Bodies are burning their oil lamps brightly

from the windows overlooking the church  

their silhouettes shape-shift on the bedroom walls

as they move from room to room,

neither stand still long enough for you 

to grasp who or what they are,

televisions flicker in accord

as if planned in some way, it’s strangely romantic

as if part of a passion play – and I am the only one h...

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The place where I come from doesn't bekon me.

It's always just... there, like part of my DNA

That never really goes away.

My home town doesn't beckon.  It's just there.  It just waits.

The places where I spent time have all changed hands in time.

But if I went back, I'd find... nothing the same;

Except the name, which always reamains...unchanged.

It waits for my retu...

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Once upon a time, there was a cake that was not just a cake
It was the cocoa powder, dark and bitter earth
that once was seed, fruit, promise
It was the butter, golden fat, almost alive
melting under touch, like fear or desire
It was the sugar, sweet and cruel
dissolving into itself
like memories that refuse to be remembered

The eggs are cracked, fragile shells of worlds
and from them f...

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Sunset Over Lupset (August 1968)

Lupset sunsets smelled of bonfires,

undercut with new mown grass,

wild mint by the kitchen window,

treasures in the strawberry patch.

Father sat with pint of shandy,

The mower cooling in the shade,

the rake stowed by the garden shed,

the kids with sparkling lemonade.

Sunset over Lupset

August nineteen sixty eight

Sunset ov...

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You are older now.

You are not just a kid.

Are you regretting the things

You wish you did?

Are life's sweetest moments

The ones already passed away?

Or can you look around

And find joy in your day?

Right where you are at this moment

You may cherish when you are old.

Moments now taken for granted,

Could be the treasures you hold.

One day you may la...

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Tears Of Nostalgia 

When will incessant rains will stop its sorrow,

when the deadlines of late assessments deepen the thoughts flow..

Thought after thought, with flourish and flow of

One's fond memories they keep inside their soul 💘🌬️

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Oh, those fantasy days

Of narrow houses, long gardens,

Backing on to the railway line,

Where passengers marvelled

At the symmetry of washing,

Doing its flappy each-way act.

The vegetable patches

Gobbled up the dust and grime,

And smiles were extracted

From the school of hard knocks.

At sunset, big, proud men

Would contemplate their lot,

And bow sun-fired heads

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A cigarette glows
reflected in the truck windshield
careening through the city night
These headlight beams
fruitlessly searching
for something gone
The Grand Rapids highways
never take me where I want to be
not even close

I drink awhile at Anchor bar
a quarter spinning on the table
thoughts go round, keep coming back
'til my skull's swimming too
Two more beers
heads they’re mine
t...

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Did I hit my head or have a fall?

Did my heart give out?

Am I under the stars?

Did I make it to heaven?

The memories I have are as strong as an over perked cup of coffee

I can’t forget or let them go

In fear that I’ll feel I’ll have never lived those moments to remember

I try to recreate those memories

I try to relive every moment

But each time I do

I realize it’s not...

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I dream in shades of azure blue,
White horses crest, their dance anew.
Murmurs soft on gold-kissed grain,
Diamonds dapple, twinkle's reign.

Song of light in subtle fade,
Saffron fingers sketch, persuade.
Shapes caressed, each curve's embrace,
Warmth's tender kiss, the night's soft lace.

Embers burn to sky's demand,
Fires grand where heavens stand.
Ashes red in twilight's hymn,
Silen...

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Moon eyed she goes 

She is one of the stars

Lonesome she is 

In the presence of Mars

Soon her reflection renews

She is a planetary part apart 

Memories become brand-new 

She is solo in this system 

And as the lights dim 

He becomes hers 

She sucks us in 

Until everything’s hers 

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My grandparents names stand in front of me

Hundreds of yards away from each other, neighborly

They were always a city away,

But now so close for eternity.

There with the named and the nameless,

Where so many lives remain only in memory.

There was wind blowing in the trees,

Sun beating down upon our face,

Some of us walked on,

Some of us stayed.

Flowers ...

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And so it's done

That dream I saved 

I cherished and nurtured

Fed the best parts of me

Now dried up and decaying 

Crumbling like flaky pastries

The color all gone 

Now grey and dusty

Like cobwebs in corners

Of long forgotten rooms

Like dirt on windows

No one has looked through 

The feeling I had

All diminished and dead

No longer a heartbeat 

O...

