Praised to the skies

by a musicologist

when all

he had done

was play the blues

he took time off

to clear his head.

Without

a padded loft

or a tumbledown

woodshed

in the Lower

East Side

of crowded

Manhattan

he blew his sax

come rain or shine

way up on the Bridge.

 

 

 

 

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This title has been following me around for years and maybe can settle here for a while.  I do have another blog languishing out there (roonvallack@blogspot.com) but have not visited to play for ages.  I'm looking forward to being part of this community and posting writing that I enjoy or have written and hopefully spinning into the other blog to post photos and news of Rack and Roon Vallack.

T...

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Delighted to see that the Yorkshire anthology of bike poems has got a nice review in the current issue of

"CYCLE - the magazine of the famous Cyclists Touring Club - with many thousands of members.

Poetry reaching out again....and even more pleasing to this member and contributor from WOL.

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Drawing worthless diction as fire,

    Unqualified lucid pictures of muted clouds entitled hope, Inaudibly described via a depravity of discord, A torrential malady choir of misshapen atonement deficit cast foreseen just libel out angels, Whose eyes re filled with numb denouncement matriarchal Lilith established garden of misery over marionette's adorned with the purposeful threat of silence ...

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When the falling corpse

Extinguishes the flame,

The Moth or the Candle,

Which is to blame?

 

And who is to blame

When both have been used,

When each trusting heart

Is mangled and bruised?

 

It cannot be helped.

Each Siren must sing.

The needle points North

And Hope must take wing.

 

Those made of iron

May skirt round the fact,

But you can't ...

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Posters – depicting your attraction
were long ago hollered and rolled up
into human curiosity of loquacity.
Sights and signs remain crystal bright.
The fortune teller sees to that.

 

How I strip teased round ribboned pole
winding that prize in disguise was the yow
I knew. Then not chosen to be May queen,
I helter skeltered to hate, heal, redeem
tortured by silence amongst the crowd.

...

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The Brave and the Battered

 

(Pushing Through Life With Scattered Their Hearts)

 

     In-line hypnosis,

We all know it happens

We all fear it,

We all wonder in later years

Why is it, there is something

Missing from memory,

 

     Everyone’s looking on,

Brushing over the details

In favour of exasperation,

     And they’re all marvelling

At such a vivid ...

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Once again i feel the breath of darkness

A breeze over my right ear

Unsettling yet so comforting

A lost lover made of memory and pain

The smoke from my cigarette burns through the atmosphere

And that knot in my throat keeps getting tighter and tighter

Your past love is creeping under my skin

Like a serpent just eating my flesh away

How i have missed that cold shiver of love

...

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I see a face at the window

Looking from behind the shroud, stopwatch readied

Senses on edge, pieces

Of a shell

Reformed and moulded, a two-way mirror.

 

It hurts and pains the soul in me

From a glass-house, safe sanctuary

Brightened box

A beacon in this desolate night?

Or a slab of ice I broke, too thin?

 

On the edge of the pond

No light to see fish by

Th...

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The mystic rain Pours  From the umbrella sky In a rainbow  Of shining puddles Laying beneath What went before Leaving no answers As the dying questions Fizzle  In the half light Left by the place Where the sun Used to be In the space Between shadows your soul Hiccups Whilst your mind  Dances And you whisk Yourself away Into The infinity Of madness Where a world Spins ...

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A damp light from a table candle flickers,

revealing tomorrow’s faeces

– braised red cabbage, filet of beef

and a quarter glass of red wine.

Everything is documented.

 

The pout, strained through the rush of alcohol

at a flash that shows lifelessness

behind heavily mascaraed eyes.

All for show, an image portrayed

to those that follow, but how hollow

the bones that ...

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the small matter of a white screen at midnight

the mocking cursor blinks upon the screen
and my flagging muse sinks
still unable to find links
and then little englyn winks

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MY STRUGGLE

 

GROWING UP, FEELING LIKE A MOTHERLESS CHILD

WHO NEVER GOT ANY JUSTICE

BUT, AFTER YEARS, OF HARD WORK AND RESEARCHIG LIFE

IT STILL LEFT ME TO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS

HOW GOD, WELCOMES EVERYONE IN HIS HEART, EACH AND EVERY DIFFERENT WAY

AND SINCE, I AM OF LEO DECENDENT

ESOTERIC SCIENCE WAS THE WAY TO GET MY ATTENTION

IT WAS JUST SOMETHING ABOUT ASTROLOGY, THAT...

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Robbing Dylan

 

Come gather round people wherever you roam,

And admit that your hips and your buttocks have grown,

And accept we could lose at least two or three stone

Just think of the money we’re saving,

So we’d better start slimming not stand there and moan,

For the times they are a changing.

 

Come restaurant critics who prophesy with your pen,

Your mouths are wid...

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Sunken Forests

Cardigan Bay, Ceredigion and Turvin Moor, Yorkshire

4000 years ago trees buried in the peat by a changing climate

Oak Pine Alder Willow and Birch stumps linked and lost  

 

Cantre’r Gwaelod in folklore tells of a Welsh Atlantis flooded 

Gates were left open drowning the forest, now lost in time

A wild wood forgotten, secrets safe under the sea

 

The Yorks...

