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By Day Sun Pins You Down

 

It's by night you must rush
into your truelove's arms.
Unmoored souls will drift afar
easy as mindless clouds.
Could it be the moon's guile,
in rivalry with the sun,
stealing them away?
Some swear the night itself
dissolves neglected souls,
leaves no trace at all.
Love calls on the unwary:
do not be lured away, maddened,
forever lost in wilderness shade.
There's whisper of mania,
...

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All It Takes

 

It takes a village to lose a child
and a whole world
to lose a community
water evaporating
each believing 
they can find a space of their own.
It takes a city for a graffiti artist
to make his mark 
from the outskirts to the heart
and a whole world 
for a driven society to brand its stamp
on everything it finds.
It takes a country to define civilization
in its own terms
right or...

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Christmas 2022

The Difference In The Master's Instrument

 

A mind's to hold a gorgeous song
while mired in sickly muzak.
As long-distance birds must do
angling for the uplifting spirit.

Expectation is not more than
a further mile through muck;
continuous spattering that
begins a burial early.

But experience is more than
more of the same. Patient study
transforms the student. Don't expect
a crumbling likeness to endure.

Who has the m...

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Apartment

 

Don't worry they say
you are no longer needed
to continue the story.
The story is the story has ended.

All eyes are free to see
the phases of the moon
now the moon is grey
and so is the sky.

You're no longer required or allowed
to relate hair-raising detail.
No longer able or entitled
to pass on a grain of unencrypted truth.

You'll get to know your limits
inside a room that...

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Swansong

 


The swan remembers, journeys,
through five sets of cygnets,
countless wide full-moon vigils,
back to the most deathly freeze.

Under weight of ice
branches fell from lakeside trees,
many a stoic witness fate overcame;
small bodies entombed in sharp crystal.

As a glance of sun inspired flight
all found equal- the neighbour lakes-
incarcerated in themselves,
inhospitable and unm...

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Think

 

I have to think how to breathe in and out.
It appears I'm to carry on
like the world's worst actor
utterly stunned
when an Angel says "Sorry"
as if lost rainforests need judgement
for their absence.

I know wielding forgiveness without cause
to be a crime. I'm speechless. Words would come
as from a babbling amoeba on the floor 
but what help is that? I want to help.

There's a li...

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What's Past Is Prologue

 

November draws her blackened leaves 
back into the earth.
Hasn't it always been the end of the world?
Echoes, hammered into the head
from cut-down Edens, in faint pulses
die.
Survivors are none; disaster complete.
Veiled sunlight stalks the dark battlefield
and soon exhausted, turns away.
It leaves unnoticed a bud unlikely
as one green marble in all this space.
It turns out the end...

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LeapFrog

 

Frog neglects to jump
Pond a sheet of polished steel
What art bestows life?
 

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Country Life

Metropolitan Man wears the mask of the commuter.
Faces Today's challenges via trusty computer.

Odd, him looking down from a mountain top.

Wholely beautiful, there is a lake of silver
     perfectly still but for a distant man
          ant-busy at the edge.

A fisherman's son of an age
     with the work-wear swaddling him,
          the jumble of tired equipment
                and ...

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The Musician's Bleeding Fingers

 

A harp string plucked 
is a real flower plucked
the thorn is a private concern.

Scaling Jacob's ladder of bliss
arpeggios, rambling roses,
no upper limit in the air.

As light chords rise, what covenant filled skies!
Confirmation from the chorus
all that rings true is agreeable to all.

And in the moment's silence between notes
measured minds orientate themselves.
Not compasses...

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News

 

Old timers call the evil force 'money'
but it's a shapeshifter we have amongst us.
Inhuman as a virus, invisible 
and fatal as a chemical weapon.
Not faceless, headless: there's no 
executive power in a senseless force.
(That's the good news!)
Every day we leave the bunker
wonder what the hell is this world
and find out which side were on.
Bound to matters close to hand
whose conde...

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On The Plus Side


You can't hammer a post into the ground
without delighting country dancers
who'll weave ancient ribbons
all around your maypole.
You can't sweep a square yard
free of fallen leaves
without a picnic taking place.
And if you should stop
there'll be strangers nodding
then neighbours, then friends.
Even moving away you'll be leading
a sanguine and spirited parade
if you could but know it...

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An Age Thing

 

You can't look with full attention
and at the same time judge.
This is the fabled wisdom of age.

A selfish, gawky fledgling took pride 
in his power of attention, keen
to be passionately engaged.

An egoist psychopath or novitaite bullock
of half-formed mind liked to judge,
considered it a matter of pride.