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Picture frame the moments. 

In diaries write them down. 

Hold on to such with all you have

for times will come around,

when they will be all that you have

to make it one more day. 

And on that day let all else go…

then you will find the way.

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It reaches further than "please fuck me" or "don’t touch me"

It’s a liminal in-between 

A line we like to call blurry

But I never asked you to undress me

My body abandoned me

My words went slurry

Tongue too thick to go beyond a mumble

Kind sir escorted me to save me from stumble

Four times play on my mind

One of them I even forgot

Until it accosted me during a usual d...

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We need Wordsworth
To save our beautiful earth
Who found God in Nature
And worshipped the creature
He grasped humanity as his own
For which he was born.
We need Tagore
In today's moment of horror
He taught how to conquer over fear
Here and there we can hear
The shrill cry of hungry vultures
The blood-eater creatures.
Tagore showed human love
How to weave it like a dove
He knitted the...

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A grey shade in the cottage shadows

a paw lick of sinuous silence

a tail flick of smoke

a pounce on time's toll

Like a smoke devil escaped the chimney

she inhabits the lounge at night

never settling

she drifts across the hearth

Like the umbral weight of her past

she settles beyond my sight

I sense only the leak

of light left by her passing

Like th...

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Pictures are simply moments frozen in time!
They make it possible for us to travel through time. 

Our own personal time machine but we can only catch a glimpse of the past, they have no way of telling us what the future may hold.

Relics of time and space, intergalactic instruments if you will, propelling us from one reality to the next. I wonder what stories all these pictures would tell, i...

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I remember running 

To the corner shop

A 10p mix-up 

Is what I got!

Exotic pineapple

In sugary cubes

Mixed in with 1p

and ½ penny chews!

There were Hearts of love

With messages wrote 

To give to those

Who floated your boat

Liquorice laces!

Hubba Bubba too

So you could blow pink bubbles

As big as me and you!

(OK, so that might be 

a ...

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So many warm afternoons
spent in my Grandad’s endless garden
Home to my first and only treehouse
when air-raid siren tests
still filled those Northern streets 

And most magical of all
the rough lumber shed he’d built
A place of wooden-handed tools
you had to carefully maintain with oil
tools that would have been his grandad’s

A place where big furry bees
chose to die with dignity
b...

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Never told you

I never told you
How much I really loved you
or how much I really did care
That is my biggest mistake

I would do anything for you
Even lay down my life
In place of yours
Without a moments hesitation

I never told you
How stupid I felt around you
Or how you took my breath away
And I regret not telling you

But if I told you now
Would you believe me
Would it even...

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I found out my old school friend who I had known since I was 5 years old suddenly passed away. He used to love to read biographies, and as I was thinking how sad it was that he never got to write his own autobiography, I realised that we are all in a way just like a living book. We've been lent to earth while waiting to be returned to the akashic library in the sky. 

This one's for you Gary (R....

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Ssssh

Listen…

Modern world blocking the transmission?

Too much traffic? 

A world too erratic

Does the whispering grass 

still play a tune

Or has brick and mortar 

brought it to ruin?

This world is so fast!

Take me back to the past!

It makes such a din

I don't know where to begin!

And cars, 

bloody cars everywhere!

If I had an...

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I made dinner at 10:30 tonight.

Fried Kielbasa, macaroni and cheese, cinnamon applesauce, and 

buttermilk biscuits. It’s what I always eat when I’m missing home. 

I had everything finished and on the table, except for the biscuits.

I never remember to start them ahead of time.

So, I waited— watching them impatiently through the window in the oven door, 

and I could hear...

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Shooting through the greenery
I lovingly eye our reflections 
as they flicker in the glass
of a Bruges-bound train
Your fingers knit silently into mine
warm in your woozy dreaming

On a dirt track headed for Hanoi
behind me on the motor bike
cutting through a tall tapestry of trees
my heartbeat lost beneath the engine
Twisting the throttle so instinctively
as you steal a kiss over my s...

