The folly of the climb

Black rocks gaze at the blue light

Shines through crystal glass

A polluted mineral underground

Collapsed with dignity

Under the influence of a memory.

The darkened peace continued

On the banks of our fair hill

A cough heard, a click

As the night brings on a warning

And all is silent

Oh, the folly of the climb.

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The ways of standing and seeing
Into a mirror reflecting sky
Crystalline fractures of the moss-strewn depth
Fold throughout pattern in the sunken shaft.

Thermal power, autumn discharge
The feathers white upon the side
The stone cracked and moved with the storm
That struck seven nights back, with the tide.

A crumbling pedestal
Split looking-glass of auburn sheen
Reflects ...

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Ochre, ochre, ochre...

Ochre blotches, betray the dry breath
of June.
As we bring home
the August supplement.

Last week's answers, merely
bring more questions.
And I ask,
why is he so cryptic?

That which thunder keeps at bay...
Heat? Light?
Stagnation...
A stuffed solar shirt.

On TV, the fuzzy grey cross-hatching
swathes our green
and pleasant land
(t...

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In the garden, the sounds are small
that take me back to fond times;
the curling up and crying crawl,
belie the screaming sighs and crimes.

When in a moral shed of sticks,
with doctors there at play with silver
metals and poison pinpricks;
I see that time has trapped me under.

These relatives, a clique of pain;
the sins masquerading as the faithful.
When they come back...

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In midnight's grasp you stand before
me naked on the dew swept lawn;
limbs frozen, stiff, misshapen,
pale joints stretched, your challenge sworn.
In lunar light, your shivering
ascent on the rusted rungs builds
anticipation, from the ground;
not stopping at the prospect's thrill.

Repeat ritual, your holy hour;
eyes in rapturous ecstasy;
pointing stiff your hands outward,
...

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Flying through the green-specked nether

Silent yet screaming

At one with the truth

That brought me here

That shaped and moulded me

Plugged me in, zipped and compressed

Now I find myself surrounded

By blank screens and flashing cursors

Endless rows of burning grey plastic

Heated instruments

Surrounded by darkness.

Immersed in frustration, I stand...

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Standing on the wide grey hill

The noontide skyscape hangs heavily

Like fog crafted from artists’ hands

Cities of unease hang invisible in the air.

They pour scorn on every hope in his heart

Picturing clouds unfurling with time

And shades of black rolling in on him.

A binocular gazer, from a high window

In the distance

Watches and waits, careful a...

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Fade away my dear.

Fade away as you have squandered

the years that fell on deaf ears.

Old hands point to the skies

and at dusk trace circles

eternal reflections in the sea's mirror.

Separation, right from wrong

the line is blurred as sand and foam.

From high

these tears recede, at night

leaving driftwood, still

quiet.

From networks in ...

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And we shall see

How these words develop

When they wrap around

The tall white spaces

Freeze-dried blocks of crystal matter

In cages our letters remain

Casting gloomy glances across the rain

The trees on fire, as are they

Who speak these words that live today

Made and given life

Now retracted, punish the crime

No-one allowed to speak their ...

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We march

In the light of day, that came at the third strike

Patterns of our boots etched in the mud

Like twisted leaves, a vortex in the dawn

Takes our breaths with each step

Harmful red lights glinting

Through the broken foliage, the toxic forest

Leaning in by our sides

It can't be long, I say, can't be too long

Shouts come now, from the front of the line

...

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We kept ourselves here

We kept our names to ourselves

No underground features retrieved

A notion to change

Built up and blown down before it hits

The realisation of the ship sinking

Ceremonies conducted under searchlight

Beams blind our young eyes

War-rooms full of smoke and mirrors

Story from the salesman:

‘People are the same,

‘All strai...

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Through the air and climbing

A mist-bound projectile

Hurtling, defying the atmosphere

Pollution in raindrops, brightening

Traversing ever upward

On this endless marked gaze

The view from the bottom, the tower spire

Stretching

Toward the golden vault

We look and see

The silver beauty

The stone engravings

Blemished with moss, attached and thickening

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See rocks when running

Appearing like dark blue flashes

Skipping over wet sand

When counting these days

Seems only like a daydream

When I last climbed here

Clambered over these rocks

Up onto the hurtful grass

The stones are dry and still

Cracked and broken in fragments

Shaped in oddity, left alone

Beside there lay the gap in earth

T...

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Garrison minion

Sharp opinion

The taste of unrequited joy

Bathe in zeppelins' beams, deploy.

Signal to the twelfth

Sabotage by stealth

Accrued thick mud under moonglow

Spent - the battalion light show.

Do not question what we mean by darkness

The only crime - there's not enough blood

Bodies our spreadsheets lay fixed in view

Museum exhibit...

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Way out by the rapeseed field

The bridge and crossing, standing stern

Reflecting in the late afternoon

The breeze lifting the haze adrift.

As the train went past, I saw the light

The endless fading words of honour

Sink or swim in the estuary

As the boughs floated, with the cracked tide.

A grain implanted in the soil

Gone back again to haunt ...

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Wet, cold, biting musk

Fire, smoke, leaves on the fresh ground

Like soggy bran flakes.

NB: First haiku on here.  I know it's not the season as such, but this one's been kicking around for a while and I'd like to share it.  Cheers.

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Slow down, it's all going too fast

This comfort, this harmony

Not meant to last.

No permanence whilst days

They keep dropping out

Lying in the barren wastes, the sun shouts.

Beads of sweat forming

Eyes rising out of perpetual hell

Into the technicolour morning.

Lizards and newts crawl beside

My shaken form

As I lie still in the dust.

S...

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The bulk of water beneath the grey
Lights in the sky I see
They fade out from view
And only return
When the night pulls the tide.

Cascading down through sleepy thickets
A brush of rain peppers the air
On the dew-soaked stair.

I longed to shatter that haunting image
Of smoke rising beside a lonely road
On a hazy summer’s day long ago.

Talk is cheap and so are they
...

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I saw the face of a woman in the rock

It was etched into the heart of

A tall black cliff and I marvelled

For that face, was yours.

It was head-height, cold, unseeing

At the black water that gushed below

The bile of hell washed from its eyes

Like a solemn sacrifice.

It becomes a prison in my mind, but

I can only see irrelevance where

The ...

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Cold bites at your heels
As you walk across the bridge
Not stepping out of turn
The same mechanical movements

The grey sky breaking in two
Reflecting the wasteland below
Broken stone and overgrown
Steeped in its own failures

Back across and now to rest
By the church that keeps silent
A tower scraping the air
Watching over you, but no more

Running now, running fa...

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