twice nightly
   - three time at weekends -
   they die
in pealing laughter
   - bow to the paltry applause -
in seaside cabaret

it doesn't help
that the false bottom of the cage
   gets stuck
so he never knows if the dove is gone
   when he pulls the cape

nor that wanda
   - real name beryl -
has got ideas of spring in rhyl
and fallen in love with a bouncer
called errol
who do...

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Oceans.  Epochs.
Nationhood.  Providence.
Ethnicity.  Culture.
All divide.

Land.  Class.
Creed.  Religion.
Status.  Politics.
All split.

Resources.  Sexuality.
Testosterone. Oestrogen.
X, Y.  And Z.
All separate.

If we see the gaps between us
As they truly are;
As significant;
As bonds that actually bind,
Maybe we would not be so blind.

It's easy to blame,
Far easier to i...

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How to tell a joke

-Advice given to a Lady-

PREAMBLE- Know your audience Know your subject

PREPARATION: WRITE out your joke in full,

read it aloud many times.

REMOVE all diversions, inconsequential and trivial.

CHECK for confused references.

ENSURE you have a command

of the required terminology.

DO Laugh at other people's jokes

before attempting your own (this is call...

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Hoarsely screaming down the barrelled street
night digests the wails I birth
this urgent drive pumps wildly
from crotch through chest to cranium
tears me clean in half
in flames for your name tattooed upon my lungs

Why do you not see me here
burning like this
why do you choose not to see me
burning for you like this

Barely able to draw breath between
the overwhelming thud of my hear...

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The butterflies inside my stomach i let them die..

i saw that there was no future between you and i

I can’t change my feelings for you

But I can make them like the way you see me invisible

Hope someday the light in your eyes which burns my heart

Will gimme me nothing at all.no feeling no distance

No hope no resistance

Maybe someday I will look these eyes and they will mean not...

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ye rest not
and do not cry for the departed
the driving rain bears no sympathy
for the spiritually destitute, 
nor the broken hearted.

the lost and found carry 
the same umbrella
woven with holes 
for our hands to do their want and will
as fencers thrust and parry

as a whore simply loved too wreckless
as the drunkard just tries to spin
keeping quartz with a heavy draught of life
a...

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Timetable torn in two

Covered in fluff, grit and

Other unidentifiable residue

Instructs you

Where you should be

Weekday between nine and three

If not held together right

You’ll be going to English class

At midnight

A blue pen in hiding

Has blown its cover

Left bendy and limp

Adding its mark to your

Timetable print

But you will struggle on, I know

W...

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On sodden streets that drew the glow
of an early-morning café window
workers trod their tired routes
in damp and clinging skirts and suits.
Some peered out from waterproofs
as run-off ran off shining roofs
choking every spout and drain
with biblically persistent rain.

Huddled in the window seat,
broiled in English Breakfast heat,
I broke a yolk with buttered bread
and chewed o...

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Glory Whole

It's taken as red[1]

no need to be invited

no need to be said

but to clarify

I've cited.

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Chewing like a cow at its cud

Close your mouth woman

I don’t want to see that green thing chase that brown thing

Around and around and around like clothes in a dryer

Close your mouth woman

How long does it take you to chew?

Swallow, please swallow

And while you put your throat to use

Please wipe the spittle from your chin

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Sweet valentine sweet

sickly supermarket love of mine

I will

toast you in roses red

with their vampire's lips and

this card, small mercy

of invitation - welcome to my world

of the consummate dressing of mantelpiece.

I promise nothing and yet

my love for you holds no regret,

nor indrawn breath

with spiritual cigarette.

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Look its cloudy, its rain!!
Wish this drops could see
Our footsie on that bench
Sea-shore is waiting for....
The unsaid you, the unheard me

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There in the corner of the black beneath my bed

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Show me your sad face…

Show me your sad face.
The one you hide from the world
I’ll let you know its ok
I won’t try to fix it
I promise.
Show me your sad face
The secret one you don’t like
I won’t try to figure it out 
Or find the answer.
Show me your sad face
Or the one when you cry
Show me the face
Only shown to your pillow.
Show me the darkness
That you hide in the light
Beneat...

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Posted on April 22, 2015 by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh

Fading from the news, the issues of refugees, either economic or political dying in the Mediterranean are still relvent and must be kept alive until the issue is sorted.

Its just news, another raft or ship
Upended, ...

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the dogwood trees
are blooming
their petals
tipped in the silver
of the morning
rain

i'm beginning to like
the quiet again
the shifting hands
of the clock
brushing hours
against my shoulder

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Drowse

When there are no mirrors
I am young again
Sitting in the warming glow
of distant years
The aches and pains
will all be gone tomorrow
The days are long
and never seem to grey.
Parents are in another room
just out of hearing
The T.V has three channels
all black and white
Three meals a day
are sitting on the table
The bonfire smoke
creates the evening dusk.