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in my cupboards

skeletons hang

still mouths strangers to the songs they sang

I take them out

bone-dry and hoar

wan skulls shorn of the locks they wore

pelvic sculptures

sharp as a blade

silent shrines to hectic love they made

bereft of flesh

that lit my fire

no lithe joints but threads of thin wire

hot tears drop on

memories clean,

pick...

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If you can find your way back here
let’s meet
under the old whale bones
this place that we each love
Where we look out to sea
or back towards the sleeping town

One day, we’ll stand together
and unbeknownst to us
it will be
for the last time in our lives

Whichever of us, must go first
let’s make a promise to meet again
under the old whale bones
Hearts filled with feeling
and the b...

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aghast, I'd not seen her for ages

a ghost of love my mind engages

but fate had turned cruel pages

beauty once soared from these features

hottest among human creatures

Nefertiti of love's teachers

still young, my experience rare

she'd flown me gently to her lair

the first woman I witnessed bare

two hawks preen on a pyramid

pecking morsels of new killed k...

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from a broken past its pining

a voice never far from whining

for her there's no silver lining

still has long lists of her goodbyes

kept a record of all their lies

hot tears bubble in her red eyes

a rip in an embroidered sheet

dust under other peoples' feet

why couldn't life be safe and neat?

if only she'd learned better tricks

how to absorb life's bitte...

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Before the demolition

Turned my old Street

Into rubble

I went to steal some memories

Of our laughter & our struggle

I went to hopscotch down

The chalk lines of the past

Play tag with the echoes

Of ones who didn't last

Time had aged the street

Like a persons face too old

It wore the strain of many toils

From the ending of 'black gold'

I wal...

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Back in the day  guitar and bus fare 

Did someone say party ? Daves like "im ther"

Double trouble here's our Dave and Laura 

Double the fun Double bright Aura 

Brown brogue style boots cardigans long mac's 

Pin stripe shirts and corduroy slacks 

Tortoise shell glasses and bold colour socks

Stylish beyond.. vintage dave rocks

Musical man loved much by all

Tradit...

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through a window I rewind my life

the words I never seemed to utter

dreams that turned to piles of dust

it's better to pull down the shutter

that's the woman I didn't marry, a

love affair left to wither and stutter

her tears fall like rain in the street

it's better to pull down the shutter

sins of youth that seemed so bland

echo down the hot concrete gutter

...

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Picking you up to go driving
I’d get there early to watch you get ready
both seventeen and tangled
in that unspoken thing between us
Cruising the looping country lanes
in those dim headlight beams
That was our place, alone together at last
Two teenagers, eyeing each other sideways
and wondering who each of us would be
would you always stay right there
would you always be
in the car with...

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a bad lady's fallen down,

I bend to tender succour,

lean, quite ravaged now,

she used to be a looker

rheumy eye meets mine

sees me for an old lover

I ring for an ambulance

my raincoat for a cover

beyond speech, staring,

I stroke her grimy hand,

crowd standing apart, a

motley but curious band

she tries to speak, but

uttering merely tears,

tho...

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His words could become sharp as corners

And trap you there

Flailing in his grasp

They could pinch your skin

Until you cried

And cried

Throughout your shifts

They could catch your wrists and stop you

From moving on

From moving

They could lock the doors, no leaving

They could shame you and shrink you

They could come flying in from an open window,

A buzzing phon...

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SMASH!

Every time the glass of your skull

Crashes into the fist of another memory

To crush you where you stand

Because another memory has broken you

Because another memory has entered you

Like intruders, they force their way inside

They punch their way into your attention

They invade your heart

Until you must look at them

All so that they can violate you again

They...

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We will once again smell that hot humid air

As we descend below the suns glare.

Those warm beaches of foreign lands,

Where our feet dissolve into the golden sands.

We will once again step into this evanescent reality,

And treasure its timeless beauty

Scaling the towering peaks

Capturing moments as we speak,

We will once again canoe down a meandering river,

Trea...

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Back seat kisses, 

backyard volleyball,

barbecues, 

long walks in the woods, 

sunbathing on the beach, 

smiling, laughing,

talking for hours, 

holding hands, 

slow dancing to George Straight songs,

making love until dawn, 

falling asleep in each other’s arms...

Filtered memories, 

behind the sheer curtain of my mind,

or fantasies, 

found in a bottle

of ...

