REFERENCE IN RHYME

By the Urban Poet

To whom it may concern

From this I hope you will learn

More about this candidate

Who up to now is never late

He always gets things done

Provided his team have won

He’s as honest as the day is new

and also makes a decent brew

This man has integrity in his bones

Never been known to whinge or moan

Nothing is ever too much t...

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REBEL REBEL 

By The Urban Poet

I wanna be a rebel,

no more goodie two shoes

I’m done with being PC

I wanna be a rebel you see

Get myself a girlfriend or three

Or would I prefer a strong cup of tea?

With a double brandy, a lager shandy?

Not radical enough? I’m just not tough

But now I’m growing old I wanna be bold

Eat loads of meat pies, kick sand in eyes,

and be...

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‘PICK ME UP’

Pick me up off the floor 

when I’m thrown out the door

For having one too many again

I lost count though after ten

   Pick me up when I feel down

When I’m depressed and all around

Seems dark and bleak and hopeless too

I guess I never got over you

   Pick me up on the things I say

When you want to get your own sweet way

To prevail and win the argument 

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‘FASCINATION’

By the Urban Poet

She fascinates me, challenges me

Every time I see her, or think of her

I’m fascinated

She only has to look at me or make a sound

and I’m dumbstruck, mumble a few futile words, and make my excuses

What I know about her is very little,

but fascinating all the same

Her look, tone of voice, elegant demeanour

Who wouldn’t be fascinated?

I...

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PARENTHOOD

By The Urban Poet 

Parenting can be a joy

Whether bringing up a girl or boy

It can also be hard, it is no lie

Especially when you’re sleep deprived

But don’t lose heart and have no fear

It only lasts for twenty five years!

25 Years Later…

And now that 25 years are done

You then begin to have great fun

No, not going out and having a good time

But dropp...

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MOBY DICK

By the Urban Poet

Richard Smith is on his way

To sell his products on this new day

As a salesman he’s cool and slick

On his van is painted ‘Moby Dick’

Nothing worth buying that ‘ain’t on board

From milk and bread to fags of course

From early morning his round is set

No need to surf the internet

For anyone else to deliver your stuff

Of Moby Dick people can...

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INSOMNIA

Can’t sleep at night

wake up with the light

I’m crabby, angry

and up for a fight

The night before

I slept on’t floor

To try and change

the old routine 

It worked at first

but things got worse

when I needed a leak

and the floorboards creaked

I tossed and turned

So I made a brew

Grilled a slice or two

but me toast got burned

and me plans we...

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I WOULD IF I COULD

By The Urban Poet

I would if I could but I can’t so I won’t

Do things I don’t do in the heat of the mo’ 

Pull ladies that are half my age

If you think it’s ok then

we’re on the same page

   Now there’s things that I would like to do

Such as paragliding when I’ve had a few

A bungee jump would go down well

But the truth is mate, I’m scared as hell

...

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I’ll TAKE THAT!

By the Urban Poet

If you want a win you’ll take a draw

‘Cos losing hits a nerve that’s raw

As good times go you’ll take the bad

An alternative to going mad

Now as for diets and keeping slim,

you’ll take whatever clothes your in

As long as they look reasonable enough,

to get the doubters to call your bluff 

You’ll take any odds on a winning ho...

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I NEED TO RELAX

By the Urban Poet

I need to relax

I need to rest

Get all frustrations 

Off me chest

I need to chill out

And do it now!

The problem is I know not how

The secrets of letting go

Of my fears and anxieties

Worries of many varieties

Pent up emotions 

Stresses and strains

Pressures coming at me

Like a high speed train

I’ll completely switch ...

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I’M A FOOTIE FAN!

By the Urban Poet

I’m a man, I’m a man

I’m a football fan

everything else you can keep

Football’s what I eat and drink

No need for any sleep

That’s only wasting precious time

For me to tweet about that team of mine

Or watch ‘em on the box with a beer

Don’t ask macho me to drink any wine

I’m very sporting, win, lose or draw

It don’t matter ...

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I FELL IN LOVE WITH AN ALIEN

By The Urban Poet 

I fell in love with an Alien from Mars

I met her one Sunday in the local park

She just sauntered over, made

a strange sounding noise,

but the thing had class,

and seemed to fancy the boys.

