Floating on my back
weightless in the turquoise water
off the shores of Koh Phi Phi
Been living hard, too long
All these years without a break
Now, I watch the crust of duty
gently peeled from damp eyelashes
Invisible hands, unburdening me
O, never let me go…

The water’s warm against my wrists
joyous tears kissing the brine
caught upon the tide of living
gratefully tangled in this un...

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There’s a corner of eternity

where I’ve built a simple home.

A place that I can go to

when I want to be alone.

A place where winds of

time and space glide gently

through the air.

A place each time I leave,

I’m longing,

wishing I were there.

We deal with many things in life,

so much that brings us down.

We swim through burdens, paddling,

hop...

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I can feel fire in my veins

Red roses set aflame 

Burning embers 

Passionate rage 

A suffocating feeling I can't escape 

I feel like running away 

To some faraway place 

Where even the stars 

Wont remember my name 

I might lose myself 

In a faraway world 

Hiding away 

In my secret escape 

Time is an illusion 

And I'm caught up in the confusi...

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Sometimes I go to my car

Which isn't very far

But during work time it can seem strange

As if I'm lost and out on the range

Sometimes I forget things

Important, useful, essential things

To do my work or I'll be lost

Can't have that now at my own cost

So I return to the vehicle

Luckily today I didn't cycle

To retrieve my cherished, beloved and innocent phone

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DEEP NORTH

__________

Headed for the "promised land" in droves

Attracted to bright urban lights

Like a swarm of sepia-toned moths,

They arrive

In search of work,

Safer homes,

Altars to pray to,

In search of the peace that

Living in the so-called

"Bible Belt" did not give them.

What kind of god

Would allow his own children to

Endure the jail cel...

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The children howl, the house is hell
you close your eyes to cast that spell

Rising high above the endless squabbles 
to meet me down upon those sodden cobbles

The rain and fog are gently taunting
your white shirt billows, opaque and haunting

On Henrietta Street…

Two hundred stairs, do I descend
with full-beam smile to my treasured friend

These precious moments, we get to steal
...

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Flight fearlessly taken,

An escape from this reality.

Too scarred to face

The heights of idiocy,

The lows of idiocracy.

Facing up to a void.

Nothing to fear

Except fear itself.

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My heart,

A bubble, Indeed,

Expanding, every minute,

Every hour,

With words, unsaid,

With thoughts, untold.

Feelings never shared,

For reasons unknown,

But should I,

Share with them?

What will they think of me?

I don't mind,

I want to break the silence,

I want to Speak,

Then why,

Do I feel, so out of words,

When they question me,

Will they accept ...

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These paths we walk
grounded by responsibility
well-worn routine
practiced intimacy
I could only smile
when you whispered in my ear
‘Take me away from this
take me anywhere but here’

Living in the moment
it’s all we know to do
as you pepper my shoulder with kisses
my fingers explore every inch of you
You said ‘the world is a minibar
cold and empty
but now we’re blessed by this heat
...

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Maybe light was once kind
To the baby moth.
Perhaps, it never fully learned
How it had changed
Into the enemy.
Is this why it must return again?
Flap its fragile wings, 
Once more, against the pain,
Saying, 
Even until the very last time,

                  “Be as you were”

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I remember getting lost in the lyrics when I was a young girl. I would stop and start my record or cassette a hundred times while I wrote down every word so I could sing along to the song. 

Lyrics was my escape when I had no place to go.

I learned lyrics, meter, and rhyme, from the best poetry teachers of my time... 

Stevie Wonder, Stevie Nicks, Tina Turner, James Taylor,  Bob Seger, Barb...

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How happy would I be
When the sky would be black,
Thinking about the time,
Shaking my legs.
Jump off or burn off 
Nothing I could be sure off.
Giving you a big smile,
Now even you can't see me, faking off.

You thought you saved me,
Grabbing me before I could fell
You dare to intrude my will
Now I am trapped in this hell.

If only you could hold my hands before
Then you won't have t...

