Victory

Today

He had his head down

Holding his breath

So the snipers couldn’t hear him

Laying flat

In the Burmese dust

With the flies and mosquitos

From the green canopy

Hovering over him

Like Kamikaze

Today

He feasted on

Meagre rations

And drank a warm tepid water

Drawn from a dirty stream

Somewhere

Something exploded

And debris rain...

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Sunset Over Lupset (August 1968)

Lupset sunsets smelled of bonfires,

undercut with new mown grass,

wild mint by the kitchen window,

treasures in the strawberry patch.

Father sat with pint of shandy,

The mower cooling in the shade,

the rake stowed by the garden shed,

the kids with sparkling lemonade.

Sunset over Lupset

August nineteen sixty eight

Sunset ov...

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The White Rose Pretender

It was the 30th of December

And the snow lay on the ground

Around the Yorkist stronghold

On Sandal Castle’s mound

When Richard, Duke of York

Was awoken by his hound

Baying for Lancastrian blood

Wherever it could be found

The Red Rose army at Pontefract Castle

Had been pillaging Richard’s estates

So he had marched north to Wakefiel...

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The Westgate Run (Re-Run).

“Get the round in John!”

Upon the Merrie Cities oldest street

when twilight creeps across the Yorkshire sky,

traditionally friends and strangers meet

and let the velvet darkness pass them by.

In pictures from a dim and distant past,

as gaslight spilled from heavy shadowed doors,

to neon tinted bars of Friday last

the sound of liquid l...

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The Ballad of Robert Hode

In the year of 1332

After the Despenser War

Robert Hode of Wakefield

Become a famed outlaw

He’d been an archer for Lancaster

(who was executed by the king)

And had his lands forfeited

For daring to fight for him

Now you may know him better

By the name of Robin Hood

Who some say came from Nottingham

But I would say you should

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The observant amongst you will no doubt have seen my latest poems being posted as music tracks. That's because I've rewritten a number of poems that I had previouly posted about my home city of Wakefield and added music. I've done this alongside a brilliant guitarisr/instrumentalist, John Kettle, from indie/folk band Merry Hell.
There's a range of music styles on the album - and although the subj...

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The Beast Beneath The Beck

The beck at Westgate End is full of reeds,

its water is a muddy shade of brown,

confused ducks die within anaemic weeds

as sunken shopping trolleys pull them down.

Sometimes you hear a cold slithering splash,

as though some ancient creature has slid in

to feast upon the centuries of trash.

Who knows what evils are contained within?

It...

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Laila Liqourish

Well, the black robed friars grew the sweet root

At St Richards and St Johns in Pontefract

And the local folk called the black gold Spanish

After travelling monks who brought it back

It was used as a medicine to cure a wide range

Of ailments of the gut and of the lungs

And the only side effect of treating the diseased

Was the colour of their lips and t...

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Rhubarb, Rhubarb, Rhubarb

When I was very young it wasn’t very hard

You could find rhubarb in every back yard

A ruby red treasure growing from the ground

Worth its weight in gold and so easily found

Your mother would cook it and put it in a pie

But its very best use – and I tell no lie –

Was to dig it up and treat it like grapes upon the vine

By turning it by magic int...

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How Did It Get So Late So Soon?

The man who scared the ghosts away,

The woman who healed wounds with a kiss,

I think of them more nowadays

In sad and troubled times like this.

No longer there to hug the pain

From tired bones and broken hearts,

To shield you from the winter rain

That permeates where old age starts.

Another day of fleeting tasks

From rising su...

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Down In The Hole

My father said it was this life or the dole –

so sacrifice ambition, heart and soul

if our family was to earn a crust

then I would have to work until I was bust

Years of hardship finally took its toll

I had danced to the tune of Old King Coal

and I was laid off, let into the light

a blessing to escape eternal night

I was sixteen, they thre...

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Orgreave (Truth & Justice)

Standing on a picket line in 1984

Orgreave on a summer’s day, we all knew the score

I am just an honest man, I never broke the law

Until the law tried to break me and now I’m not so sure

Orgreave Truth and Justice

Will never go away

The coppers broke the law

So the coppers have to pay

In a court of British law

It’s time we had our ...

