Aches like an August sky with a lipstick smile
Tangled at sunset in crimson skies
Despicable creatures run and hide in shadows

Drowned rats find worry in their shadows
Running across drenched summits
Footsteps lined up in haiku beats

The crystal glass of the past life
A wedding present in the charity shop
I see the other me, before she turns the corner.

It wasn't me!

Sacred threa...

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Herring-packed collisions gravitate together

In her own Wonderland she avoids the looking glass,

Red rain washes the stain away

Tonight we re-zoomed our relationship

Renewed our unspoken vows

The gods of Zoom count their coins in the jungle

Pollocks ! she cried, I'm at the wrong disco!

Marching onwards in this town of mine

The anger of the forgotten people

And those...

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You need to play blue guitar at this interview Miss.

while sitting back to the sea

Put on your red shoes and dance to Nigel’s blue guitar

strangers humming the songs of tomorrow's vocals

Shadows of sinners dancing across the years

as Nigel's guitar gently weeps

the boom and the base of neighbours shouting from next door to turn the noise down

You won't believe what just h...

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Spinning out of control history going mad

Gunpoetry Plotters spinning music by the River of Time

drunker and drunker with each nearer step he took on the road to Manchester

A susurration of stanzas and verses skim across the rooftops of Stockport.

relentless ripples of summer clouds

Grim it up, brother

Grim it up, sister,

graduate from sad.

a driver pausing in the...

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A heart that sleeps has a silent love that is never heard
Nicola, 
Paul 
and Vincent paint their house yellow
The below is smaller, the walk is stronger.

The journey to social disorder is closer than you realise
without any drugs.

There's more, you thief of night
with butter dripping from my brush
something stolen from the edge of midnight
unsocial distancing while on free government...

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Wake up to the glory of a legendary Nigel we do not know
Nigel was gone when we rioted that night time 
Nigel was gone when we ran out of chicken pie
It was the day they told us to learn again in insanity 
Nigel was first of course
Taking to unplug with Nigel
We are taunted or haunted by memories of the future
The inkwell was full of pulsating excitement 
hitting the right notes in music a...

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He's gone

gone

gone

I’m dreaming I’m Bohemian

Last time we met, gyroscopic diner punches back, back, back

punching mp3s isn't the same as punching records

This lockdown is never ending - send me more Vodka

The wrong place, at the wrong time, Icarus falls into the English Channel,

to be washed up on the white cliffs, and the Queen is left immortal,

as the freedom monarch

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Watching the walls begin to change in pieces
It burns my soul to write positive poetry
Let it all hang loose
To be or not to be the scarf asks why are you not wearing me?

An invisible army on the road to Damascus
The exhibition bats bored of paintings and poems
Decide to watch Netflix upside down

Rats take over postal sperm banks
If tears could come they would
The Stockport Nihilist Sch...

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Dreading the task of a thousand spots
Lost worlds now more than just regrets or soiled paths not taken
Walking through life with coke, crack, and endless possibilities.

In the amber of panic a book of hauntology is born
The biggest April fools prank ever

Miniature portraits of a poetic diaspora under curfew still deliver haunting lines

Gaining a better view at the edge of the world
Ta...

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Righteous and correct, the clown wilts

Rumour has it I saw someone in costume

From a magazine advertising hard goods.

It’s left my heads in bolts and screwed up.

Unlock my imagination.

No you can’t have a pancake: it’s Saturday!

Run your fingers through the rubble

At the altar of vengeance

Rumour has it, God is forgotten and pancakes need Nutella.

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In the new dawn of dreams

Adolf sits on his final throne of dirt dug deep,

Wondering if the English Bard would have loved him so,

Don’t go down that street!

We are wild-walking beings with a side of dark heart.

Sheep have beautiful contours and very furry

Hurry up Steinbeck, you’re rambling

Sitting on tailored lawns through polished glass

Not as cool in old b...

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Don’t pick up hitch-hikers

Whether at high noon

Or covered in red petals and blood

Dreaming of American skies

Trusted positions to make you relax

Be careful not to mention the Karma Sutra

Or a mobile phone will ring

Or a bluebird sing

Basildon bonds & lined paper

Snowflakes fall between the lines, melting

Oh Walter, dear husband of mine

Stiff as...

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Man Ray’s aggravated coffee sneaked

A glance at the new frontier

Thumbs up, India’s best lemonade,

Top of the pops!

An organised death takes Aunt beyond black

Rehydrate the astronaut. The sun approaches.

Whilst cleaning, it’s important to scrub

Behind the fridge.

Catacombs holding rooms in mind of carefully

Packed past chapters.

A bank, some bleach, a b...

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Helix barriers all over the world

Riddles flow through digital death traps

What is a man now with no cheap cigars

A mad dead love of afterthoughts gone

Mad Tony's hologram cycles around the

Lanes of South Wales as Alexa 

Shouts "Give us 20 pence!"

