Poetry Blogs (2018, Childhood)

Lie to Me

When the halyard raps the empty staff

and the hurricane screams its rage,

and the water-mountains heave and crash

in their spume-flecked valleys chained,

and I look upon this wild expanse

shouting fury for my pleas,

and ask in dread “Do we stand a chance?”

Please, oh please take pity ….

…. lie to me.

When darkness infiltrates my being,

seeps silent t...

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Sister Magdalena

alabaster skin

cold to the touch

pinched

            bloodless

            lips

eyes

the colour of duck eggs

piercing

            your

            soul

wisps

of taut hair

creeping

            from

            her scalp

cross on chain

hanging from

scrawny

            bird

            throat

rosa...

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At nine o'clock your day begins
but I've been up since six
cleaning clothes and scrubbing floors
mushing up your Weetabix
I have to empty all the bins
and wash the dishes up
then I come and bathe you
you're such a mucky pup
clothes hanging on the wardrobe
prepared the night before
I dress you and I feed you
then I clean your mess once more
I put the TV on for you
but I never get a cha...

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The first time it happened she was barely nine
it was a simple request
you show me yours and I'll show you mine
she had no interest in what he'd offered to show
but he was two years older and that little bit bolder
he wouldn't listen to her when she said no.
He offered to give her something for her time
she suggested fifty pence
he agreed with a nod and a smile and with that
he bought her...

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I’m picking smoothed stones from wet autumn leaves
While you find the right bark to make armour,
The trees around us stand and sway with the breeze
Next to me, you always seem calmer.

We play as badgers, as wrens, as eagles,
We’re friends and that’s enough for me.
Then our engines blast out blackened diesel
Through the horse-tracked paths that run behind trees.

Streams around us splutter a...

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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.

Summer sun dips on the estate

dragging shadows from th...

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What was going through your head?

What was running through your mind?

It's the one thing I'll never understand;

How you could just walk away and leave me behind

Didn't leave a trace, no reason to be found.

Just taken away and never reunited.

Do you understand the pain I've written across my heart;

When you took away from me, everything I had.

I was just a child, I...

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