Football after school became

a game within a game. Wait

until the man goes for his tea

then invade his hockey pitch.

No jackets for goalposts here,

real wood, sometimes even nets,

limed markings,  tonsured grass

without bare patches.

Teams chosen, slowcoach Steve

picked last, and off we go.

Refereed by consensus. Corners,

free kicks, won by loudest shout.

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Have you ever found an author that you really, really get,

who can tell a story like it should be told,

with such convoluted plots that drive you round the bend, and yet

you’re on tenterhooks to see the tale unfold.

There are times you think you know exactly what will happen next,

but then suddenly it takes another twist,

when events take a direction that can leave you quite...

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When I awoke, my face was wet with tears.

It was a dream I dreamt, a reverie,

a memory that lingers through the years,

some distant echo of a younger me.

That summer when you came and took my hand

to hold through sunlit days and ceilidh nights,

with moonlit walks across the rippled sand

that stirred our blood to reach such starry heights.

A simpler time of youth a...

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When melancholy takes me I take refuge in the blues,

to soothe the aches that break me when I hear some heavy news,

‘cause when my heart is hurting I can find no better cure

than music for diverting me until I feel secure.

I sublimate my weeping to the sound of a guitar,

whose wailing tones are keeping my emotions where they are,

with the volume past eleven so it echoes thro...

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With harvest safely gathered in

this Hallows Eve, the dead will rise

to haunt the homes of kith and kin

with echoes of the bean sí’s cries.

Then fearful folk will all withdraw,

and leave outside their sacred gift,

remaining safe from tooth and claw

of spectral shades who cross the rift.

Deep in the throes of Samhain’s night,

when terror pounds the panicked brea...

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The words you wove woke something inside me,

and in the wakening I found a thread of hope

that had me weaving yarns of aspiration.

But the weft turned out to be warped

and the fabric wrapped in a web of lies.

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Soft summer dusk now gently fades;

as evenings wither and decay,

and nights grow longer every day.

As starlings leave their golden glades,

to fly and find a warmer clime

and through the winter bide their time.

No more we’ll hear their serenades,

for they will not return to sing

until the heady days of spring.

And curling leaves in autumn shades

of yello...

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Ring out those solstice bells to mark the fading

of autumn’s dying embers into darkness,

where barren branches cease their masquerading,

to file forsaken in their silent starkness.

Where once were saplings, now tall trees stand sentry

to guard the wooded vale’s majestic fastness.

And so they spend their days, these forest gentry,

enduring winter’s cheerless months of...

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With war machines unleashed the lands run red,

awash with all the blood of innocents,

while we quail at the counting of the dead,

a toll that from far off makes little sense.

So which is right, and which is wrong? Who knows.

The winner’s he who wields the bigger guns,

and while it lasts the body count just grows,

computed not in numbers but in tonnes.

As open-mouthed we wat...

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Lingering light of summer gently fades.

Evenings wither into deepening dusk

and lengthening nights grow chill.

Swallows start to leave the gossiping glades

for warmer climes, to winter as they must,

and birdsong begins to still.

Then all too soon the summer’s green cascades

begin to turn to shades of brown and rust,

gently down from trees to spill.

So once...

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The rollers roll and the breakers break

as the storm sweeps unforeseen,

and the waters boil and the clouds roil

but the moon looks down serene.

All the ships that creep across the deep

and even the submarine

take closer haul through savage squall

but the moon looks down serene.

Though winds may blow and waves may grow

as the tempest supervenes,

sailors hold ...

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These trees that throughout summer gave us shade,

protecting us from global warming’s sun,

begin to lose their leaves, and every glade

is carpeted in ochre, red and dun.

Then scrunching down once-sheltered forest trails

amidst the foetid fragrance of decay,

a chill autumnal flurry soon assails

our senses with its sibyllic display.

And so, with season’s ending now ...

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Beyond the mountain pass, past scattered rocks

the sea appears; a familiar shimmer of blue

flecked with transient wisps of white.

Along squigglous roads anticipation builds,

and my destination plays peekaboo between

wind-warped trees and sheep-shorn fields.

I park at the sea wall, disembark into the ozone

aroma of Atlantic waves mingled with turf smoke;

ageless ye...

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The menace of midges, no-see-ums or gnats,

designed just to drive you distractedly bats;

they swarm by the lake for their airborne attacks

on humans provided as portable snacks

A cloud on the water both morning and night,

evolved into something that surely ain’t right.

I think Mother Nature has made a mistake;

why can’t she admit it and give us a break?

What good ...