Ooh! I can see Winnie the Pooh

In The wardrobe!

The candle, the book, and the wardrobe;

Wet washing and dag...

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Fire burning over memories of Christmas

Santa is riding high into the silk sky

But he cannot come here with Brexit a tie

Donna chewed on Santa’s long toenails

As he snoozed on Blitzen’s fat belly

Where streaks of Pollock green ache

Like August clouds

In love with feathers and glass

As the fires take it all away

Widened eyes of the dirtiest faces

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Cheshire housewife buys her Hereafter Insurance,

Works hard for nativity with port and gin

Our truth is, success means excess.

Then lies were common in family life

Waiting, hiding, broken, when when true

As your eyes sparkle through Mona Lisa smiles

And lies of untruth spoken words

Housewife with her gin

And tonic gives Santa a good

Time!

Heavy Mon...

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My lightened, chastened offspring

Return to me, unknowing

Pincher Martin feeds devious plots

Tick Tock

Am I living? Am I breathing?

Life created by a whimper

Hyenas rejected at a tender age

Babies burst from beautiful bodies

But human nature drives towards annihilation

Leeching veins cling for life through the zealous

Suffocation of being fed with ...

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Strange seasons clip and slash new life

The hot sand blows into my soldier’s rations

The robot newsreader sounds like comical Ali

Bacon butties served under sniper fire

World’s end to wellies, flip-flop relief for Achilles

Do I deserve to be loved?

Drowning in an eternal sea of despondency

I rise up and say no

The season changes the earth burns

Naked ...

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Thread-bear walks away, brave and curious

Travelling down a road

Knowing nothing about time and space

Happiness of the hangman, as

the Death Row fly is executed.

Silken threads, falling heart strings

There is death in crowns and crones, in the tender air

We are always cutting threads - or weaving them.

I slipped on folded paper that has more than pa...

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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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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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Martin Thinks I’m Catholic
With thanks to Andy N, for suggesting it

My father adored me.  He cuddled me in his arms 
after my birth and said, Doesn’t she look intelligent, love?

My mother believed I wasted that intelligence raising babies. 
I was relieved disappointment had no place in her grateful sigh,
as I arrived at the hospital in time to watch her die.

My brothers consider me...

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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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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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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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Crossing over reflections

Mirroring his own life

Life is disappointing; but love is always

beautiful, even across dreary railway tracks

kniving through his childhood

Hair kissed under Homeric stars

Whatever the weather.

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The difference is disappointment

drowning in a child's mouth

Ladies for tea please leave

that tasty last cake for me!

Brought back to life,

but find nothing but silent blackness

A smile, a nod, generosity and warmth

I haven't been disappointed

The Beatles all white album

on a railway platform

summer is in their eyes

too full of chocolate and ins...

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Skip to the blue book, where Kerouac

Sounds better than Spanish

Pouring madness into teacups

Weeping daily for the return of summer

Relinquish, forgive, summer

Washed up love on a bed of lies

Impelled by the weird sisters

Into someone else’s destiny

I have got a mental block

Can’t think of the rhyme

So you’ll have to wait til next time

A mi...

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Andrex from front to back

Thank you, thank you Andrex!

Disordered by lines of deja vu

Press the button and get turned on!

A bitch of eternity, especially

If you are a 'Good Wife'

I like fish and chips washed

Down with some beer

Autumn dreams, sparkling clear

Kissing echoes, blowing words

From a distance, past lives, long exposed,

Zoom into ...

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You gaze into the viewfinder

Joining cults

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries

Love escaped through

A hole then took it over

A bridge upon the moon

Rupture, we all, sod it!

The pen swoops and captures.

Laughing anteaters following screaming demons

Bee working to death

Procession of American angels

File across a bridge to the moon

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Internal dreams follow you around

with a golden enchantment

No one knows the girl who is all alone

In a pub where no one goes

Witchcraft, murder, death and anger

An accidental queue jumper, that's me!

No one expected doughnut eyes

The eager needle drinks its fill

Leaving pools of shadow across antique eyes

The worst death is self-inflicted

But...

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Risky potential in another file

Back row snog leads to a smoke

Down on the couch with my

Ticket to ride

Carrying yesterday second hand

Across finer memories across leafy roads

And cherish the richest poor child,

Wellies, winkle-pickers, sinking mud.

And Mary pondered these

Things in her heart –

Women are smiles. Love wears wellies.

Telephones are sex...

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Risky potential in another file

Back row snog leads to a smoke

Down on the couch with my

Ticket to ride

Carrying yesterday second hand

Across finer memories across leafy roads

And cherish the richest poor child,

Wellies, winkle-pickers, sinking mud.

And Mary pondered these

Things in her heart –

Women are smiles. Love wears wellies.

Telephones ar...