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Spinning Jenny

When times were hard old Reg Malone

Sent his daughters out to work

And they all went out diligently

Not being ones to shirk

Maria went to Hagenbach’s

And helped to bake the bread

While Jenny went to Albion Mills

To weave the worsted thread

She worked the uncombed worsted yarn

As swift and skilled as any

And those who knew her said of her

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The Blue Lady

This is the tale of Mary Bolles who lived at Heath Old Hall

And died there in 1662 and was buried ‘neath the soil.

But still her spirit walked Heath Grove the story has been writ

Until conjured down into a hole that’s still called Bolles Pit.

The spell was not so powerful to keep her there for long

And soon the tales were told of the sound of her plaintive song

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The Weeping Angel

She passed this way and tended to our pain,

administered our wounds and eased our fears

telling us that we would be home again.

stayed by our beds and whispered in our ears,

She was gentle, but never weak or frail,

Remember Nellie Spindler from Wakefield

the only woman killed at Passchendaele

An angel weeps for her in Flanders Field

Once...

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Dreadnought

We crossed the Chantry Bridge

As the Calder boiled beneath

And a drifting, chilling mist

Hung heavy on the heath

We came from far and wide

Marching all together

To gather at Belle Vue

Despite the dank, inclement weather

There were grandfathers and fathers

There were mothers, daughters, sons

Hand in hand in heavy coats

As bitter cold caresse...

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Cuttings

Here we go 'round the mulberry bush,

The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush.

Here we go 'round the mulberry bush,

On a cold and frosty morning morning.

They took a sprig from Hatfeild Hall

And planted it in Wakefield Gaol

A Mulberry bush grew on the spot

Its humble origins forgot

And there female prisoners exercised at night

Beneath the pale Yorkshire...

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Marketplace

This space is like a ghost town

Trestle tables row on row

Echoing with the hustle bustle

Vendors cries of long ago

I hold my mother’s hand

And listen to them shout

‘apples sixpence a pound

Come on get your money out!’

I went back there when I was home

All that was left were wooden frames

And rotting boards of each seller’s plot

The faint le...

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Wachefeld

Let’s start at the beginning

In a land of ice and snow

Where a brave band of armoured warriors

Set sail with sword and bow

To forge a new life far way

And settle in a land

Where the gods had promised riches

For each and every man

We sailed the mighty North Sea

And  by the grace of Odin’s beard

Landed safe in England

Where our kinsmen were ri...

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The Merrie City Serenade

Behind the market hall, riding the Ark

Hand in hand lovers strolling through the park

Carving their initials deep in the bark

on this Merrie City Serenade

Old men and teenagers sitting in The Chance

Ian and Peter refusing to dance

Across the mighty Rafters dance floor expanse

to the Merry City Serenade

On Cannonball hill beneath a ...

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Citizens

The Bakers, the Millers, the watchmakers.

The clerics, the priests and the reeves.

The plougher of fields and the sower of seeds.

The bankers, the scoundrels, the thieves.

The farmers, the tailors, the shopkeepers.

The woman who sits home and weaves.

The godless, the hypocrites and sinners.

The bishop who prays and believes.

The innkeepers, drunks and ...

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The Tracks Of My Years

We sat cross legged in summer dusk

A smoky haze passing through

Admired artwork airbrushed

In fantastic swirls of colour

Reading words in synchronised

Staccato with the music

Flowing from the stereo

Simpler times

Longer hair

No aching joints

I wish we could do that again

But friends disappear like exhaled smoke

And some a...

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Jubilee

A step across the great divide

From this side to the other side

A cautious step, a careful stride

Centuries long and twice as wide.

Carefully place your stumbling feet

There’s caterpillars in the street

ghost butterflies with ‘nowt to eat

a life to live and death to cheat

TV screens in shop windows

Relay the parties and the woes

Resentment in...

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Red Flag Blues

Through a rose tinted haze

That barely warms my heart

Comes a lukewarm reaction

That tears my beliefs apart

Nothing to vote for

No contradictory views

Politically impotent

Red flag blues

Insipid humility

Nothing new to say

Trading in ineffectiveness

Another grey day

Gets rid of opposition

Spectral on the news

leading blind acoly...

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The Battle Of Holbeck Moor

The day the Fascists came to Leeds

And faced the Yorkshire grit

Of local folk who travelled there

From every mill and pit

To face them down on Holbeck Moor

and still their twisted tongue.

