United we stand,

with kindness and care. Without?

Divided we fall.

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Fifty years of violet fire's

ashes gather in his mind;

once a man and twice a child,

dandelions have two lives.

When he was Buck, he stoked the guts   

of battle class destroyers,

all brawn and heft and sweat and musk;

a dandy matelot wanderer.

Carousing and careening girls,

forget-me-nots around the world,

action stations, ocean waves,

60 feet or mo...

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Down at Tit-Squash Central,

we're waiting for our scans.

Our tops are on and off and on

and off and on, again.

Our boobs are lubed and drawn on,               

we're told to 'just relax',

then tits are clamped securely

within the x-ray's grasp.

My boobs are horizontal now

and flatter than before.

It feels as though they might explode,

I think they've gone...

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I LIKE CAPITALS

to emphasise my endless

slapstick politics.

What Constitution?

I have to read all of it?!

Tangerine screaming.

Chattering unchained:

No such thing as climate change!!

No such thing as proof?

Meanwhile, peace deals fall,

fundamental laws ignored;

the world stands aghast.

Yates sacked. Spicer sacked.

Bannon, Flynn and Co...

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I'm gonna smoke until my teeth fall out,

suck custard out of doughnuts.

Do fantastic farts

in other people's cars

then pretend not to notice when they're choking.

I'm gonna drink myself to dregs,

smell of old eggs, inspect my dentures

in McDonalds

at the counter,

then deliver massive lectures about climate change and ethics.

I'm gonna burn,

I'm gonna...

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I cut my hair afterwards.

Thought we'd have a chance

to re-create the early days.                                                                             

Hadn't really banked on the chasm of his need.

Thought that if I made him laugh,

made him soup, filled his mind,

made a space for him to find his feet

then he'd be fine

and the grieving would be brief.

I ...

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Tai Chi

he said,

convinced of the wisdom by a pretty girl in uniform.

I can do it in my chair

he said,

oblivious to all the times I'd made the same suggestion.

I've never done Tai Chi

he said.

They do it in the village hall, it doesn't cost a lot.

I can even go alone

he said.

I won't need chaperoning, there'll be loads of people there.

I...

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Jacob has no womb.

His sex is all consensual.

He has no fear of penetration

forced, unwanted, life-changing.

Rees-Mogg has no vagina.

His hole is not for birthing.

He cannot have a human being

forced, unwanted, life-changing.

A man with full autonomy,

security and privilege

proclaims a warped morality,

forced, unwanted, life-changing.

He clam...

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we congregate

at 3am

huddled, not with hands together,

(no one prays out loud)

in silent supplication to whatever

can remove us from this hour

we do not have our hands together

prayers are whispered inwardly

desperation tethered to the tiny tips of light

as they hurtle down from high above

this no smoking arena

we do not pray out loud

this ensembl...

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Berries big as thumbs

surprise me on a sunny day.

They've come too soon, haven't they?           

I thought that they'd be later.

I'm pretty sure that blackberries

ripen in the autumn, not the summer.

But I pick them anyway,

delighted with the find

then buckle from a sideways swipe

that death as big as life

surprised me on a sunny day too.

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You with the pink eyes

don't be discouraged.

Oh I realize

it's hard to take courage

in a world full of people

who are all the wrong colour,

you can lose sight of it all

and the darkness inside you

can make you feel so tall.

But I see your true colours

shining through.

I see your true colours

and that's why I loathe you.

So don't be afraid to let the...

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Summer triggers memories

of paddling and orange Quosh,

butties squashed in paper, waxy white,

and leather sandals at the lido

just in case of broken glass.

We plough backwards to the past,

furrows made of glory.

It's a double-edged sword

but we have these golden memories

of life-affirming Thermos flasks

and Sunday baths and safety.

Summer triggers me...

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Mrs May she had the lead

E I E I O

but wanted BIG majority

E I E I O

With a snap vote here and a shite campaign

Strong and stable falling by the wayside

Mrs May she had the lead

E I E I O

The lead was cut considerably

E I E I O

By turning weak and wobbly

E I E I O

With a no-show here and a u-turn there

Deficient in charisma with a hawk-eyed glare

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Her poem punched holes in the blind-eyed walls,

made beats with her teeth

and bullets with her tongue.

Bang bang went her gun

made of eloquent rage

as she kicked out ire on a war-torn page.

