I've built a castle in my mind
A sturdy fort of solitude
With turrets I could hide behind
But find, alas, there is no food

Sometimes I'll drop the drawbridge down
Cross the moat and with my mates
Seek out imagined palace grounds
But picnics there have empty plates

I could hop online on a virtual tour
Of museums, buildings, pubs and streets
Of mountains, waterfalls and more
But there...

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Free will is a thing of beauty
I could say that out loud, but I don’t 
I am not sure whether I choose to
Or whether I will, or I won’t 

There are options there if I want them
Some dangling worms I could bite
Some carrots and sticks, some tricks to unpick
Some say that I can’t, but I might

I’m static but find myself drifting
I’m clueless with plenty of clues
In stillness, I’m steadily...

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Adam and Eve had a trick up their sleeve
Being there when the world was begun
It’s a little pet peeve, which brings on a slight seethe - 
They were there at the start, so they won

Some theologists say that if they had their way
They’d get rid of original sin
But our Man of God is a little bit odd
He goes into the box with a grin

He created devotion by stirring the notion
That he’s hea...

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The apples are out to get us

They poison the air that we breathe

They might look sweet and innocent

But secretly they seethe 

 

The apples are keen to murder

They’ll sting you through their skin

Your hands and face will then blister

And the pain will then really begin

 

The apples are out to kill us

Each one is rotten to the core

They give off evil vapours

Ga...

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As the Roman Empire dwindled
And left us on our own
Were our ancestors befuddled
As they waved them off to Rome?
Could the darkness that resulted
Have been a happier kind of caper
If those left behind had been more kind
And not hoarded toilet paper?

When William the Conqueror 
Brought his army to our shore
Poor Harold tried before he died
And who could ask a bloke for more?
Did his s...

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It's rather dark and bleak in here
and I think I've worked out why;
We've nothing left to talk about -
the conversation has run dry

We can be quite a jolly bunch
full of rhymes and rhetoric
But time ticks slow and now we know
in the end... we're just too thick

So we're feeling quite neglected
'cos in this summer weather
we're forced to lie inside this drawer
and be no use whats...

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Once, someone posed a question

And it made me want to cry

"If you had to choose," she said

"Which one - cake or pie?"

 

I didn't want to answer

I mean, why would she even pry?

It's the deepest question out there

Philosopher's testify

 

It really made my head hurt

I took a pill, I won't deny

That question bounced on through my brain

"Which one - cake or pie?"

...

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You know, I was made for this job

I’ve got pretty good at it too

Scaring crows is a vocation

But nowadays it makes me blue

 

I used to like the simple life

Found it fulfilling to stand tough

But nature takes its toll, alas,

I’ve lost the means to strut my stuff

 

Long ago, when I first started

I was keen to make some friends

But it seems my arms-out posture

W...

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Since the bloody Battle of Hastings
When 'Arold got killed by French Bill
We've seen an endless invasion of French
And I've just about had my fill
 
Don't we have enough words of our own
In this wonderful language of ours?
- To seek and find le mot juste
Dunt take much linguistic power

It seems using French has been with us forever
Passed down as a fait accompli
Have we ever really tr...

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5 Miles to Home (written for the Milestone Society)

When I'm out walking and hiking free
A milestone is often a friend to me
They're solid reminders of where you are
And t’ next point of interest, they tell you how far

But I’ve noticed something when around I do roam -
That I've never seen one that says "5 miles to Home"
I've seen "5 miles to Bradford" and "Leeds - 5 mile"
...

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There's Blackberry, Blueberry, 
Northern, Bog and simple Bilberry
Lowbush, Highbush and Mountain Cranberry,
Chokeberry, Dewberry, Elderberry, Guavaberry

Bearberry, Cowberry, Crowberry, Foxberry, Gooseberry and Mooseberry

Huckleberry, Jostaberry, Lingonberry, Loganberry, Myrtle Blueberry, Pineberry, Black Raspberry, 
Red Whortleberry, Squashberry, Tayberry, Whinberry and Wimber...

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You're in the middle of the piece
You're really on a roll
You've mastered every syllable
And built it to a whole

Every intonation,
Every stress is well rehearsed
You know it inside out and back-to-front
Each chorus and each verse

You even know it side-ways
You've swum through every part
Can add to it your character
Your voice, your mind, your heart

Any lazy alli...

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Written in memory of those sunny summer and indecisive days of childhood at Batley and Dewsbury Parks.

 

At the side of the van with a window

In the park

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Most of us find life difficult to avoid, in a way that I find quite curious Choosing the right path to follow at speed, makes some us quite furious The answers aren't easy, but O-U-S might just be a key It ain't the answer to life and everything - say “that's 42!” - I might agree    ...

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We're orbiting our star, the sun, at quite a decent speed We've been doing that for billions of years, scientists are agreed  But apparently, many stars we know, have got a twin - they're binary So if our Earth had two suns, not one - how great would that be?!   Imagine how m...

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