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Silver grey swirls soak us, blind us,

with false hopes of brightness barely

breaking through. The tantalising

threat of sun seduces, then forsakes,

as the mist’s morning fingers extend

tendrils, strangle the glimmer of day.

Ethereal voices murmur through the hush

in muted exchange too faint to decipher,

muffled by the stifled swoosh of wavelets

whispering across an ...

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The lazy Lagan lingers through the fields of County Down,

where it slithers through Dromara and Dromore;

from the foothills of Slieve Croob through the countryside and towns,

and meandering through Belfast to the shore.

It’s not like the Niagara with its thunderous waterfalls,

nor the Nile that flows for many thousand miles.

It’s a sleepy little river, and yet to me it calls...

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How do you like your egg she said;

beside another one I cried.

With bread that’s sliced and nicely fried,

and some baked beans, take that as read.

Some bacon then, I thought aloud,

a crispy rasher, maybe two,

and mushrooms? Possibly a few,

just sautéed lightly, I avowed.

To wash it down? Some English tea,

nectar of the breakfast table;

I’ll drink as much as ...

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I feel a coolness in the air.

Bright sun still greets the dawn,

birds will trill their greeting to the day,

and yet I sense a change of mood;

the restless vacillation of a verdict

not quite agreed, but scales begin to tip.

Blackberries cluster, purple knots

of succulence, awaiting harvest.

Conkers fall from laden chestnut trees.

Breezes flutter branches d...

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Dreams are in the embers,

in shimmering red heat;

the subtle settling of ashes

reinforces the illusion of movement.

Unfocussed eyes

fix on flickering flames,

the acrid tang of burning turf

warms my weariness,

wraps around me

like a comfort blanket,

faded memories safely swaddled

in the reassuring glow.

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The ides of March and Julius Caesar

turned out to be a luckless geezer.

His pals had planned a sneak attack

and smiling, stabbed him in the back.

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A face of creased hickory

and black hair, like a wire-wool afro,

he waited in the clearing

where Uluru cast its ancient shadow.

As we sat down, he began to talk.

He spoke of his tribe, the Anangu,

and how they’d lived in the area and beyond

for countless years;

not recorded in books,

but by verbal tradition.

He spoke of the hardships

of daily survival,

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Some days you’re just not ready for the fray,

and when you wake, you’re out of sorts and grumpy.

You know the kind, when everything seems grey,

and only serves to leave you feeling jumpy.

You’d stay in bed, but it feels kinda lumpy

and amplifies the growing rotten mood

to kick you out despite your lassitude.

Then when you’re up, it goes from bad to worse,

‘cause curdle...

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Ebb Tide

The sound of seabirds carries on brine-tanged breeze, as they gather in anticipation of the bounty about to be revealed by receding waves. Strands of seaweed swirl at the water’s edge, struggle in vain to avoid becoming beached. Waves surge and retreat, surge and retreat, slowly ebb across the shore. Sunlight twinkles off perfectly sculpted wormcasts revealed by the departing ocean, gl...

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Words

flood out

on my page;

pentameter,

in elegant style.

Expressive sentiments,

pouring forth profound meaning,

in carefully crafted stanzas

to delight the casual reader.

Each perfectly projected syllable

showing imperious erudition,

I perform this latest masterpiece

to waiting contemporaries.

With fleeting introspection,

I wonder to myself;

when had I...

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A sleepless night of torrid, twisted sheets

and formless dreams that will not coalesce

nor yet survive to see the light of morn,

condemning me to my uneasy thoughts

and aimless morning spent meandering.

Beyond the path, I find a shining mere

so still it shows the echo of the trees;

no human sound disturbs this woodland scene.

A breath of breeze now ripples through the leave...

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When I come to a place of books,

my heart craves silence;

the reverence of readers

in search of knowledge, entertainment,

a spark to send thoughts

places they’d never considered.

How many dreams have been conceived

in the company of such inspiration.

Simple ideas given hesitant birth,

formed at this font of learning.

And whence comes this respect?

My fath...

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He stands at the field’s edge, astraddle

the scythe handle that rests between his feet.

The metronomic schoof schoof sounds

as sharpening stone scours blade.

Back and forth in relentless rhythm,

forehand to backhand along its length,

edge brightening with each stroke

till his shrewd eye is satisfied.

Chine flips to sward with a tweak of the snath,

his practiced...

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It has come to my attention that I’m old. I don’t

know when first I realised this fact; it has sneaked

up on me, below the radar as it were. And realisation,

when it came, was coupled with another realisation,

that this was not a sudden thing.