She drank deep of electricity,

crackling ferocity;

there is no mediocrity in her world's eye.

Now her fire feeds mine

and our minds come alive

and we rise like lions a...

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teeny tweeny little girls

and boys without their mothers

daddies waiting by the doors

do not expect their daughters

to be caught on camera

flecked in horror

running for their lives

or murdered on a Monday night in Manchester

unmartyred

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3.15, legs and sweat, 1997

tangled hands and black-eyed lust

smoke break interrupted

ears pricked, heads dipped

a heap of limbs in parody

four of us can say for sure

what we were doing then

when Henri Paul lost control

in Pont de l'Alma tunnel

and pixellated puckered tin

bathed bodies in the flicker

and a nation woke and mourned

while we just necked an...

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... because I didn't want the pills to block,

I didn't want the nightmares.

I didn't want the flash-backs, slap-bang on the bus, reading books, watching films,

seeing nothing on the telly.

Didn't want my kid to see me sobbing uncontrollably

from nowhere

out of nothing.

She was five and what she needed was for me to stay awake, stay alive,

so I forced myself to find a way,

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I thought of you in bed last night.

Remembering your soft brown skin,

the times we had, impressions

of your absence

ever gentle on my mind.

I tumbled back to trampled paths

and BPM at sunrise.

Techno nights and dancing

on the weathered land

in daylight, singing love songs

in the mud and lit by lightning.

We were stormproof, leathered,

no one stopp...

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Big heart on the right side of the barricades.

Unafraid to take on Babylon.

Warrior of Clifton Rise,

with megaphonic panther cries.

This impolite polemicist,

unsilent, unmoving,

rests in power,

rests in freedom,

never water.

Never would

give in/give up.

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You walk into the room,

graceful as a swan,

seductive as the swish of Princess Margaret’s Gin and It,

poolside, ’75,

Mustique.

It takes a few seconds

to properly sink in

as you waltz across the carpet looking devilishly fit,

sit down, start to frown.

Spritz.

Half a minute later,

your scent seeks me out.

Tiny dainty molecules begin to coat my lungs...

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You’re Not Allowed

to cry,

in here,

this room, this bar,

a pint, on deck,

to fight or sulk,

or answer back;

to join the local snooker team,

to bare your legs

or armpit hair,

express yourself

or sleep around,

to shout or swear,

to wear short skirts,

to wear short hair,

grow it, tie it, perm it, dye it, never cut it short;

to be the boss...

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Here's the film of 'revelations', recorded at The Dream, Sutton Manor, St Helens. The Dream is a public sculpture situated on the top of Sutton Manor Colliery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4NmBicBCeQ

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round our way, the roads are paved with hatred

and no one comes to realise their dreams                              

we execute the clever clogs

deify the bigger dogs

fashion self-esteem from ragged pants

there is no new jerusalem

no land of opportunity

the holy lamb was sanctioned

and satanic mills are silent

we blind ourselves with arrows of desire

t...

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I hope he wakes screaming with his teeth all fallen out

on the pillow of the dreams that were stolen overnight.

I hope the taste upon his tongue is iron mixed with salt

crossed with brickdust, faulty locks and crucified hate.

I hope for him a long life, epiphanies of bad faith.

I wish for him a hunger never silent or asleep.

I hope for him an ever present thirst to be i...

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perfect pattern paving built for hopscotch

roads wide as the dirty River Mersey     

side to street a hundred feet

plenty space for kerby

plenty more for ollies green

smashed to glassy smithereens

by Kevin Roberts dobber

in the gutter

twenty pair maternal eyes scrutinize the scene

behind the nets nothing goes unnoticed

every single misdemeanour noted and tra...

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Assertion repetition and contagion.

Assertion repetition and contagion.

Assertion repetition and contagion.

MAKE AMERICA GREAT!

Statements of greatness

over and over.

Statements of greatness

over and over.

Statements of greatness

over and over.

TAKING BACK CONTROL!

Statements of greatness

all over the papers in black and white lies,

alternative...

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Never mine at first.

Teenage purse wouldn’t stretch

to polished pine, to posts.

Your predecessor, structureless,

lay low;  

squat-stained

stripy lumpen

skip-dive

dough.

First embrace

fur and lace

stains and haste in ’88.

Behind you lived a history

of needle-drop and resin.

Lovers lain, he’s and she’s,

night and day

dreams conceived

in so...

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