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The past is haunting:
  heartbreaking memories, 
  unbearable loss, 
  scars, seeping wounds.

The present is daunting:
  deadly viruses, illness, disease, 
  affecting everything - livelihood, 
  relationships, life. 

The future is uncertain:
  climate change, 
  conspiracy theories, 
  political upheaval, 
  civil unrest. 

We ask why:
  amid confusion, 
  gleaning truth from ...

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It takes me back to a boy;

the falling of snow

To a fluffy, white street

under a streetlight's dull glow:

Where an old man trudges through

Each foot now a plough

Eyes squinting to see

The here and the now

I watch from a window

My youthful eyes wide

Thinking: move to the road

Then you can slide!

But he carries on trudging

As I shake my youn...

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raining cats and dogs outside

Ron's too heavy, nearly fainting

ceiling's cracked and peeling

needs plastering and painting

never enjoyed sex, orgasms

gave me  not a second look

up there that web of cracks

is not unlike reading a book

he's pumping like a good 'un

I nearly dropped off to sleep

surveying spidery fissures

a bit like counting sheep

mem...

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I wish I never had to sleep
A vigil I would gladly keep
About your bed.

I'd watch you breathing out and in
Your eyelids gently fluttering
As if you dreamt.

You will not always be so close
That I can watch you in repose
Life takes such speed.

And now it is I most regret
The frailty that makes us forget
Moments like these.

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Have You Noticed?
after Mary Oliver

have you noticed how certain poems linger 
in the echoes of yesterday 

how certain triggers replay
a certain phrase

how hanging onto words
engulfs an empty room

how walking through fields
begets velvet moonlit nights listening to you

how spinning a record after dropping a needle
births a mountain of longing and sorrow 

have you ever notic...

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he says as it relates 
to a date 
of another first 
we’ve had. 

It reminds me of things 
I shouldn’t hold onto. 

It shouldn’t matter 
when I first noticed 
the way light hits his beard, 
or how his colors blend 
as in a Monet, 
only that I see them. 

It shouldn’t matter 
when those butterflies first flew 
from our insides; 
only that they fly every time. 

It shouldn’t matte...

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Your smile, your laughter was the light during the nighttime 

Your touch, The way your fingers would caress my soul 

Your voice , like soft melodies playing in my mind

Your time, if you had to say, it was well spent

Your life, was a gift; a small brown box draped in red ribbon 

our memories are embedded in my heart

I can feel it as if it were now. 

In memory of Chris...

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in the blaze of the summer heat, drips

of sweat rippled down our smooth skin backs.

we set out for adventure along the Pacific coast,

the four of us squeezed in a compact sedan.

sisters laughing, shouting, nowhere else to be.

engaging winding hair-pin turns, honking,

speeding, and slamming on the brakes

as the afternoon sun scorched the town.

we reveled ...

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Particles of dust swirl in the lamplight

Distant footfalls echo, muted by time,

Artifice alone is giver of sight,

Moments marked only by resonant chime.

Shelves stand bulging with catalogued memory,

Recent or stored for employment’s intent.

Lost, sacrificed to time transitory,

Older sheaves left sprawling; their shelf life spent.

Dusty cracked piles of sepia and g...

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“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” ~ Leonard Cohen 

Halloween frightens my inner child

who is afraid of masked men,

being alone in the dark,

daggers to the heart,

a body aging too soon,

eternal suffering... 

but the hollow night

gives way to a full moon rising

and a million stars to wish upon,

ushered by angels beaming light

throug...

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As autumn's rusty fingers begin
to push their way through tired trees
So, the early dimming light
and spectral chill conspire
to gently sweep me back in time

It's Oxford in the autumn
nineteen; with eyes opening
A new life unfolding
cycling through the leaves
and sighing under bridges

Oxford in the autumn
that brick so old around me
broad streets, illogical lanes
busses and puddle...

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All that's left is wreckage

Debris from what's over

The time when I loved

No more the idle rover

Ashes are better than nothing

Half a loaf better than crumbs

Yet memories burn painfully

What's forfeited still numbs

Years that went quickly

Days that ran into sand

Left poignant memories

Your soft yielding hand

That May day at the beach

Sand caugh...

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