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Julie

In the years that followed she left no time for sorry

Days and nights were spent in clinches and with the cliches of travel

to hold and be held, 

the most holy of desires,

became necessary and consuming

Only when the last cock crowed did she feel the hope of new lives leave her soul, 

where she’d held and cherished them

There are still more roads to travel

paths she’s yet t...

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Vermin

See how they love

See how they live

sightless rodents

wrapped-up in glib

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Loss

Losing them

is now added to the sum of me

yet

I am less

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Here

Apparently

time and distance are all you need

time came and went

distance grew farther

yet, here I remain

caught between being there, and being here

Live in the here and now, I say

but, time and distance have a toll

and I must pay 

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Shapeless days and nameless nights

I imagine you in the low-slung bough of a giant tree

it’s skin smoothed by the weary backs of those that came before

There you rest, telling the time only by the cooling of the day

 

I see the beach with a carpet of fine white-sand

a warm sea rushes to meet your feet as you idle by

and a balmy breeze touches your shoulders with its breath

 

I hear an engine distant and movi...

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Shelved

I want to remember you as a book I read

I want only to recall you from that shelf in my mind

where I place my favourite books

When I see you, I want to think of you as someone who looks a little like…

 

It would not matter then how many other readers you have

that same description of you will conjure their version

of your eyes and your smile, not mine

I would not be jealous...

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I miss him still

That anchor of hair on his chin

The soft lines that bracket his face

The creases that furrow between his brows

Forgetting and remembering him

All at once

And every day

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We'd drink

We’d laugh and drink
We’d stare and drink
We’d say we couldn’t care and drink

We’d talk and drink
He’d smoke and drink
We’d argue all night long and drink

I’d cry, we’d drink
He’d cry, we’d drink
Best have no time to think, just drink

We’d sleep then drink
We’d eat then drink
And further into sorry we’d sink

We’d sit and drink
We’d stand and drink
Let’s drink and just stay dr...

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Made up

I made another's face not mine

a mask of colour to hide behind

I painted lips of ruby red

to frame the lies that would be said

I rouged my cheeks to feign a blush

in skin so tired blood does not rush

eyelashes layered and stuck with glue

eyelids I gave a greenish hue

mascara, black, layered heavy as lace

no trace of truth on a made up face

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He's a Poet

He doesn't see the world in black and white
he sees similes and hues
analogy and metaphor

For him
there are letters in the black of flying birds
and flowers chatter in a woodland breeze

He sees a headland at night as a crouching panther

He hears polite applause in the fall of water on a sandstone fountain

He sees beauty in the face of Sappho's loss
and warmth in the arms of Poseid...

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He’s a Drunk

He does this sort of jig when he’s drunk and still drinking

Like a lazy footed Mohammed Ali

bobbing back and forward from knee to knee

I watch fascinated by this unconscious dance

Him gaining and losing his balance

momentarily locking out the bend from one knee

steadying himself briefly

until the locked knee gives way

and he’s jigging again

 

His smoking arm has a pur...

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Box set

The one with the girl whose hair I like
The one with the man that looks like you
The one I fell asleep watching
The birthday present one
The one your mother gave us
The one I watched when I was ill
The one from that afternoon
The exercise one I couldn’t do
The one no-one liked but you
The dubbed one
To name just a few
I boxed, and got rid of
just like you

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My Love

"It isn't love", he said
"Any love would know this isn't love", he said.
And so I sat.
And in those hours I asked my love to leave.

I slept.
And when I woke my love woke too,
and everywhere I went that day my love was there.
 

"Don't dwell", I told my love.
My love just smiled,

and I knew my love would stay with me.

 

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Close your mouth

Chewing like a cow at its cud

Close your mouth woman

I don’t want to see that green thing chase that brown thing

Around and around and around like clothes in a dryer

 

Close your mouth woman

How long does it take you to chew?

Swallow, please swallow

And while you put your throat to use

Please wipe the spittle from your chin

 

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Here

I’ve been here before

I recognise this dark place

I know its knocks and turns

familiar its edges and barbs

 

Like a terse tongue his mood licks

at the barely closed wounds from earlier words

 

Movement draws a swirl of dead air beneath the covers

Skin glances in unseen depths

Shoulders

shivering in the chill

hunch and roll

Here

the sound of his sigh roars ...

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Back Rub

Astride your back feeling the meat of you

Your heat absorbed by my naked blushing centre

Open hands sweeping the drained muscle beneath

Fingers playing tendons like keys on an old piano

 

A growl, a moan, a groan that rumbles through my core

A pressure point that you beg I explore

Heels of my palms pushing relief, pressing warmth

A flex of desire pinched between finger and ...

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Futility

Today I wore fuck-you blue

 

caught a hail stone in my hand

and watched it melt

 

waited for an on-coming car to pass

then crossed the road

 

looked for alternative words for reality

understood disillusion

 

and that is all

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Throwing a love-epee

Take that!

As I pass then parry with haste

You may be much bigger

but your size is a waste.

 

Take that and twice more

As I parry with plume

You’ll never defeat me

you say with a boom.

 

And back you swine!

I assert with a lunge

And back, and back,

away you vile gunge.

 

Mal-parry and I wince

His line it fell true

Redoublement be damned

I had t...

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