Based on the Gospel of Luke 2

A decree from Caesar* spread across the land,

That all should go to be enrolled and taxed.

To Bethlehem, where Joseph took his stand,

With Mary, great with child, as law exacts.

While there, the time was come for her to bear,

And she brought forth her firstborn son, divine.

In swaddling clothes, He lay without a care,

Upon the straw, God...

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The summer’s almost gone, already missed,

and waking in her place the autumn grieves

her sister, though they cannot coexist

where russet and burnt ochre bleed the leaves.

Yet in their rigid, regimented ranks,

a growing hesitation brings unease;

whose turn is next they ask, as nature’s pranks

reveal the winter sun and summer freeze.

The seasons’ schedule raises suc...

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T2 will be an egocentric Déjà vu

T2 will bring back the hullabaloo

T2 will be the worst-ever S.N.A.F.U.

T2 will guarantee vindictive chaos ensues

T2 will be no ‘nice to be back, how-do-you-do’ 

T2 will bring back the world's horribilis hairdo

Don’t be a Muslim, Hindu, or Jew

Don’t say you’re a boy once named Sue

Don’t say you’re a migrant from Xanadu

Don’t say you’r...

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Dear, sweet empty vessel, rattling loudest;
I often wonder if you know the choice
is always yours to still that irksome voice?
Or is it when you feel at your proudest,

causing butterfly thoughts to rend the air?
Teeming morphemes tumble in profusion,
filling space between us with confusion,
thus leaving logic lost, and in despair.

It's futile having a conversation
with Dunning-Krüge...

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A life had my thoughts, ephemeral and bright!

Coursing thru’ the skies, in a shimmering light.

                    And time reached out, in a glorious embrace;

                    Rushing me breathless, through empty space.

When the memories came, unbidden but true;

From the nether mind the feelings broke thru’.

                    Some moments to rejoice, some sharp agony.

  ...

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All those voices yet in my mind,

From the years I had left behind.

            Casting echoes in that room -

            Pulsing through the dusty gloom.

The floating dust catching the light,

Shivered with unknown disquiet!

            The echoes gathered to surround.

            They animated the space around.

People I loved, now lost with time,

Speaking thru' the years...

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How so in lockstep with time is nature:
leaves drift in waves with the passing seasons,
marking an arrow's flight to the future
as the fate of life, which even treason's

high schemes and plottings would fail to outwit.
Each year i watch them through my window fall
to earth as they to nature's laws submit,
and am thus reminded i've bugger-all

to feel cocksure about: all things must pass...

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Love: just a quack cure, or panacea?
Could it heal all ills, like romantics say
or is what's actually revealed here
a deeper need, to keep hard truths at bay

with rose-tinted fantasies of 'The One' -
meeting your matchless other in a soul
who'll not rest 'til your loneliness is gone;
who'd nurture you and catch you, should you fall;

who'd be both free spirit yet faithful muse?
That an...

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Say, pretty caul, what sweet treasure you hide!
How few of us grasp its proper function
(much less the sensitivity inside,
nor the joy derived when giving unction.)

Perhaps some instruction might be supplied
by each owner, upon application?
For should this motivation be denied
it would stay a loss to half the nation,

while t'other half would remain unaware
that what's once given would...

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Cherished in my dreams, you've remembered me,
relishing those few brief moments we shared
just as i've held you in my thoughts, and wished
i'd had the bravery to say something
more - perhaps my number, hinting to ring
as soon as you got home - but i finished
off leaving you convinced i hadn't cared
enough, as i recall, to want to see

you again. Well, Donna, that's just not true!
I've ki...

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Worn weary, to the edge of sleep my feet

ache, blistered in lead boots, all topped by burn

of calf and thigh; my sole urge to return

to Leafy Glades, i head down Spencer Street,

where it hits me: i've not been here in years.

Forty-seven, to be exact. A flood

of memories overwhelms me. I stood

on this precise spot then, when, in my ears

the first inkling of a revol...

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Scars gouged through wood - whittled, age-worn grooves,

angles and curves releasing someone's name

from the desk they once called theirs. Each line proves

the testing of some long-forgotten fame,

some cock's reputation, whose ego's claim

to eternity's been overwritten

by a succession of hands - lives bitten

and chewed by history, the very same

hunger to be remembe...

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Check out those two kids! Only ten years old

and wasting their time in beating with sticks

the corpse of that shopping trolley. What kicks

can they be chasing? They've never been told

how to play well, i guess, so they don't know

any better (i can see in their eyes

they're barely enthused.) Soon they leave their 'prize'

abandoned, with one last, lethargic blow

and wand...

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Sheaves of stamps with perforated edges

Crumpled postal orders and giro books

Biros, jotters, paperclips and ledgers

Welcoming smiles and knowing, sideways looks

Parcels, diligence and calibration

Columns filled with calculator clicks

Ink stamps thud in rhythm with the nation

Lips seal envelopes with efficient licks

One day they came with boxes, drills and cable

“It’s ti...

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Face down in the water, she was found, unknown,

a mystery shrouded in the middle of Chorlton's grace,

No name breathed out, no story to call her own,

her life lost in a fleeting, haunted trace,

Lime-green top, drifting in endless sleep,

jeans covered in watery hue lay tragically still,

A tragic tale over the banks, sorrows deep

her mystery longers, pushing against our will.

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