Another time I...

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10am - I peel back my moth eaten eye curtains;

recoil from brash bright light; fight to pull my

security blanket back over my lead head and

snuggle into the comfort of my bed. As the room

around me spins like a merry-go-round (minus the

merry), my head feels so heavy. Suddenly conscious

my tongue is a prune – I long for the tap, I sit up too soon.

The ceiling crashes dow...

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Duvet

I lay under white smothered duvet

Beneath folds and creases

Fighting coughs and sneezes

Until at last

I snooze and creep

Doze and sneak

Far away from the illusive vaunted

Much talked about sleep

That of a dark Calling

Falling

 Into a chasm

Into the deep

At last encased and shrouded

Not daring

Wishing

Or wanting to move

Barely breathing

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(As Verger at Selby Abbey one of my responsibilities is to ensure the Eternal Sanctuary candle remains lit.  The first two lines are familiar to me so I may have poached them.  Suggestions from whom?)

God made the hawk; He made the dove

And neither with a lesser love;

So hence there can be little doubt

He made me let the candle out.

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Just when you think everything is going bad. But then you think? Is this suppose to happen? Is this a test? Because right now im failing.  You need to show them your indendence,  show them how much you have matured.  You are not the same person you were three years ago. Show everyone who doubted you, that they were wrong. You dont need them or their help. Show them that whatever they threw at you ...

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From so long ago

I have sailed

through so many storms

created by my own inadequacies.

And you

my lifes passenger

held on faithfully

no matter how rough

the journeying.

Your beleaguered belief in me

became the star

able to guide us

to a destiny.

The calm waters

of understanding.

______________________________________________

©...

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A New Beginning

In this life there are many paths,

some of them may lead you to the past.

It is like a never ending spiral,

Love to me has never been so vital.

Why do I return to the past?,

A thousand years of darkness, I see a light at last.

It gets brighter every step I take,

After all, there is a decision I have to make.

Why are the hardest thing and the rig...

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I sat beside you on that fateful day,

As they sutured your wrists in A&E,

Their failure to keep you safe,

Was no failure of ours or me,

For try as we may to get you help,

Their ears were as deaf as their eyes,

Now we sit..... in our tortured state,

In the hollow your passing creates,

You will always be with us inside our hearts,

For as long as our minds wi...

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Hey kids.

Think you'll be in the Manchester area around the second week of May? How about Worcester? Are you going to be in Halifax or Sheffield before that, or London or Wales later on?

If so... come out to one of my gigs. It'll be a laugh.
They're listed at http://www.JeffCottrill.com.

Huzzah and whatnot.

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Being in love is different from loving someone,

One's a familiar, comfortable cocoon

Warm and tucked in, like a glass of

Lukewarm milk.

One's a shot of tequila, followed by others

Pure adrenaline, trailing hot kisses

Till your toes tingle.

One's good to come home to

One's good,

Everytime.

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You confessed your love for me so soon
Brought light into my dark seedy life 
You had my heart, as the stars have the moon 
But you've ripped it apart like paper to a knife 

I cannot continue this path much longer 
For my efforts are always dismissed 
I'm weakening where you are stronger 
I've been at my knees since we kissed 

I beg of you to loosen your grip 
Let me go and tend to my...

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~~NOT A MACHINE.

I don’t want to be in a hundred places.
I don’t want to drown in a million faces.
I don’t really know them.
I don’t want to show them who I am.
I just want to dam this increasing flow
Of places, faces I can’t put my finger on.
If I close my eyes they should be gone.
But they linger, hanging on,
Banging on like a spoilt brat.
Droning on about this ‘n’ that,
Like a coll...

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Such Indescribable Hurt

     All human dignity is gone,

Shattered into billions of sharp

Fragmented pieces for her to swallow,

     And the taste of blood and pain

Like metal that cannot be chewed!

     She dreams she has been

Forced through a meat grinder,

Bone and gristle pulped

And oozing contagion

She fears may season all,

     And she longs to touch

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In that location existed one junior male person bearing the title James although this was often shortened to an abbreviated form of address,

A person lacking in flesh to an extreme degree,

This juvenile lost his footing atop a small thin broken branch of a tree,

Which caused said adolescent fellow to go head over heels in a perpendicular manner from top to bottom into a gouge within the e...

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Bookshop owners are in essence collectors,

Word hoarders.

Suspening thoughts, encased, ordered

And set in space and time.

Booksellers don’t want to part with their collection.

But they'll let you sit and drink and lose and hour,

Scouring the dogged edges of

Space and time.

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There is me...lying.
Not lying like you say.
Lying on the floor, lying like I say.
Begging, weeping, asking.
You carnival figure, you.
You war hero, you.
You champion, you.
One leg propped upon my stomach.
Where are your gold stamps, your badges, your medals?
The trophy you stand on is all battered.
You have laid me out on the floor, the doormat
Withholding the welcome sign.
You roll m...