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When blue no longer
feels so blue when
time no longer stretches
but refuses to pass at pace
moments are never fleeting

Walking and searching for
windy days eyes aching with fear
like the secound hand on
a watch or a silver tankard once
so often sipped or glugged now dry stopped

Life feels adjacent foreign
and lost consumed ambiguous
absent at best motionless yet
moving isolated cr...

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If all you told were lies,

I heard only truth.

If manipulative were your motives,

I was putty in your hands.

If you used me for excitement,

I was thrilled for you.

If your emotions were all feigned,

I was your audience, suspended by the fiction.

If love you never felt,

I loved it for you,

And if conscience, you had none,

I was moral for us both.

 

Do you hide...

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You are the tree that grew inside me
when I swallowed your stone whole.

When I spoon-fed you with silvern words
you rooted in my deep.

Each morning I’m reborn by you
polishing the dawn till it blossoms in pink.

Exchanging moss coated whispers
our rain softened glances trickle between us.

I am grafted to the notches on your spine.
Spiralling together, we reach for the light.

Cal...

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There's a boy
In a house
In a room
Thinking of you.

There's a girl 
In a house
In a room
Thinking of you.

There's a boy
There's a girl
Who believe
They are in the same room.

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Sleep Walking

 

Who can sleep

When we’re sleep walking into hell

Your neighbour growing

Fascist views

Planting the seeds of a bitter mess

 

Who can sleep

When we are sleep walking

Into hell

Whose children

Will next be kicked in groin

because they are “foreign and they smell”

 

Who can sleep

When the pounder is at the door

You may resist

But it’...

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Grand Words is a one act play writing competition run in conjunction with the Grand Theatre Blackpool for people in the north west of England and Yorkshire. It has run at the Grand since 2009 and is about to launch its search for plays for 2014. Winners receive £100, a trophy they keep for a year and a presentation of their work in the Grand Studio theatre, Blackpool. Work should be written for th...

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Thirteen Thirteen Thirty One
I Sat In The Barbers Chair
Paid My Money To Leave A Little Balder
Picked Up A Paper
Ten Year Old Dies Of Cancer
Turned The Page
Became The Page Turner
Next Article Read;
Six Year Old Drowned With Pet Cat By Mother
Turned Out Mother Was A Drug Addict and Had A Bad Trip
I Once Went To Eastbourne
That Trip Wasn't Much Better
Turned Another Page
The Page Turne...

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tattooed, sweat drenched, confessional, this rose sopped ecstasy I maybe tested through a full glass yet, my word, your flavour so fresh as the closest and sweetest kept secret, tasted: tested: approved as complicit dew through years of spilt guilt, when ventured pleasure ordered, I, insect twixt the lingered crawl along villous cinnamon and apricot stole, long reflections through the viscid, over...

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Beset current despondency

goads me again to express

 

Reason for disenchantment

and issues crucial  address

 

It’s not just plain strangers

but ones considered as own

 

Despite all indulged civility

apathy in return got shown

 

Kept seeking sane rationale

 searched the very core inside

 

Answers did never justify

with none to stand be...

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Gladiolus

She ate sliced ham out of a zip-lock bag,
standing beside me on the subway platform
with her side-tilted hat showing she was
all spunk and all seriousness, making me
feel absurd to be holding these gladiolus
and heading to the far west side of the city
where my sweet friends with an Irish accent
had just had a baby removed.  

This girl with her hat and her ham and I
watched...

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two of my poems 'Disappear' and 'Kissing my every thread' are due out at issue 11 of Ariadne's Thread http://www.ariadnethread.net/index.php/the-authors/247-andy-n  today. not seen my copy yet but made up over this. 

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Silent the ground and everything around

Until explosion is found 

Explosion ignites us from dead slumber amongst wonder

We explode like thunder

Become just younger, drunker and then make blunder

Loud the ground aroused by sound

Now explosion is found

Explosion dies from the wonder then into black slumber

We explode like thunder

Return to dead soul, until the explosion.

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photo credit: Bill Cottman Once You See Light by J. Otis Powell?! In response to Of What Use Is Poetry? by Amiri Baraka The question is meant to probe into how we carry weight through life, how we work through thickness talk through touching. I see what I see because of a prescription in my eyes. You see what you see separate and esoteric. Poetry is how eyes meet. Rhythm of hearts...

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Creeping up your stairs at night, As you lay asleep in bed, The depression imp slides in your room, And straight inside your head, He starts to play his little game, Your at his beck and call, Whispering all bad thoughts, Your dreams begin to fall, You start to doubt your confidence, Along with hope and will, He's eating your very essence, ...

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I know you've encountered the Angel of Death

She visited you before

Don't worry my child, you will be fine

Your smile will return once more

 

She was taken by the angel

Like a trophy, like a prize

Intangible to you now

Little girl, close your eyes

 

A heart so young, yet troubled

Childhood catapulted to weary unknown

Be strong, stand tall and carry on

You can...