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kite and boy

a paper kite

flutters in the wind

making wonderful sounds

back to the boy holding

the end of the string

kite dips and smiles

at boy and dances

little jigs as its string

is held taut

boy smiles back

a strong wind begins to blow

kite string breaks with a snap

startled boy looks up

and sees kite start to

fly in erratic patterns ...

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one step out the door
one step forward
one step closer
to the flood

one step backward
one step in reverse
one step away
from drowning

a punch to the gut
and tears streaming,
more than the smiles
more than the ‘i love you’s

and how many more years like this
how much can i take like this

i agreed to ever after
but this now, these lows
i can do without
i barely survive the cr...

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planning one's escape is never easy

even Steve McQueen found it hard

guilt made me especially queasy

I was writing your last birthday card

my escape strategy was meticulous

armed guards would have missed it

such carelessness left me incredulous

normally your vigilance took the biscuit

I timed your every movement with care

then I waited till you left for the gym

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She died in a

Care home before the

Pandemic, from

Complications after a broken hip.

She helped see off Hitler but

If granny had lived

Would she have

Seen off the virus?

During the War she worked in munitions

Her factory got bombed, she

Made ammunition for the boys at the

Front.

In the care home both her

War-time comrades

Choked to death for want of testing...

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retreat, retreat

settle back down into your cave

retreat, retreat

settle back down into that space you crave

retreat, retreat

no more reaching out for company along the shore

retreat, retreat

no more reaching out for what’s beyond the door

retreat, retreat

the ghost killer haunts each of us

retreat, retreat

stay inside we must

escap...

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Once there was a tree frog, green as green can be.  
He liked to sing on summer nights whenever it was wet.
His voice seemed much too loud for such a little frog. 
He spent his day seeking juicy bugs to eat; 
with his clever tongue he quickly found a meal. 

One October he was looking for adventure.
He climbed a large camellia bush 
and found a tiny opening in a window screen.  
He climbe...

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Maybe moving to mars is the only way to escape the virus!

Fingerprints of the sun

Upon the face of mars

New life has just begun

Way beyond the stars!

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Come closer to me my friend.
We will escape this night.
We will run,
We will drive through the night.
We will find a way
To get our freedom back.
And fight for our heratige.
Come my friend wave your flag,
Remember our freedom,
Remember open borders.
Come my friend
Let us kiss when we cross these lines
When we leave these burdens there,
In this old place,
Now in the hands of far right...

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Come closer to me my friend.
We will escape this night.
We will run,
We will drive through the night.
We will find a way
To get our freedom back.
And fight for our heratige.
Come my friend wave your flag,
Remember our freedom,
Remember open borders.
Come my friend
Let us kiss when we cross these lines
When we leave these burdens there,
In this old place,
Now in the hands of far right...

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A sea of red lights

cars stopped

sitting

the hours of rush

is all hurry up 

and wait

they race against each other 

only to be home alone 

or tucked away with their lovers

they spent all day

dreaming of their escape 

now they must wait

a brief pause

the reason

the cause

only too much

in the way

between 

them

and

what they long to see

[a...

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Never before had he known a colour touch him that way,

This indigo held a tenderness and cool warmth which confused him.

And yet,

As the neon lights dimmed and harsh sounds abated,

He felt drawn to the dark, to go in search of his liberty

And yet

Like a dimmed aquamarine siren, it called to and reassured him,

He would be safe, it would hold him in its arms, nothing could, woul...

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Mr Reel-Fogg came home exhausted after a hard day of talking. Those green leather benches were so confoundedly uncomfortable and one could never recline in peace.

After a brief attempt to assist Mrs. Reel-Fogg to achieve her ambition of having twelve children he fell into a deep sleep.

Around one thirty in the morning there was a confounded noise outside. He sent Mrs. Reel-Fogg to investigat...

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"It was only ever fiction..."

Growing up I was a lonely child, never quite fit in anywhere.

But I can remember it clearly, the day I found the solution.

The fix? BOOKS

They saved me then and continue to do so now.