That day a famous battle would be fought

And would be won.

The Leylands had been daubed in paint

Swastikas and the like

But in the pubs and fa...

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In The Garden Of Gethsemane

Crucifixion Charlie

Never one to miss

The chance to bring his Saviour down

With a Judas kiss

Sitting in the shadows

Full of vinegar and piss

Hammer and nails ready

For a martyr such as this

Resurrection Charlie

Basking in the glow

Of a joyous blessed outcome

And a dose of ‘told you so’

Never doubted for a minute

Always...

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The Pride

Huzzah!

This old and gummy English lion

Feeding on the tears of little girls.

Finding its bravery in packs

Of like-minded scavengers

Who prowl and growl

And claim a foul

For every perceived slight

In history.

Huzzah! Hurrah!

We won a contest

Prejudiced by racist taunts

And sieg-Heil accusations

By the Nazis

Towards the reconciled.

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How Did It Get So Late So Soon?

The man who scared the ghosts away,

The woman who healed wounds with a kiss,

I think of them more nowadays

In sad and troubled times like this.

No longer there to hug the pain

From tired bones and broken hearts,

To shield you from the winter rain

That permeates where old age starts.

The back garden is over-grown,

The kitchen i...

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Little Crowtown

Little Crowtown is a place

I go to in my mind

It’s ten miles off the beaten track

And very hard to find

I guard all of its secrets well

just invite the chosen few

who will respect its heritage

good folk like me and you

It has a quant olde English pub

And a tea shop for cream teas

A curry house from Kashmir

And a place that deals in chee...

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# False Prophet

Sitting in a one room flat

In underpants and tin foil hat

Scrolling through free thinking sites

To share the memes of acolytes

About the risk of wearing masks

And why nobody ever asks

What’s in the Kool Aid we injected

To stop the world from being infected

While every government on the planet

Vaccinates – you want to ban it

After all you a...

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rag and bone

‘rag and bone,

rag and bone’

on the day he died

the sky was cloudy grey

heavy with grief and tears

the day we buried him

the rag and bone man came

‘rag and bone,

rag and bone’

echoing across the back yards

taking him away

in a long black car

we didn’t talk about it

our grief absorbed

like damp earth on a casket

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I have been posting poems during lockdown based on the concept taken from a much earlier poem called 'Cycle Of The Scarecrow' a fantasy piece which tells the tale of a scarecrow who is brought back to life by a witch and walks the fields of Albion. It is a reflection on the changing seasons and of growing old - and the premise of 'what if I had my time again?
It was released today as a digital do...

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The Raising Of The Trickster

When the western sky turns slowly into the colour of an old bruise

And the last orange streaks of daylight bleed from the setting sun

A cold white vapour swirls through the fields of corn its fingers prising apart the stalks

As the lands of Albion darken and strange noises start to crawl from the mist.

At the edge of the fields there sprawls a ...

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Ghost Towns

Somewhere off the data highway

Quite close to router sixty-six

There lies a ghost town of splintered glass

A graveyard of useless stones and bricks

This is where the glitterati lived

They used to come in rumbling hoards

Stumbling through automatic doors

they walked the aisles of shiny floors

Nothing there now but skeletal racks

Dust settled ...

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We Get It!

We get it

It’s dangerous

Lethal, I think they said

We hide indoors

Obey the laws

It’s better than being dead

We get it

But it won’t harm

Getting a hug or two

It’s Christmas after all

And deserved

After what we’ve all been through

We get it

The vaccine’s near

So we’ll all end up being alright

A kiss

Under the mistletoe

...

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A November Haunting

Halloween

Has come and gone

Leaving us with its

Vicious little demons

The howling wind

Screaming down the chimney

Like a banshee

Brittle twigs

Whipping along the windows

tiny scratching claws

of desperation

A wolf howl

Through the eaves

The cloying damp touch

Of dead leaves

Ice cold drizzle

Down th...

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The Unknown Soldier’s Prayer

I could be your husband, father, son.

The lost bones of another pointless war.

A flag to drape across my resting place,

transported from a distant, hostile shore.

I could have been a tinker, tailor, thief ,

lying here for a century and more,

those passing trades mean little to me - now

the angry guns have relinquished their roar.