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Some Poets and Artists

Are good at their craft

but lack humility and humanity

Some politicians are crafty

but are monsters of egoism

and never keep their promises

Who is to assess who is good or bad

Who out there can play God

Everybody has moments of brilliance

Everybody can be a hero,

not a zero

Some advance themselves

at the expense of others

Some socialis...

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(The angel in the photo is from a window in Selby Abbey.  I want her to collect me when I throw a six)

 

Any guitarist will tell you once you drop a plectrum onto the floor it will never be found again; it is lost to the world forever.

Among God’s hierarchy of cherubims and seraphims, angels and archangels, one is tasked to make divine music, Virtuosa; and her instrument of choice is the ...

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At lunchtime I pop into Tesco’s -

Bad timing for speed

But I need a few things for tea.

 

There’s a long line at the speedy self-service

And the counters and cashiers are worse

So I fall into last place of baskets only

Sighing

When I spot a clear counter

With a new cashier!

 

I move fast

And beat a laden cart to first place.

Hard on my heels darts a young ma...

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She is a rare vision of beauty

An exceptional elusive find

A gem of unique perfection

Natural and one of a kind

The world is her oyster

She is no ordinary girl

The jewel in my crown

She is as pure as a pearl

 

 

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Her & Bear

 

There was once a girl with a Teddy Bear

The teddy bear was part of her

 

They played, they cuddled they had such fun

They’d sing and dance and laugh and run

 

And then one day she met a boy

Who wished to take care of her toy

 

She loved that boy with all her heart

She always thought they’d never part

 

The boy was mean he hurt the bear

He k...

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White feathers flying in the air

Passing, floating seemingly

Without a care

Unreachable, untouchable

Moving far away

Nowhere to be caught

To be bound trapped, in a snare

 

Some form an almost orderly line

Showing the anguish and the pain

Of the killing ground

A brief encounter

With barely a sound

 

A small trail of blood

Marks the spot

Where a c...

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http://www.amazon.co.uk/Floating-In-Space-vanished-Manchester/dp/1499516002/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1402492784&sr=1-1

I feel a bit cheeky advertising here, but one of the perils of self publishing is that if you don't take advantage of the internet, nobody will hear about your work; my book is now available as a kindle e-book or as a paperback.

 

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There is a Goldfinch

singing

on 

my 

aerial

on

roof

above

the

town

I am

truly

blessed

the

Victorians

used

to 

keep them 

in

cages.

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Three days since you told me you love me
And two since you kissed me on the cheek.

Four since you rang me up accidentially
And six since you tripped over your cat in the kitchen.

Seven since you kicked me out of bed over my snoozing
And eight since you set your toaster on fire.

Five since you misplaced your keys blaming me
And yesterday since you swore at the Postman
Yelling into the...

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dream a dream,

so unreal and fragile.

don't open your eyes,

for it might slip away.

and take with it,

your tanquility and

your sane existence.

and you are then

but an empty shell.

with tattered curtains,

to wrap the wounded soul.

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I wanted you right from the start.

As soon as I saw you, all shiny and showing,

inquisitive shimmerings leapt in my neurons,

grew fast and furious, battering synapses,

crashing through cortices,

carrying fire.

 

Bewitched! A thousand fantasies sparked and swirled in frontal lobes.

You shifted shape from mind to page,

drew me in, singing from a sheet I thought we sha...

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One night, after drinking in a down-town pub (where the air was a fuzz of gunge smoke and all the talk was about The Fords car factory in Speke.

I staggered home to my tall tenement block at the end of a street which used to run plumb between the opposing old Orange and Catholic areas of Liverpool and, listening to an account of Sunni/Shia combat on the tele, began to wonder about all kinds of ...

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Defter hands may set them right
and glancing eyes, in checking, might
observe a moment handed on and
wonder where the rest have gone,
as if by sleight of hand they sleeve
those hours we do not perceive;
or drag them like a wooden plough
through one interminable now.

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Height is so unfair not to have.

 

Brown hens devour each other

while we eat their eggs

 

Dead birds, half-eaten squirrels.

 

I'd rather a white feather came through

the door than a telegram

 

War and more war:

If only we fought like real cats and dogs,

politics would be pointless -

we could agree to disagree

and nobody would die.

 

War-time: less su...

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His shed was a workshop first of all

with sturdy bench along one wall,

now bench and floor are full to the brim

so much so that you can’t get in.

Stuffed with tools and useless tat

that may come in handy – fancy that!

He thinks there’ll be a rainy day,

we’d not need that lot, come what may.

 

There never could be such a crisis

we’d need wood all shapes and sizes,

e...

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Reading the statement 
that you have just made,
in which there’s
nothing but nought,
you’re “unaware of the details 
the committee outlined,
and have yet to read its report.”

Moving-on, looking forward,
the time has now come,
for challenges
of a personal sort,
my time will surely
be put to test- 
and a career 
put to its sword

There is time for 
a memoir and 
column to wr...

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