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Oh time! how you pass me by

Tick Tocking away by the day

The years fly past even as we lay

But not much we can say

Tick Tocking away as mama begins to shout

Tick Tocking away as things start to pan out

Tick Tocking away as the hourglass runs out

Some despise your perceived cruelty

or could it be a timeless beauty?

Others delight at your ability to heal what we ...

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Stout is the drink that I savour

A glass full of chocolate flavour,

The glass to my lips  -  What a kiss

Down it goes just like bliss.

The devils liquid I have named it

Joining Camra is the culprit

I buy one more and then I think

Oh! The consequence of another drink.

Oh dear! empty glasses

My how quickly time passes,

Stout, my love another jar

As I make m...

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Have you ever stood on a city street

And watched the pace of passing feet?

How quick they go as if they dare

Not to be seen to linger there.

Their owners trapped in headlong rush

That takes them to another crush

Of hurrying humanity in its need

To avoid attention by its speed.

How different from the village street

When people pause and actually greet

A passe...

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Love is a drug,
One perspective shifting trip,
Unknowingly stumbled upon.
Now you’re consciously falling.

For a splitting second,
You’re suspended in the rush,
A swift inhale,
Heavy eyelids-
Collapse shut in suspense.
One. Last. Relaxing, sigh-
It hits you.

Their tender embrace,
Exhilaration, tumbling acceleration,
Both induced by the physical materialisation-
Of the innate fear ...

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Little Jack, he’s on his own

In the wild American night

Chasing down the mystic road

Trying to keep his star in sight

He last saw Neal three days ago

When he shot his arrow into the sun

Now his magic shirt is hanging down

His mouth is half undone

And the kids in all the mid west towns

Are hanging on his tongue

Jack yawns and gapes and scratches hard

Says “Jesu...

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the stink of diesel and of fear which
everyone’s pretending is not here
because if they do not name it, it will not be real
but in the hot bodies of the strangers pressed
around her she can feel
the tension of a panic only held at bay
like sea-sickness, with iron will, good fortune,
muttered prayers
inshallahinjesusnameinshallahinjesusname
they rise and fall, jaws clench and clench again
...

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Paragram continues to offer writers a wide range of publication ventures. Returning the focus to poetry this year, the all new Chapbook Challenge offers two amazing opportunities. The first is for one talented poet to realise an ambition to publish their short collection. The second will see over40 poets published in Paragram Spotlights, the 2015 anthology.

Paragram will add to the short collec...

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Stumbling with great form,

As ready and stable as any other hungover,

Willfully sick step could be,

I caught a terrifying question 

Posed to no one.

"What if this is all real?"

He was a toothless mess,

Wishing he could feel as bad as me.

Longing for the self defeating luxury of excess,

And stuck with piss stained slacks,

Feeling the true bad I thought I was complainin...

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Beneath this yonder twinkling isle
I laid down for a while;
Amidst this firmamental lea
I saw a pulsar shine with glee.

Soon i ventured into a dream 
and saw the lign aloes gleam ;
a foreigner to this lonesome abyss
I savoured every kiss of bliss.

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Smoke Screen,

------------------------------

Ever had a lover fill your head with lies yet you still cant resist them?

Can't rest tonight,

can't settle in my skin

Full moon's out high.

the past keeps telling lies,

Feels like I'm always running

away from something.

It's that reoccuring dream,

it's that smokescreen

fog around my feet,

Keeping me sweet.

tel...

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Do not presume to know

The secrets of my heart

Neither could you hope to understand

The thoughts inside my head

Don’t expect a welcome

As you try to probe inside

For the thoughts that are mine only

Are the thoughts inside my head.

So don’t be so upset

When your questions are unanswered.

My heart is locked and forged with steel

As are the thoughts inside m...

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Waky Waky haiku

Sleep interrupted
by gardeners probing fork
cringing hedgehog stirs.

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VI. Little Fish

Dive and swim in the pond.

Drift by smoothly, feeling the sun.

Be happy and free with no bond. 

Swim and float by because your journey has begun.

Swim my dear little fish

For this is your granted wish.

The bowl feels too tight

It has grown too small.

So I will set you free

Maybe one day you will come back to me.

Struggle against the ripping cur...

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Always is a long time

But together its lovely

Constant fighting

Don’t want to be alone

Everyday without you would be pain

Forget about me

Got to move on

Have to forget the memories

I will face what's new

Just move on

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I'm a person that i'd never thought i'd be...
All the mistakes that I've made 
All the love that I've given away..
My soul has ventured realms no one could ever begin to fathom
and I have seen myself die in many form... now I am the ghost in the room,

a hundred people surround but inside I'm nowhere around...

I'm in a constant search for answers to questions that cannot be answered..

...

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