(Image is l-r me aged 6, Dad, a local window cleaner in Dubrovnik in former Yugoslavia, 1985)

Glass you see is in my family tree

Though in the print by trade,  how the bills got paid, my Dad went window cleaning

That’s how I remember him with bucket and scrim

Dad kept those windows gleaming

Throughout the land with bucket in hand, my Dad was fit as a fiddle

Up high he would ...

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Dear London Times, the editor or to whom it may concern

I write this letter as my endeavour for the sake your readers learn

Of such unabashed debauchery involving two young males

Holding hands they were in broad daylight right here in Tunbridge Wells

As I took my stroll down the Pantiles to get my morning paper

These filthy two. I’m telling you held hands outside the draper

Thoug...

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https://youtu.be/EMo_XMNAL00

I wait, dear friend, in line to collect you

you my rejected painting in this year’s competition

Unselected entry, now out of the race,

But when it’s my turn in the queue to be reacquainted with you,

I am caught between a rock and a very hard place

At the front of the queue is you waiting there

Wrapped up in paper and protective layer

I...

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https://youtu.be/X_zbH_BK7y4

It’s been two years since I wrote a poem about Rufus my springer spaniel

Sharing I’m frightened of dogs and in need of a manual

That I often draw Rufus to understand better

Because I don’t share the bond he and my partner Alex have together

Be jealousy free, come out of the fog

Don’t play second fiddle when it comes to a dog

You can joke with y...

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https://youtu.be/TG9Ggc0xyBg

MICHAEL IN THE MOUNTAINS

Often the journey is more than the destination

The liminal journey

The space between

What is felt and what is seen

Through that window you peer out of

Is the window into yourself

This window

between me and the Sussex rural wilderness

This stretch of track

Reminds me

Summer ‘96

Buffalo towa...

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Nineties football. Chelsea game

Me and Dad. Loved it same

Both loved tackle. Different name

Beckham’s tackle. Felt no shame

'Dad I’m gay'. Out it came

Tried to hide. Tried to tame

Downplay gay. Felt to blame

All Dad say was 'Cut it out'

People pleaser. My mate Dan

Diamond geezer with a tan

Hid his thoughts about what I am

Hid he’s bi from his old man

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https://youtu.be/H12R3o6tCmw

I could not care less, at first
who was sitting beside me in 14A and B 
Having spent the week in Helsinki in search of 
He who drew men in bulging black and white, leather 
Through forests, through trees, in amongst the heather
I could not find Tom of Finland 
Now gazing out of my window at those same forests now miles above me 
With feelings akin to those of...

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