom...

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Lost in transition

Your words carried like a brief encounter

Emotion is the monster hiding outside the walls

Gangreen in suburbia and skinned alive

With donkey ears! Good Gods!

Occupations occupy stations on the wall

Barrymore paints the myths of time

To hang in Manchester as a quiet man

Tells of lost love.

Sonnets to art leave us lost

There's rumo...

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Homeless salvation in the snow

Begging barristers of poisonous kingship

My mug of prison tea

Is the hangover drink for me

The morning after a too merry night of play

No regrets until she calls me the following day,

A sparkling jet of water streams

Into the glass

Poetry; art with words

Truthful tunes played by a Pied Piper

Happy drinks, happy times

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