In a language that, I didn’t understand 

She made a proposition, I rejected out of hand

She wanted me to be her personal clone

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DOWN THE PUB

By the Urban Poet

“Going down the pub darling”

“For what reason?”

     “It’s the football season

and I want to see my mates

To discuss some dates

of the games and stuff”

     “I’ve had enough

You’re not going”

“Oh stop moaning

I’m only having the one”

“You mean one too many

Well you’re not having any

‘cos you’re staying in”

“Oh stop your di...

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HYPOCHONDRIASIS

By the Urban Poet

He’s got a cough, he’s got a cold

He is convinced he’s growing old 

futures not looking very great,

and as coughs go, it may be too late

Oh and he may have lost a bit of weight?

The pain is bad, it’s jabbing hard

His family say he’s being mard 

But he’s convinced it’s something sinister

And they will need to call a Minister

Th...

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DREAMCAST

By The Urban Poet

The scariest dream I’ve ever had

was one about me, it was really bad

It felt so vivid and real you see

Especially given that it was little old me

I dreamt I’d been bad and so much so

That the old Bill were hastily on their toes

No, not running away from me

But asking everyone if I’d been seen

They’d been busy looking for a stolen ...

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DIY

By The Urban Poet 

Now if there’s a job to do they always say

To do it yourself, even put up a shelf

Now that’s ok but only one prob

No tools for the job, ’cos I like being a slob

So I pay a few bob to someone ‘ont dole

To bang and drill and put screws ‘int holes

I can’t be ....ed to be any part of that DIY

Oh It makes me flamin’ cry!

I did once have a go at ...

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THE SERVAL IN THE WETLANDS

By The Urban Poet

The bat eared predator of the savannah 

Over sized ears giving a distinct edge.

Gliding stealthily through undergrowth,

in the rich tangled grasslands, where

it’s prey can be heard but very rarely seen

Not having need to see it’s potential dinner

Using built in radar to guide it to its target,

it prepares to pounce.

A ...

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BLIND DATE 

By The Urban Poet

I’m late, I’m late

For a very important date

I don’t mind you see

If it’s a blind date or three

‘Cos I prefer not to know

What she looks like and so

I just turn up, give her a sultry look

and then hope for the best

(You can imagine the rest)

Now in my minds eye

She’s a looker, that’s why

I always prefer

to buy flowers for...

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ALEXA AND SIRI

(A digital love story)

They met whilst travelling the digital world

Alexa on the Amazon, Siri at the iPhone tower

Alexa had no hair, no not a single curl

Siri, lithe, dark, no frills and no flowers

   Both very different in many ways, but some things in common

voice recognition

And worked twenty four hours a day

They reacted and obeyed in any position

 ...

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BLACK SHADES

By the Urban Poet

Black shades of melancholy

Descend within my brain

Taking over personality

Stealing my good name

Glimmers of hope with chinks of light

Flash through the thoughts of the day

Where blue shades of optomism

Sometimes chase negativity away

It wasn’t always like this

Things used to be so good

It wasn’t always like this

I wou...

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A WRITERS LIFE

By The Urban Poet

A writers life, a writers mind

Thoughts bombarding, counting time

You ache to write down what you see

The things you hear, the trapped, the free

Views and opinions, feelings strong

A writer knows not right or wrong

Just wants to capture colour and shade

Like military regalia on parade

To lure, to reel the reader in

To ente...

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SPLIT PERSONALITIES

By the Urban Poet

Innumerable characteristics 

Lots of quirks and traits

Moods, feelings, personas

Too many to contemplate 

Those stern faced and stoic 

Straight laced and serious

Po faced but laid back

Expressionless and curious

The gregarious, outrageous 

Unreserved but shy

Intriguing and mysterious

Easy on the eye

Bubb...

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SOCIAL MEDIA PAT-A-CAKE

By The Urban Poet

Facebook Facebook give me a poke

Send me a message from a handsome bloke

Make all my friends like my new lovely picture

Even the one tagging my ugly sister

Messenger Messenger help me survive

With one click may I now go live

Face to face with the lady of my dreams

On second thoughts make it someone 

in their late teens

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ORGANISED CHAOS

By the Urban Poet

Running late not washed the plates

'cos I didn't have time

with all I have to sort at mine.

It never stops and as I check my watch

the time flies by and I ask myself why

my life's in chaos in my own minds eye?

All forces seem against me you see

or at least that's how it seems to be

when it all goes wrong instead of right

and t...