Thanks to them I have visited distant worlds, gone on epic journeys and have made so many great friends.

And although they may seem to be only ever fiction, Books have ...

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In silence

She stole his soul

In love

He gave his heart

What took him from his course

What gentle zephyr force

What brought him to the isle

What beauty did beguile

In silence

She sought his mind

In sorrow

He felt her tears

What held him to his aim

What subtle noble flame

What kept him on his deck

What held his lust in check

In silence

She tempted ...

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My mind is my prison

when it should be my home

where I sit in front

of an open fire and

keep myself snug and warm.

Instead my prison guards

are my thoughts and

situations my bars,

together they keep me

in solitary confinement,

but I am always keeping

a close watch on my sentries

as they make their regular patrol

and I begin to see a pattern

to their s...

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Every moment to fear,

Forever holding back internal tears.

Life- so complicated,

forever indecisive.

The world too big, too scary,

my mind so full of queries.

Never certain, never happy,

each decision could be deadly.

An escapes impossible,

every outcomes implausible.

Sinking under water,

Always being taken for a martyr.

The pain runs so deep,

Barely able to ...

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She has dark days and dark nights, and bright days and starry skies. He was diluting the darkness into brightness. But then he became annoyed at her darkness and started to see it all the time even when it wasn’t there. He would poke and prod for it, he was finding boxes of darkness that didn’t exist until he started creating them and suddenly she had more to carry than she realised. He was shouti...

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You will fall
You will keep falling
Falling into the depth
The depth of the ocean
Without any doubt
You will reach the bottom
It will suck you up
Into its sticky environment 
You can not breathe
And want to escape 
You pannick 
And do not know what to do
You will keep falling
Falling into the underneath ocean
It feds you up 
You want to escape 
Escape from the fall
Falling into th...

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Speak to me like you speak,
in tongues, or in plain old English
dusted with a view of sparkly seas
or oceans, as you say, my owl.
My crow, my dove, my dolphin
plunging among the waves that roughen,
among the sands that graze and toughen
your skin and hair but soul untouched. 
Tell me of the call you heard
from a distance, from the depths 
of blue or green or blackened water,
the rover, ...

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There is one place of total privacy
To which you can escape and hide away
Your imagination.  Avoiding piracy
Your fears, for a while;  you can alay
 

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He inhales,

Yet again he finds himself feeling six feet under,

covered by life bearing soil

The life in which he ponders how he missed.

He inhales,

This time,

His sorrow and self loathing are lifted away

Into the clouds

This is where they remain

For a time that seems ever too short.

He inhales,

Hoping to never return

To his sad reality.

He can't escape.

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Oh,
Daydreams,
They came back
But the fantasy was gone

They were alive only at night
Frightened of daylight
Moon captured them as the stars

If you saw the stars tonight
Then know
They were my dreams once
Now all I have is ashes
Not from smoked cigarettes or burned houses
But from my bones
What became broken
While my heart was trying to escape.

Read more …

Everyday for her is always the same.
All the struggles, all the pain,
all the hurtful words, and all the pressure
to be someone, and to be something.

And each day she wakes
to feel the hurt again, as it never changes.
And each day she breathes to longer her stay
no matter how much she wants to leave.
And each day she eats to feel whole and to not feel empty
like the way she feels about ...

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quietly, quietly sat a lie
arms outstretched
palms staked to the fierce eye
observing within
as, first, flesh mottles
closer still to see without
while blister
vermilion doubts
one apiece of each
seized mortal engine
dripped of framed wax
placed in a filleted whole
gas pored
for a hungry earth
this is all I wish today
let each word die in a dusty throat
a melt th...

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calligraphy by: Kel C Ann Johnston 

http://cargocollective.com/officeofjohnston

"It is forgetfulness that makes life possible.” Romare Bearden 

 Cliché

We escape dogma

Cannons

Textbook realities

Founding father visions

Museums

Zoos

Prisons

And plantations that hold stories

Made from brutal his-stories like

Drapetomaniacs

Forgetting captivity

Commodifica...