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Wraith

We all reach that point in life

Where Halloween holds no magic

The ragged clothes and haggard looks

The pale of face and wrinkled mask

The wild unkempt hair of cobwebs

The brittle touch of ancient hand

The racing heartbeat

Pounding out its horror rhythm

The nervous look into dark corners

Death waiting across the grey veil

A cold sweat and night chi...

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Spirits

The first

Showed me how it had been

The laughter and the tears

Sliced turkey

Rich juices flowing

Lights and tinsel

Greens and reds and silvers

The smell of pine

Needles on the carpet

Arguments and recriminations

Old wounds opened

New wounds pierced

This was how it was

The second

Showed me how it is

Lonely day holy night

The only ...

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Damnation Trail

Through forests dark and shadowed vale

He follows the damnation trail

Along the river’s twisted course

Through bracken thick and clutching gorse

The ancient path cut through the land

He walks with devil’s hand in hand

And where his steps flatten the crops

No more will grow the wheat and hops

For he has footsteps cast in death

He steals the fa...

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Corruption

Here in the verdant meadows

All on a summer’s day

The dreaded army of the dark

Met with the noble fey

They fought until the long sundown

And the lost blood of the dead

Soaked into the sacred ground

And turned the roses red

When the fight was over

And the legion of the flies

Had swarmed across the corpses

Stealing hope from sightless eyes

...

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Crow Lore

We sit and watch the world go by

On fences long and oak trees high

The waxing moon the setting sun

We are the crows of Albion

We chronicle the human ways

Their restless nights and confused days

Mother, daughter, father, son

We are the crows of Albion

Our stories written down in books

Guarded well by crows and rooks

And no one knows what we ...

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Prophecy

The crows tell of the walking man

Who travels fields by day and night

The walking man who’s not a man

Who strides between the dark and light

Soulless, cursed to stumble through

The endless hedgerows of the land

He wished for life but walks in death

He is the sweet prince of the damned

The hares and rabbits run from him

The fox and wolf walk by ...

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Lazarus Curse

I trudge across these ancient lands

Where crops are reared by human hands

And all I leave are footsteps deep

a crop the scythe will never reap

I see the changing seasons turn

The new shoots grow, bonfires burn

From the soil the world will grow

I track the sacred rivers flow

These things of beauty pass me by

I have no soul I cannot die

F...

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Resurrected

Down here where the beetles crawl

Where the leaves of autumn fall

A spider’s web of veins uncoil

To animate the resurrected

Sap permeates the ancient heart

A life’s blood for another start

Coursing through the body

Of the newly resurrected

Orbs of light spark into eyes

The keening of a newborn’s cries

Escapes the brittle twisted lips

T...

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Apothecary

Beneath the ancient gallows tree

There sits an old apothecary

Where deep within its ancient rooms

Resides an old man selling ‘shrooms

That he has harvested from soil

Of graveyards where the serpents coil

And if the ache screams in your joints

Just follow where the way-marker points.

The place smells of dust and moist mildew

And the foul dark liqui...

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White Witch Of Winter

Corvus the white witch

Once flew the sky on crow’s wings

And fed on battlefield dead

She ate the hearts of serfs and kings

But soon she lost the taste for flesh

And transformed into what winter brings

Her skin is cold to human touch

She feasts on other-worldly things

She turns snowflakes into blizzards

Freezes your blood and tears

Sh...

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The Pumpkin Queen

The pumpkin queen is orange

Like the colour of her fruits

She wears a giant apron

And polished hob-nailed boots

She has a heart as big as Oceans

And helps others when it suits

The pumpkin queen is deeper than

An oak tree’s ancient roots

She sits in regal glory

On a throne of wood and leaves

And will animate her chosen one

As long as i...

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Messiah Of The Fields

They left me hanging on a cross

The saviour of the summer crops

Just rag and straw so no great loss

My blood is in the wheat and hops

I faced the black and vicious hoard

Their coal cruel eyes and sharpened beaks

I am the ragged overlord

Who scares the crow yet never speaks

They pray to me to save their soils

From dark boned devils ...

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Britannia Waives The Rules

Rule Britannia?

Britannia waives the rules

Encourages returning to the pubs

Puts students back in schools

One rule for the inebriated

One to avoid uneducated fools

The slavering wolf of commerce

Rolls its bloodshot eyes and drools

Britain’s never, never, never

Shall be slaves?

Burying its vulnerable

In Covid-shallow graves

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