I always thought that I could be a dowser.

Why did you never come

to sit at my table?

I hear of spirits met -

a soldier sitting at the bed end,

one shoe off.

I’ve never seen a ghost.

No soldier ever spoke to me.

If anyone could reach back through the dark

it would be you.

But you have never spoken.

Once, at midnight

c...

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There’s nothing so pretty

As shrimping net city

Where rock pools are tempting

And hermit crabs charm

In gingham and sandals

With sand between our toes

A spade and a bucket

Held in freckled arms.

The grannies are wiry -

Running down to the ripples

A chorus of children

To left and to right.

As the gulls wheel and deal

On their pasty patrol

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I went into the pub and sat

down on a wooden bench.

There was an old chap sitting there,

“Now listen to me, wench!”

“It seems to me” the old man said

“That life’s all upside down”

I asked him what he meant

and he continued with a frown

“Cos when you’re young and bright and new

you are so fawned upon!

Everyone admires you

and you can ...

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the season's over

everybody has gone home

the seasons over

leaving me here all alone

summer was fun

but now it's done

the season's over....

the shops stand empty

and the cafe's closed it's doors

the sandcastles have all been washed away

a pair of old flip flops are lying in the hall

waiting for another sunny day

the season's over

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When I was first alone

I cut off all my hair

time turned upside down

sleeping in the day

sleepless all night long

world service mornings

warmed by the rayburn

with a cat for comfort.

For weeks my fingers were so cold.

I'd touch faces -

people would recoil

at my icy icy hands.

It was my party piece...

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Nimrod coasts across the bay

heavy as a swan.

I sit on the ruined harbour wall

reporting back.

Lifeboat Day - St Agnes.

I drew a picture - a cartoon -

me on a rock

a huge plane flying by

sent it to you.

Clearing your home

I come across them all -

cards, drawings, letters.

The doings of the hens, the cats.

Now, even Nimr...

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I awoke to howling empty screams

and then I knew.

That all the children of the town

were turned to seagulls.

Soaring and wheeling over their old homes

where mothers are busy frying bacon.

They don't understand.

Where has the old school gone

where they were slow to go?

Why are cars parked up on the island

where they used to pitch their tents?

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When Wally won the wellie wangin’ contest

It’s true that a few eyebrows had been raised

Cos Wally, he was never very sporty

His athletic prowess it was never praised.

And Mrs Simms, her that worked in the chemist

Was suspicious when old Wally had paid up

For twenty bottles of that there lovely Tixxylix

And Benyline, Cornovia and Vapour Rub.

Cos ...

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We move in together

your eyes are beautiful.....

They told me you'd been lonely

though they said little else.....

My friends think you are a real catch...

But sometimes you look at me

as if you are expecting the world to start..............

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It seems too unlikely.

Little girl, pink frock, barefoot

wandering through a glade

following a peacock.

There’s no-one with her.

Just this sapphire creature

at her side.

Putting down our sandwich lunch

worried, we approach.

“Where is your mummy?”

The peacock disappears.

“Over there” she gestures

unconcerned.

Tells us he...

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The boy on the bus has eyes like fishes

not dead cod eyes but

perfectly elliptical

fish shaped

slanting.

His father is old, his mother

wears sensible shoes.

An only child

alarmed by noise, counting solar panels

obsessed by bus timetables.

“What’s that?” to everything

clutching at mother when a branch

clatters on the roof

or...

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We lie between the pages of a flimsy book

Sighing in a quaver’s breath

Flit like a dream

Wafting like autumn valley smoke

As enduring as a love letter in sand

Soft as a water colour after rain

Melting to nothing nothing nothing…

Open a window let me fly away

Leave go my hand and don’t say stay

Other atoms wait to stir me in

I go with nothing n...

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There’s a roman statue in the garden

steps sweeping down to a dewy lawn

tables, napkin-laid for tea

and I am waiting for Maxim de Winter…

We would never have stayed in this place.

Haversacked and anoraked,

peering over the wooden palings

unkempt windswept back packers

noses pressed to the sweetshop window.

Now here I am again, wondering

...

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We used to sit on this bench

waiting for the sun to set

into the sea

like a big red boiled sweet.

It changed its shape,

looked like an onion or a pear

slipping so quickly underneath

the waves.

The sky stayed blue

so long -

we waited to spot a planet

appearing like the first note in a peal of bells.

The night sky was our dark symp...

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There’s no room in my tent for you

Only space enough for me

My feet poke out quite brave

The rest of me hidden away.

Bees buzz, grass tickles my toes

That’s all of the world I need

If my tent had a big iron lock

I’d lock it to keep you out.

I’ve got crayons and a big book

And sandwiches in a tin

And I don’t have to let you talk

And I don’t...

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Well he’s off to Nova Scotia in the morning

Where the whales sing and ice burgs touch the sky

He’s tired of the fusty stale old workhouse

And he needs the salty sea to spark his eye.

He remembers when he was a child of nine years old

To Newfoundland he surely found his way

The ocean was his home

Wherever he did roam

And Penzance was a lonely pla...

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When young Adam fancied a fumble

He asked Eve to make him a crumble

The serpent said yes

Then Eve made a dress

And now to our doom we all stumble.

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I don’t want a Labradoodle or a Borgie or a Corkie

Or a Boingle or a Bichpoo when I go out for walkies

I couldn’t stand a Borador or even a little Bogle

Or a Sprocker or a Springadoor or a cute and cuddly Rottski!

A Huskamite might bite me

And a Patterpoo would poo

Well I guess in the grand scheme of things

All god’s creatures do.

A Sheltidoodle or a Poogle...

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You were always touching the void

never at home, with your boys, with your woman -

always away - touching the void.

You saw beyond the brown horse on the hill.

Beyond, beneath,

you saw the skeleton of rocks and mines

of men and minerals –

of Cornwall

the old heathen land

the body of the land

the backbone,

the carcass of it

you s...

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Renee Scoble's cat

used to be quite fat

once sat on the mat

sometimes chased a rat

now she's just got flat

and...that's the end of that!

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Daffodils on my table

stand in a coffee pot.

The pot is cream and gold and green,

so pretty, I use it as a vase.

The daffodils on my table

never bloomed.

But they are dying.

Maybe it’s too warm.

I bought them from a roadside pail.

They stood proud, gold and green;

full of promises suppressed.

Now, fat buds are soft,

rottin...

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On this opal morning

I miss my mum.

If she was in the kitchen

making coffee,

everything would be alright.

We’d have plain chocolate digestives.

Dip the smiling edges till

the chocolate melted

warm as love.

In an Ealing garden apples trees

would be clad in pink and white

clothes hang on a sagging line

propped by a cloven branch.

A...

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