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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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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