Beautiful are the petals that drop...

     on every side see the fight
for flowers that do not wilt.

And the Sun who dies day after day...

     hear a sigh fade among reeds
"I tend an eternal flame".

Like the truest friends come through the fog...

     adequate feel the weapons 
that secure a stone bunker.

To carry sorrow and grief away...

     yes, the sigh fades among ree...

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Little butterfly
I have followed you.
Yours is an act of generosity
mistaken for an act of pride.
Deeper into entwined branches
I am elated while scratched.

Little butterfly
you are leading me.
Suspected of telling your own story
flight reaching the height of anonimity.
Stumbling a meadow below
I am breathless and lost.

There's a net designed just for you
also a glass-fronted to...

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There's a shadow-hid, ravenous tiger around.
At least an untamed beast to be wary of.
Walled and fenced enclosures are made
to blunt a sharp wind. Rarely will they admit
this roaring danger. Encounters with monsters
are feared, and so, obstacles litter a free path.

That kid rolling down a grassy slope
has all he needs. There is no America.
No warm nor cold- no Goldilocks anxiety.
A...

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     Only so much can be used 
to benefit the Machiavellian man.
The disorientation of others
through chaos, their depression
under cursing skies.
     Wartime is the best time
literally or poetically
for a Machiavellian man.
Times of the distraught cry
the stunned, helpless stare
later to be dubbed "dark ages".
     With a flourish of the matador's cloak
-our Machiavellian man.
...

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Where momentary views  
reached out to the next county,
now focus is all close-up.
Long views are screened;
the season of the leaf has enacted
its stealthy revolution.
Neighbours pressed close ensnare all;
the tangled net of detail.
Proof weaving together wins
over frantic competition.
Commuters all 
numbly decrying the same old trip
slip the season of cool, deep thought
emerge in...

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Here memorialised in verse
a family inclined to curse.
One by one lifted from their hell
portrayed as fair as time can tell.

Here's mother, father, sister, brother
grown apart but chained together.
Numbly to submit in monotone
their evidence sworn bone by bone.

The spirit of joy, pushed or fell,
into the deepest dankest well.
As one for once they make the claim
it's not them; i...

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You must see this fish!

You must see this fish caught in a net

You must see this fish caught in a net
hoisted high out of the waves

You must see this fish caught in a net
hoisted high out of the waves
by men who care nothing for him

A  blazing vision of his beloved
occupies his mind, delighting in his beloved
he would not exchange places with anyone
enthralled this way by lo...

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A motorbike gang has roared ahead.
Threw a leg over a cause and rode it
for all it's worth. The loud gang- 
mouthpiece of the needy minority
whether they want it or not.

But you are the meek 
they say shall inherit the earth
and you can be proud to be left for dead.
You are considering 
the vital songs in the silence of your mind.
You conserve but also improve.
When the time is r...

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Can any one here find me
catch me; cook up; crochet, create me

just a little felt blanket
for the rubber farm animals
work-horses, pigs, triceratops
bandaged in paper
at the busy animal hospital.

Deliver your offers here, and here
there, there, there.
We're talking everywhere 
aren't we? Then the job is done.
Are you not then flying birds
like all things natural as the tides 
...

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Into a cleft in the earth.
No extensive cave network greeted me
 just a small subterranean parlour.
The light was still good.
You should know I brought with me Orpheus
Theseus, Lazarus; what have you.
Is it odd that I quickly dispensed with these shades?
They quickly dissolved at any rate.

There were no sweet wrappers or plastic bottles.
There were no bones or cave paintings.
Ther...

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You know as well as I
the music most popular;
which films will rank as must-see,
and what sells newspapers.

But the musician will, searching,
haunt a barren wasteland
where aeolian harps play still
far from booming towers.

And every individual
held in a captive audience
enshrines their own favourite
however obscure the love.

That the spotlight of the day
should sweep ...

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This rope paid out, and paid out
so unfeasibly far. My spirit's life 
to this point: how to explain
the meander this tributary takes
being one unbroken Zen flash? 

In this non-stop festival of breath
how would I compare the chosen course
with offers untasted? Surely 
the dish not tried keeps it's mystery
leaving comparison chimerical.
But only now do I sail on with my love
free of ind...

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This far down the road, a cloud of dust 
raised and stirred by writhing dragons
is his history, should he care to look back.
Today he will focus on frozen explosions 
flowers, solely for the beauty. 
Truly enthralled thus, the old man 
is not yet so foolish to imagine
he grows to understand them, or himself
any better. A certainty is
the power of good taken to heart
wilderness kept ...

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Why direct attention to a swan with ripped-off wings?
It's a good question, and we'll come to that.
Now, a heirachy established
to benefit those on the lower rungs.
This is a unicorn. 
Bread and butter to a poet.

A poet in fashion must now describe
a horse, sprayed white, narwhal's horn
screwed into the forehead.

The mythological creature
inspirational epitome of beauty
remains...

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     Two girls on the swings talk
now in harmony, now not.
The elder tells of a planet
so far distant that we can never learn
of the lives of those likely living there.
     The younger will not understand
why her sister confides it makes her sad.
     A nursery rhyme, a song of the valley;
granddmother's whisper, the elder explains.
Over the mountains it is unheard of.
And news fro...

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I'm minded of Achilles and the heroes
but no; they fought to the death.
We compete for gilded laurel leaves
sports men and women of the world.

Now banished to kick up grey lunar dust
in this couch potato's thought experiment.
Let the games begin, mere games, that's the point
sports men and women of the Moon.