I chuckle now at pride, become bald.
Take infantile chalk lines for real...

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Spanish Guitar

 

She leapt into my lap
embraced in the familiar way.
Oceanic depths of music
dissolve walls and hours 
as in a dream.
Bowed in silence before a song
Columbus in the old world
held her beauty's siren.
All so real then
where does such love go to die?

"You could bring her back. I think you should."
There's a long explanation but who needs it?
Sforzando my response:
"Yeah. Right. Gr...

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wip

Wider World

The cloistered blade of the gypsy
short and cold and unadorned.
Fall of the cards too rapid to follow.


Mingled shouts build, higher;
lashed to the rocking table
forbidding reason and retreat.


This small lullaby, my doves-
who sparkle over rubies in rings-
pay no heed; it's a corner grub.


Until point blank
Sun grows too white. And bound, stung night
cries in disbelief.
 

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Dreamer To Dreamer Speaks

 

An immaculate poet has intimated
your heart lies fathoms deep 
in muddy veins below.
All the trees roots dive to search.
Believing in the world as I see it
I'm sure one root will find your heart
then they all will.
Celebration in advance is hard to hide-
Just look at those leaves!
Look how the final clouds
nuzzle the lilac hills!
 

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Your Humble Poet

 

Away from your empire you could be
a head-banded, bell-tinkling hippy
a song of love spun from your harp ringing
well, if you were hallucinating.

I saw you on the riverbank today
a pale druid could do no more to pray.
You stood so long, just as a waypost
what held you at that desolate coast?

I too carry a frayed bag of wishes
old and grey and reduced to ashes.
Take it now if it ...

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The Luminous Poets

 

Behind bushes, drunk on your own
ravings: not the best place to start
the renaissance and take-over.
You're there because the dark poets
are winning. You believe they've won.
The vampire and the necrophile
are the characters they play with.
Ugly the art they think thoughtful
howls and shrieks are now musical.
Heart is heading for the deep freeze
-when else would you set it beating?
...

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Latest Developments

 

I have grown old.
Clamorous shouts grow louder
("Just look how sincere I am!")
but hail from growing distances.
I'll claim to have grown too weak 
to wrestle down accelerating years
watch them fly out of sight 
all their luggage with them.
I have grown accustomed to dim lamps.
Fire of the mind parcelled out
to see clearly.
My dalliance with ephemera
grows smaller in proportion
to...

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Piano

 

Daylight won't judge nor even scrutinize.
The Moon keeps the exemplary vigil.
But you and I aren't the sun and the moon.
Fair enough.
Mary doesn't judge or scrutinize
her sister keeps an exemplary vigil.
Call unto Mary, the awakened one 
while fairer still, her sister
from dreams follows
the tragedies of the times
possessed of the smile
that's led generations through.
 

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Proem Before Sleep


Think of a most promising prelude to dreamtime.
A path in an english country garden.
A supernatural proem would cover it.

Rain at night. 

Sound emerges from darkness.
The fact of it's existence vulnerable to doubt.

Tell me I'm not alone in thinking
the song of midnight rain 
shines a light on the oneness of all life.
Yeilds a profound meditation on that truism.

Blown into a tre...

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Folk Music

 

I have long dreamt, lightening in the sky,
beckoned forward I'd say
"Pull your chair close
keep your glass charged
and listen."

As when children, lightening split the sky,
we'd stay up late to hear
"Draw your chair closer
fill again your cup
and listen, listen."

Imagine the war over, lightening 'cross the sky
in all the dim-lit rooms
"Pull your chair close
keep your glass cha...

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Shoreline Lament

 

I am of a million by the loud sea
each holds a fantastical spiral shell
while to their echo-enlarging chamber
each pours the contents of a burdened heart.

With the timeless sea unmoved by secrets
all our task is to be not so saddened
while into the wave-worn chamber we sing
oh shoreline lament enable the heart.
 

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Stuttering Start

 

Time used to pass- custard setting-
boy nudges bowl aside-
smithereens around kitchen floor-
custard spattered up legs.

Startled, our kid scarpers so fast
no time to clean the slate
and worse, fridge door hangs wide-open.
His new age breezes in.

Clutching knees, stuck in long grass now.
Brood of magpies sweep past.
Walls spring up to block thought and deed
unreal, and one mile ...

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Gothic Nocturne

 

The poem stands accused.
'Threshold', 'omen' and all the rest.
The humble scribe explains.
The poem raises these phantoms
to drop them from a great height. Cursed words 
from the province of impish boys and girls
where superstitious souls conjour 
untenable worlds.
The part-time scribe will make it plain.
This amateur scribe works in the warehouse.
Here endless shelves hold the worl...