I suppose it was when the settings on my hearing aids

needed to be tweaked for the third or fourth time,

that the spectre of deafn...

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I’ll tell you of a writer, Bill the Bard as he was known,

a bloke that wrote a load of plays and verse.

He started out when good old Liz the First was on the throne,

and gave his actors plenty to rehearse.

He wasn’t all that famous but he got some well-earnt praise,

and coined some phrases never used before,

like green-eyed monster, elbow room, and also salad days,

so wel...

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It was a game we played on sunny Irish afternoons

when we had nothing planned but adventure,

taking us to magical, unknown places,

places we’d never seen, probably never heard of,

but were just there, in the unseen corner of nature’s eye.

It was a simple game. Just point the car down the road

and go. That’s it. But then came the decisions. Next left,

second turn to the ri...

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A glimpse of red brick boxes lined along the railway track,

where the people stop and watch us scurry by;

an excerpt from a scene in some suburban paperback

like a stroboscopic snapshot of their lives.

A transient impression of their washing on a line,

hanging frozen in that instant that we pass,

reflected in the rhythm of the high hypnotic whine

through the carriage wind...

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Darkened streets lit only by the stars

lie silent as a corpse’s endless sleep.

Adrift upon the air, the subtle scent

of daffodils among the shadowed trees.

There in the night I stand with shuttered eyes,

Imagining their glory in the dawn.

And in this dream, a sudden spectral shade

near stops my heart, for I have recognised

that severed soul whose loss I still will mourn

...

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What happened in the Middle East?

They argue but no one agrees.

Yet steadily the deaths increased,

and you think that’s ok? Oh please!

People dying in their tents,

a country crying, on its knees,

yet we supply the armaments,

and you think that’s ok? Oh please!

A war by any other name,

it still means killing and disease.

For some it seems like just a game,

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Through yawning tangles of unsleeping night

in snatches of unbidden sight

I catch a glimpse of you.

Against the shadowed curtain’s gloom, I swear

that almost certain swish of hair

a whispered hint of you.

That shudder yesterday at my front door

when shower’s sudden petrichor

evoked a walk with you.

A sound of laughter on the evening air

that speared me ...

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These days George is a binge drinker,

wears his red cross tabard down the pub;

not much of a religious thinker,

worships footy with his Sunday grub.

Pawned his knightly armour long ago,

gave the lance to pay his bookie’s bill.

Golden Dragon, Saturday he’ll go

with his wayward mates and drink his fill.

Monday morning finds him back at work,

hiding from the gaffe...

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We went abroad to guarantee the sun

and all this week we’ve revelled in the heat.

I have to say, we’re having so much fun,

with sights so stunning, home just can’t compete.

And oh, the food’s almost too good to eat;

I’ve put on so much weight, it’s pitiful.

We’ve stopped at this café to rest our feet,

to have a drink and text you something cool;

the weather’s here, wish you...

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All through this night your words have had me reeling;

I thought I felt the growth of a connection,

but now I’ve had to second-guess that feeling.

The glut of tears reflect on my dejection;

No matter what I do, I can’t stop crying,

for what you said can only mean rejection.

Was any of it real, or were you lying?

Why would you stoop to toy with my affections,

to le...

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This form has got a fearsome reputation;

I don’t know why, it seems ok to me.

I guess it’s ‘cause there’s lots of repetition.

Come now and let’s review my definition;

five tercets and a quatrain, I agree

this form has got a fearsome reputation.

I thought it was a simple composition,

but straight away the problem’s there to see;

I guess it’s ‘cause there’s lots of ...

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Can someone say what is the rationale

that says we cannot be platonic mates?

Simply because you’ve now become a pal,

we’re not obliged to have romantic dates.

We’ll still go out and chat and have a laugh,

no pressure to start jumping into bed;

and just ignore the sceptical riff-raff

who will not leave scurrilousness unsaid.

We two can be content in our rapport,

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I think of all the loves that there have been,

and there have been a number, it is true,

there’s one I hold so dear, and has to mean

the most to me. No matter when a new

infatuation comes along, I still

return to my old favourite in time,

to prove that I can never have my fill

of one who leaves me feeling so sublime.

The taste of some brings pleasure to my lips,

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What is it with those weathermen that now

they want to give a name to every storm?

Do they believe that this will humanise

the winds and floods left trailing in their wake?

And will a cutesy designation serve

to moderate the mindless potency

that rips the very rooftop from our home?

Shall we just smile when rivers burst their banks

to fill the house with all that endless oo...

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