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Tags from last 12 months

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CANAL SONG

CANAL SONG

Today I saw mallards

fed crumbs by a local drunkard

stumbling from the Grapes

onto the murky cut.

He crooned a forgotten song

that floated on the wind

as narrow boats chugged past

a chalky towpath

old as ghosts of workers

mean-eyed, coal dust-coated

heaving sacks and urging horses

in days now deemed heroic.

It guided him home

under mossy humpbac...

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ME AND THE DEMONS

ME AND THE DEMONS

Seven years old

in Saint Cecilia's church,

murals of scorched monsters,

red obscenities

dragging souls to hell.

 

Nudged down the left aisle

to that marble altar

I kneel under huge pillars

distant from the priest

whose beatific radar doesn't track

my schoolboy error

and I eventually give up.

 

Denied the sacrament,

denied protection

...

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ENGINEER

ENGINEER

She got an old Volksvagen

and at weekends

we'd drive to the country,

stop in some small market town

for fish and chips

or tea in a corner cafe.

We were young

so not thinking constantly

about corruption,

injustice or conspiracies.

 

Another time was passion

in a broom cupboard

at the university

until someone opened the door.

She had a serious...

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TINDERBOX

TINDERBOX

Firewalker faith must be required

to hop this white-hot sand

and now all zones are tinged with fear

of sunburn or combustion.

 

We stretch naked in the dunes

until guards arrive on decency patrol,

ice-cream hawkers melt away,

persistent surfers finally desist.

 

The sea's an aquarium of coke cans

anyway, and plastic in the throats of birds.

Interpid...

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