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Winter Tree

 

Take upon yourself the look of spring!
Don colours- vivid!- like to define life!
All the world will love you, that you must know!
Standing as death, brittle enough to break!
Take upon yourself the look of spring!

It is the trodden beetle who knows death
megalithic stones, millenia erect, do not.
I stand midway and though already lightening-struck
this is my springtime. I will medita...

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Embarassment Of Riches

 

I crashed in half way through the tune and stood transfixed
The tail end of a poem flowing fast into the mist
when all the apples in yon orchard belong to me
I'll hear again the music and gain the words completely

one so poor must offer up this unfinished design
must return to the forge and the mill and the mine
if all the apples in yon orchard belonged to me
ruby ladybirds and all t...

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A Row Of Beans

 

The arch poet tends to his row of beans
as once he broadcast words across the land.
He sighs for these stems of rogue angle
for as he outgrows limelight well deserved 
his arguments pale, but not love, for love
the arch poet tends to his row of beans.

For love the arch poet made the verses
to challenge the spirit of any age
who in adversity is found unfair.
He created a space for p...

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TributeW.B. Yeats

Rehabilitation Of The Lemming

 

Picture a lemming approaching a mirror.
In a vastly expanded second the lemming
regards the value of all lemmings,
their significance, regardless of situation.


Now, the lemming is industrious and swift moving,
when meeting another lemming head on
on one of their well worn narrow tracks
the lemming remains calm and sensible.


The lemming takes half a step to one side
the lemmin...

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I Hear The Frog

 

"For all my didactic croaks
I have never persuaded anyone
to become a frog."
I hear the robin
"For all my exemplary tweets
I have never persuaded anyone
to become a robin."
About my solitary walk
also the butterfly, the mouse
the ant and the squirrel.
Much improved
I reach a small church
spilling out it's congregation.
Obliged to offer "Good morning"
many 'Good morning's respond
...

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The Weather-Vane


Peppering the rural landscape
like worn gargoyles on churches
like found horseshoes nailed to the nearest plank
how many of these weather-vanes actually work?
This one, set in it's ways
gives evidence for the unmoved.
The blacksmith fell deeply in love
with the ornamental, the old peculiar
village ways and impenetrable mysteries.
The blacksmith's ingenuity spun
from the earliest forge.
...

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The Importance Of Being Decent

 

Infinite varieties of phenomena
populate the deepest possible lake
under the thinnest possible ice.

I skate above in the prevailing fashion
working hard to stay ahead
of question and disaster.

This morning and a new work colleague.
A new member of the gang, buddy.
"... and so I voted conservative." He said.

He might just as well have said
I'm a paedophile, [racist comment cens...

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Burn The Lot

 

It's in the air, there's a bonfire nearby
the man who knows how to keep his wife happy
will bring the washing in
for a stone's throw around
animals that can move will move
but incriminating evidence takes longest to burn
and animals must live on their nerves
I know from experience
having cleared a jungle for an envisioned garden
painstakingly hand-copied musical notation 
combusts q...

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Louder Than Words

 

Jacqui didn't do the job
I say job because she took the pay
why Jacqui didn't do the job
Jacqui couldn't say

They asked her in a courtroom
there were gasps of shocked dismay
should we trust your colleagues any better
dumb jacqui couldn't say

She wields the comp'ny umbrella
but rain drops will find a way
the verdict of the jury is in...
busy Jacqui couldn't stay

Is it howling...

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Tomorrow Was The Day

 

Tomorrow I will risk again a dusty track
not looking for a perfect leaf  
find by chance one inspiring
turn there and then for home
press within a book of poems
the ideal gift and there it will lie
utterly forgotten.
Years, a lifetime, later
not looking for an answer
you'll find by chance the preserved leaf
It's magic will manifest in your tears of joy
it's power is to bolster your...

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Spare The Great Archemides

 

I am to understand I swim in a sea of time
although this teaspoonful
is all I have at hand.
So thought Einstein
and the thought brought to mind
his old hero Archemides of Syracuse.
"My dear Archemides, a dumb soldier
put you to the sword 
despite the invading commander's order-
spare the great Archemides.
I am old enough to realize I am close to the edge
the edge that halted your b...

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Wasteland Made Good

Tempting the cosmos to cry out


like a child with a cut finger


the two of us take to the glancing rays


our only observer a disinterested cat


sharing expansive evening rays


at liberty to consider all eons


we could hear a dinosaur breathe


and should the Evil One appear


he will face the questioning of his existence


on our scrap of reclaimed land

 

now...