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Neutral mind draped across grimy windows,

Got to be cocks and screwdrivers

Ducking and diving across unexpected surprises

Policies of strange girls from Blackpool

and Brief Encounters recycled in Staleybridge

Lumps of snot tubes or mask

Red sore skin rubbed to rust

We meet in hospital corridors,

Platforms of abandoned train stations

It was 50 yea...

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A caged bird in Wetherspoon's

Flashing jazz through messy mental maps

On skull-grey stepped buildings

Where books and more books glimpse

of measured escape

Over corridors blocking ways out

edited down stopping feelings

of revenge pleading eases

enchanted in a warped love

Messy murder, mental madness

Who is free and who is caged?

Too many hang-up...

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Will surely be of interest:

http://trishhopkinson.com/2015/07/26/list-of-paying-lit-magsjournals-from-poetry-has-value/

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M60 atop Manchester's posterior cusp

Hurtling force divides and creates, binds and destroys,

Cut me slowly, cut me quick, careful now

Not too deep

Just like Concorde passing over

the viaduct with its engine vibrating

on the tracks

I'm lost. Blocked. What is hidden in the river?

The naked road is rusting away

I follow the arterial route to your heart

Gia...

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A riotous toast to Queen Victoria

the lighter the better, under the table

black dagger stabs my heart

Oh! To be in Anglesea;

so beautiful - 

death, rape, law, sacrifice. The more things change...

And still the penny rolls like a sunset

cascading what it simply used to mean.

We worry not, for our lady still holds

the sky whilst she sings.

The anxiou...

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People die for what they say - a sacrifice

I would say.

Promises unfulfilled in darkrooms

my pen massages,

carefully and lovingly

the waiting page.

She is everywoman: sacrifice, laughter, death.

U kip I kip we all kip

running saved her life

she is all giving

the painting of the dog, howling

she is all-giving, all-taking, all-lov...

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Wonderful woman lost in her mirror,

worn subject of a Swiss dream

cobbled on the back

of the toilet door.

Tiny lights

observe their image

fragile; a subtle glance.

The river wild, the river loved, the river mild.

History, life, rivalry

my eyes were filled with tears

from the sight

to play by Petrarch's rules the Bard foreswore

swept away...

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Strangled thoughts inside and out,

Lost chances rust in lonely sidings.

Tailor driven across hope

buried deep under steelworks

strangled in lies

hope made of granite

and reinforced steel.

The tosser on the dance floor

Throw him into an IT grave.

Once you get used to something, your

imagination loses its mind, use your

imagination and look at som...

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Bardic warriors in the worn tartan

of Christie Cleek declaim

their savage lines:

It's never too late to be early

and catch the wind

Taxed to death

Heaven-sent

the mirror whispers a thousand words

we seldom notice

Stuffy, smoky stifling atmosphere

of shouting people:

What do they put in our beer?

Stop killing our world -

and don't be late!

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Mothers of sons dream troubled dreams

of blowing leaves and anniversaries.

Give me an energetic brush every time

it smells like winter, trees sigh softly

and nature floats my boat. Red and gold

leaves scurry along in the force

the pungence of words strong enough

to sting the nostrils, sweet enough

to bless the ears

glamour in fleece and recognition

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Gold Mastercard buys timeless words;

Sun sets on gyneocratic fruitlessness.

I listen to the bird to find the sun.

I listen to the sound behind closed doors,

scratching the soles of your shoe.

Let him have it for justice;

I sensed a fox in my hollow lounge.

Nothing so warm on a cold day,

as a smile.

The sun oppresses, like governments;

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Sudden light falls shining

through tentative air;

I've got Plath married to Larkin -

where did that come from?

Let the Queen

take us from reality,

dreaming of coupling

and cosy nests.

Death and the maiden: sure as taxes

and angry mothers-in-law;

secret sadness

masked by convention.

Your heart-beat

beats with mine;

I...

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Shimmering words slide across sea-shells;

Franglais babies reach out to the world -

Poetry translates from pole to pole,

Beautiful in any language.

Nigel’s naked naughtiness

And still we ask “Why?”

Down the generations, -

Fatherless shaped spaces.

Today has been a really good day

Crushed into a cattle-truck;

While ghosts await visi...

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Out of the frame comes hollow art,

Fly as high as life will let you

One hug means all the world to me

Things aren't always what they seem,

Clothing as well as beauty can be skin deep.

Things tatter in dreams

Like soaked pieces of paper

A brave sun struggles to penetrate the clouds

Red stilettos on the pier

A deck chair with no pr...

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Pulse to pulse, drowning in feathers

Swept by tides of love all moonful midnight,

In the sea and sand having

A pint and potatoes with no salt,

Love is sweet whilst it travels

Close to each other and nature

Together we share time

And time in turn shares us

The pain of recognition bites

Like the rail tracks turning, turning…

Streaks ...

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