Unimaginative knuckleheads. Us?
Look here: a novel satellite event
"mar...

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This brushed stainless steel landscape.
Where DO flowers grow?
Now it's crossed my mind I'm seeing
them everywhere.
And I think I've worked it out-
it's them fucking people!
As a population of extras, a mob of cynics,
they play their part badly.
Propagate the most unlikely dreams
and tend the ground for any chance bulb.

This office in the sky
glass tower impenetrable to vision
...

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write a poem
everyone's a critic
read a poem
everyone's a philosopher
fold the paper carrying the poem
into an origami aeroplane
aim high, let it go
everyone's a child at heart
hopeful dreamer, lover of the good 
unschooled slackline walker, poet
write a poem
do it for mama
it's the least you can do
do it for the cause
every little helps
televise the performance
in the company...

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Out of sight of land is where it's at
if the land is you and you
the agonising details
won't stop with the raising of mountains

I was offered the moon, no strings attached
words like germs I later found
and cleansed by the sea I'll take all the sea
thank you very much

Adjacent to the dog star a bird
impressive of wingspan, eager of eye
hangs over me (a floating feast?) so grand
...

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I shall meet the challenge
of a robin stood in my path
with the morning's maiden sigh
not a photograph.
For mummification never saved 
a gracious soul.
Take care, my poets, erase each word
before it grows cold.
 

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They have lounged on grey midnight grass
wondering at the infinite stars
and their own smallness against them,
their fire-fly flash in time's eternity.
They have touched the sublime
and could only laugh.
It's a case of celebrating their poverty.
They have no defence against the prowling tiger
and are powerless against the raging seas.
They will never see as an eagle sees
and the que...

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This community has moved online.
That is, it no longer exists,
transformed, trivialised,
corrupted and abandoned 
as a powerless fantasy picture
wherever cyberspace can store it.
"If it's not honest, it's not real."
the old tramp dryly croaks.
It's true. The only engine capable
of carrying a sensible traveller
one inch closer to the goal
must be fuelled by honesty.
For a can of sp...

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Fossils planted in the hillsides
by a chuckling god tricking us all:
These are today's poems
unrecognised for what they are.

Justice
scratching the gilding from her shoulder
finding she is mercy

innocently waiting 
for broken promises to be fulfilled

knowing the job is beneath her
but if she doesn't do it, who will?

She contemplates, communes, with the stars
surprised ever...

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In lines they sally forth-
they could be chained together.
But each is engrossed in a different world.
Each one is the motionless Buddha
mind ablaze with questions.
Each one vows to erase the evils
besetting their world. Now,
a solid-gold Buddha is something to be.
Meanwhile, lines keep marching forth
to allotted places in a grim creation.
This world of their own making.
 

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Swift and graceful lemurs
occupy the canopy.
So swift, so beautiful
feet don't touch the ground.
Swift, graceful, beautiful
abreeze through treetops
too many to count. Here's one 
-but wait-
for whatever reason
the accustomed leap
now second nature
still breathtakingly acrobatic
fails. 
He has lost his grip. It happens.
The back-up branch snaps off in his hand
here's a real pro...

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We're to edit this book, not read and discard it,
not, heaven forbid, burn it.
But a bed of nettles can't be approached
and the thorny bramble stands impenetrable,
we're to soften the edges of this picture
not whitewash it all, frame included.
Though the stench is strong and the danger clear
our minds, already gardening, work fast.
We're to strum this guitar as a student
not polish i...

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Then the roof falls in. Walls built over years
topple in a moment heedless of tears.
So we are levelled like a house of cards 
all that's left to us, our view of the stars.

To every one fate strikes as unique.
The latest hero from the ancient Greek.
And Love, once again of no fixed abode,
send forth sweet arrows down the chartless road.
 

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The labouring world hastens by, fretting 
"forward... forward..." bleary-eyed 
as commuters at the lap-top early
aboard hurtling trains through fallow fields 
where we'd lay singing; fa-la-la rising.

We've rode that train and laid on that moor.
Altogether we've yelled, "Forward, forward!"
And each silently cried "Return, return."
So full are the days required to learn
strains as pl...

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You may know from bitter experience
a workhorse in society
is someone deprived of his basic rights.
Broken, and forced to do another's will,
by untold little acts of unkindness.

And then a horse whisperer comes along.
She has no time
for bullying by dishonourable,
callous congregations.
She works a magic they'll never know.

The running meadows may be illusion
may be real, and stagna...

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Appearing in a scene from a film
smoking at a bus stop
takes all the concentration a youngster has.
Us oldies have it different.
We must concentrate 
being full of aches and pains
to appear light-hearted.

Worlds will emerge like music from noise.
The kingdom of ends (see Kant)
grows from a huddle against bitter cold.
In the long meantime, 
practically infinite for the short-sight...

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You don't understand anything
lookng in someone's eye, in general.
Time comes you look in someone's eye
and gather you both
find an orphan long lost family
and would take scarred prisoners as gurus.
Look away fast but too late
each recognised in the other...

Perhaps it's put best in poetry
but that has never touched you.
It could just as well be illegible scrawls
bright graffiti ...

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Obvious as walking into a bar
goes the soulful companion, poetry.
Commences a surprise, no history about it, 
submits to fate leaving no debris
for the field must be left clear, pure.
Fashioned in singular language 
like nothing more than an inaudible voice,
if noticed at all it will be disregarded.
I think invisible as gravity,
I think just as crucial.
Obvious as the sea we swim in
...

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