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Blind Harper

 

The unforseen emergence of music
great blessing that we can be thankful for
came late in the singularly bright day.
Love had shone through the ubiquitous branch
then deepening dusk wrought a subtle change.
Imagination, all wonders, and fears,
came to parallel the world as given.
When night was found black and untrustworthy
music was the welcome light leading on.
 

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Words Of Encouragement

 

No one forgave all my mistakes
least of all my good self.
Assay these lines and see clearly
a picture of yourself.
What gain in recounting mistakes?
Trust we had our glory.
When both you and I are laid low
in another's story.
 

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Along The Way

 

Sit apart and be true to me
so says my blood-bathed heart
fear not steely daggers but
simple love confused and lost

overhead go singing birds
hearts blood-bathed as yours
and the silken racing clouds
they can never be still

Ruminate long and alone
says my heart, adrift
our audience chimerical
cool colleagues, imagined

Unmoved by the deep river
where loves go drifting past
...

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Time Capsule

When, if, 
time capsules may be unearthed
is uncertain.
You put something in, everyone does,
but 
don't expect to choose what.

You unwittingly 'help' future iterations
know their past.
You know: that crowd of ghosts, clowns,
grinning inanely
peering over the shoulder to see
what happens next.

They have know from experience what happens
generally.
It's not that life is a catalogue...

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Tattoo For The Last Empty Space

 

Once we saw angels and daemons by night
now we muse upon moonbeams and starlight.
skies -now clear, now dark- have not changed their ways
and nor have we through our swift rushing days.
Has something changed while nobody noticed?
Can something be lost yet never be missed?
We strive now as then always to fit in
each to their own quick mind the assassin.
 

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Springtime For Adam

 

In waves not meant to drown me 
subtlemost feeling bouyed
quick spirit held aloft.
Trusting from saintly patience
metamorphosis finds
a sublime after-life. 

How much I promised to love
before I dreamed of you;
my longing never slept!
How Primavera makes bright 
meadows by her wish-
so each promise I kept.

Round and round the garden
sheltered by the trees
I spy the idol of my...

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Two Statements, One A Poem


If the book of the universe be written
in the language of Mathematics,
a bad scholar swindled at market
and mocked at home, such as I am,
hopes yet for another book, written
in a script less fit for accountants
and truer to common, sustaining dreams.

All that's valuable has ever been
a windfall accepted not meant to last,
all that I crave so unbearably
at once so close while so beyon...

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Of Philosopher Or Poet

 

Philosophy and poetry, unaware 
of kinship, each alone take to a den.
A thankless calling they follow
as much as an endless task.
Constant their desire is, not less than
the full destruction of cynicism.
Glory, if words could summon strength,
to all who fight the war that won't be won.

The professor's words ring loud
and proud of the universal.
The bard cannot abandon the unique
...

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Talk To The Hand

 

Creatures of a gloomy nature
blunder into each other,
chance crossings accounting for all
knowledge of fellow travellers.

Then there's us in the spotlight.
We love our neighbours as best we can
but more than smiles traded on steps
point us to where we would be.

Creatures in a grey evening
fight the foe they meet,
the bright shock of morning
tells who are the new mighty.

Then...

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It's Not That Simple

 


We don't make a language of a dozen words
cant build a city out of a thousand lego bricks
or a duck with all possible resources.
The bird would not get off the ground 
if it were a few bits of plastic snapped together.
(Well it might but it wouldn't lay a fucking egg would it)

Stars must explode; violently produced treasures
spraying out into space to coalesce under gravity,
formi...

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This Better Be Good

 

The name belongs to the body
the body belongs to the mind
the mind beholds a mouse on a corn stalk
stoops to its subject like a falcon to prey

The name is called, a button pressed
the body turns, all but a machine
the mind collapses a cornfield in an instant
and all the mice in my England run free
 

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Something About The Hypotenuse

 

The Egyptians were great to the Greeks
Because Egyptian mathematics speaks.
Pythagorus led out of old Egypt 
the sacred embodied in number, but
from the beginning the devil broke through
along the length of the square root of two.

Here's one deceived lover, there's another;
those failed, and gaoled, and bound together.
Soonest they learn the rhymes of a sad world
refuse to have gau...

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At The Watering Hole

 

I don't have my father wandering
huge fields, fixing fences
making plans; no concern
for anything outside his patch of land.
Someone somewhat similar stomps
the fields stretching inside of me.
Of the tribe that heeds no warning
indifferent to all the others
and their noise.

Trained from birth to wear the smile 
of civilization, the moderns
with their claim to be interchangeable
...

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