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HIKE

I’ve been on an eight mile hike with my mate, getting out of town.                                                               

Up roads, to the Waterworks to give a witch my Amelia Earhart spell.                                                                                    

Venturing through farmer’s fields, over dry stone walls and under barbed wire fences.      ...

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May's ESCAPE competition received 27 entries. Remarkably, 15 of these received votes. It was astonishing to me how varied people's preferences are. It's an encouragement to all of us – there is almost certainly someone out there who likes our poetry, even if others don't. We're all different.

Taking both first and second choices into account, four poems had the equal highest num...

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There is just over one more day to vote for Escape poems - the details are at

http://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=21245

The response has been surprisingly slow, particularly from those who've entered. Some people have hinted that reading 26 poems is a bit much. In that sense the competition may be a victim of its own success.

Be that as it may, voting closes...

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Thank you everyone for your entries in the ESCAPE competition which ran during May. They encompass an extraordinary breadth of experience, from pleasure and beauty to sadness and suffering. To read them has been a privilege, albeit sometimes a painful one. The way we turn life into words never ceases to amaze me.

This is an invitation to vote in the competition. The poems are as liste...

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Spitting it out in the hope of releasing
unlocking the cage stifling my growth
burning it all selfishly brightly
and the feeling is back again
pounding my head again
to just let go

Spewing it out with the aim of escaping
fleeing this habitual and too perfect a world
shedding the handcuffs worn in contentment
and the aching is back again
haunting my thoughts again
to jus...

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Don’t escape from the truth!

Escape the lies!

A truth can be bitter,

A lie can be sweet.

Do you think sweet lies are better?

It depends.

I sometimes accept the one who pretends.

But…I always appreciate the one

Who intends to be sincere.

That one for me is so dear.

Escape a betrayal!

That one can be even a royal.

Escape the dirt!

For me i...

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I will escape from the one I dislike.

My psych doesn’t need a strike.

I will better take a bike

And will go for a ride

Somewhere out of your site

To see the world wide noontide.

I don’t want to confide the one who lied.

Meeting with you was a misguide.

I will not allow you to deride my pride.

I will decide myself how to reside.

And I will not backsl...

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You are running ahead

 Instead of thinking where.

Your heart is beating at a crazy speed,

 It has it’s own flair.

You are swallowing salty drops of tears,

You do not hear the jeers,

You do not feel the rain

But only the unfair pain.

Hurts tear your soul apart.

Who cares about your broken heart?

You want to scream, even to roar,

You can’t stand t...

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I’m floating on the turquoise sea,

I’m holidaying in Greece.

I’m clambering onto a speedboat

And heading off to Nice.

I’m shown round an ocean liner,

And settling by the pool.

Someone at the bar plays guitar.

I can sing in tune!  How cool!

Okay, so this must be a dream,

But I shall not wake up.

I’ll drink Tia Maria and Baileys

In a Pooh Bear cup...

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Windows that never wore glass
let the cold in more than ever.
Outside, the dried-up moat
offers no protection,
vulnerable, we suffer.
Cracked between the bricks
and crumbling fast,
these castle walls are falling.
Exposed, we shrivel,
shrink back against the cold, hard floor,
self-afflicted and pitiful,
resigned to ruin and shame.
Surrounded by walls that stand no more.
...

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consider my confusion

I cannot conceive the caption ‘escape’

as a coldly critical concept

I am quite incapable of articulating

artistically

the conundrum of  ‘escaping’

which must concur conclusively

with a ‘from what’ and a ‘to what’ question

correct me if I quibble

can I qualify curious contentment

at my conscious core

or am I in a vacuum

...

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She is a sweet doll, three tiers high,

a nipped in, ivory dumbbell.

Her nails, bitten down, flash in the crook

of his arm.

She looks duped, evangelical;

her face catching the icing underfoot

a little.  

There is communion.

She steps forward, pressing her hand into mine,

our fingerprints, lost in glass -

uniforms, shapes of dust,

her...

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