With the consistency of smoke
eventually, our ghostly hands
must let go of this life
We may be thinning and fading
or still strong but cut down
However it’s done
the knot must inevitably untie

The light travelled so far
to dance upon our faces
We're alive, as nature is alive
to be strange or just to be
All that energy must return
into the freezing depths of space

Every smile, ever...

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Erecting her easel
at the foot of the boardwalk
she mixes the paint
a hell-fire pink and crimson
and dips her brush to begin…

She paints
the end of all things
a voice lost to the fractured mind
the final moments of a life
a hand slipping away

She paints
farewell hospital conversations
her father’s beard as a cloud
she thins the blue paint with her tears
She colours in his eyes
L...

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The air is warm tonight
the sea no longer ravenous
As the shawl slips from your shoulders
there’s a feeling that breeds in us
now, we are home
or close enough

A candle flickers at every table
the seafront cafes like crooked teeth
The harbour mouth is kissing us
with its swing bridge tongue and river beneath
We feel that we are home
or close enough

Tied by these rings
and the meani...

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O child, do not hasten to drop anchor
I hope you live so many nights
lost at sea or diving free
loving by the light of the moon
forever was never the point

You must not miss those smiles
as wide as silver sands
And kisses hotly dripping
like the candle you might write by
in some foreign hotel room

If you should meet them
out there on your journey
(and you should, you should…)
I ho...

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An Arctic air
pushes past the cracking door
as we step out
into the newly forming night
with many friendly cheers 
chasing us from the hall
The searing wind
grabs you by the ears
seconds abroad
and your bones will know the chill
in the chalk-white light
of this moon

Snow falls slowly
first on the cliffs above the lane
then these cobbles are scribbled out
under a virgin whiteness
...

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Decorated lives
shuffling onwards
towards inevitable darkness
we cloak ourselves
in the hood of love
cover the cage
deny the sky above
the truth is sadness

Tiny movements
helpless gestures
elliptical orbits
around the heart of happiness
an argument
with a river
convinced of our control
tilting the rudder
towards hope
the truth is sadness

Fold the patterned sheet
around your ...

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As a child, racing past the height post
eager to ride the roller coaster
there were those who'd jostle in the queue
to sit at the very front
with an uninterrupted view of what was coming
no obstruction to the beauty
of the madness
afforded by that ride
to see it all and see it first
filling up their eyes

And there were those of us who’d choose the back seats
secretly knowing that was ...

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What have you done with the daylight?
What have you done 
with all you’d waited for, so patiently
those long days of nothing
those long days of stumbling lost
between the armchair and the fridge
What have you done with the daylight?

What have you done with the daylight?
Since it came to you completely
painted so beautifully
smiling down and sunny
licking the edges of your everything
...

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Too seriously; I tend in my journey
too easy to focus on the duty
the facts of what’s in hand
the doing of a thing

So precious to see the nonsense
appreciate the humour
the madness
in everything you’re tasked with
by this modern world

So freeing to have a sense of silliness
draw a cock and balls on your mortgage application
scribble a cape and tights across the undertaker’s pamphlet

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At dream’s end 
we let the water flow
accepting
resolved

At dream’s end
loosening our grip
hold the best bits
release the scenes that never came

I imagined endless parties
some intangible heart that I could puncture
I imagined so much more
turns out it’s just another place 
moving at a heightened pace

Now I sit quietly
by the chequered flag
grateful to have run
chest heaving
...

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On some night-time road
with only the distant moon
or your dimming torch 
meting its weak light out

Do not be afraid of getting lost
some new thing 
may come to you there 
on the path that you can't see
some great thing may surprise you

On that long journey 
towards day's promised ending
without a real map 
to study or call upon

Do not be afraid of being wrong
take a chance 
a...

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I would not say this heart is hungry
I dare not say this heart is heavy
I only know now, a surer sense of all I want
a clearer description of what will fire
the drive, the rush, the love in me

If we're not going out tonight
then can we just sit and giggle
at each other, at the TV, at the others
can she laugh with me, make fun of me
until we have tears in our eyes, can’t breathe

When ...

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With eyes closed
I'm morning mellow
and grateful

Survived another crash
the screech of a derailment
isn't mine this time
but it only gets later 
in the day of my life
my luck must be spilling out
soon to all be spilled

Morning mellow, with eyes closed
still invincible 
at thirty seven

Beyond the pane
summer wind rips
licks at the glass
makes me feel small
and safe, for now

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As the sun slowly slides
through a quickly capsizing sky
you laugh at me for taking photographs
for wanting to record this way of things
do you not feel that this is temporary
do you believe there won't be a different way

These are precious moments
these are precious moments
in our short lives

And with each day that ends 
I feel a larger ending
creeping closer
and with each dusk de...

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