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ODE TO THOSE WHO CARE 

By the Urban Poet

There is something about the selfless people, whose life perspective

is aligned to the weak and feeble

It's almost as if they can feel the pain

and see the strain of those to whom

they empathise yet not just sympathise 

Being careful not to make routine

their angelic and compassionate deeds

They choose not recognition

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NO REST FOR THE WICKED’

By the Urban Poet

Eyes wide closed in sleepy repose

Sultry sun rays warm the eyelids of the weary and bleary in the morning dew

Escape into a resting heaven eludes

Pressures of the day abound as demands in the mind, twist round and around like

torment to the very soul once again

Work and family top the list of concerns

Before long, the dimm...

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LIFE IN SHADES

By The Urban Poet

Shades of grey describe the times

When explanations are in short supply

No answer can be found at once

so things hang in the distant beyond

Nearer to home there's shades of green

where rhyme and reason can be seen,

feelings of safety and security

in rooms that don't present

as doom and gloom

They don't present as doom and gloom

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I SEE, YOU SEE, THEY SEE

By the Urban Poet

When I look at you all, I don’t see

I don’t see the barriers others may see

Others may see what they want to see

What they want to see, I don’t

I see people for who they are

For who they are, I see them

I see them as the same you see

You see, everyone is equal

Rick Varden 2021

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I ONLY WORK FOR THE COUNCIL!

By the Urban Poet

In the chamber of the council

Where all the decisions are made

On roads and drains and sewers

And how much we all get paid

Now some of us are gardeners

And others empty bins

There's also the unlucky ones

Who rod grids and pipes and things

Well me I'm in the office

Delivering all the mail

Compared to the Ch...

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HIDEAWAY

By the Urban Poet

Oh I wish I could hide away

And live every single day

With no interference 

From those close or near us

I wish I could hide away

I could do with a break you know

And get covered from head to toe

In them massage oils

And be wrapped in tin foil

To take all me stresses away

Oh I wish I lived by the sea

Take in the sun and the...

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DEDICATION 

By the Urban Poet

To the posh gents

In their beer tents

And the champagne Charlie's 

In the Barmy Army

    Guarding the wicket

Whilst playing cricket

Not playing the field

'Cos it feels surreal

    To the footie fans

And the white van man

Flogging Stella by the crate 

As he circulates

Among the rabble rousers

In their council houses

    T...

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CHOICES

By the Urban Poet

Given the choice what would you do

Be rich or poor or just be you?

Choose a season, the sun or the rain?

Start your life all over again?

Be married or single, live on your own?

Choose to be different, no mobile phone

No TV set, radio or gadgets

Learn to cook, write poetry, do magic

Make choices about the people you know

Which one...

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BEST BEFORE MY SELL BY

By The Urban Poet

Aches and shakes in bones that break

Just by looking at 'em it only takes

a second to realise it's all whizzed by

In months and years it makes me cry

Great tears of fear and joy and pain

The cycle repeats again and again

It's not all bad though it could be worse

Like the day that cretin ran off with me purse

A sign of...

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ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURES

By the Urban Poet

Are lives influenced by the weather?

Mood, behaviour, pursuits of pleasure

Motivated by sun, rain and cloud

All factors as we examine together:

The incessant obsession with forecasts

Meteorology, the stars, or aliens from Mars

It's as if people won't step outside

Or they hide until convinced they won't die

In a storm or accident...

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ANECDOTAL ATTRIBUTES 

By the Urban Poet

A fair exchange is no robbery

There’s no excuse for snobbery

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth

A chocolate fire guard is of no use

    He’s no use nor ornament 

Two slices short of a loaf

If she had brains she’d be dangerous

But could make you as warm as toast

    As deaf as a door post

As blind as a bat

Two short ...

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YOU DONT FOOL ME

By the Urban Poet

Your pearly smile and gentleman's grip

The way you drink things sip by sip

The educated standing in all you do

But none of it covers up the real you

We can always count on a shady manoeuvre 

Before you give your seal of approval 

It's as if you don't trust anyone at all

If you ever did then I don't recall 

The ...

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THE SCIMITAR

By the Urban Poet

In dead of night he slowly weaves

through ginnels murky with rotting leaves

Unhurried gait becomes steady now

Then the pace increases as he cuts through town like a knife through butter

Inebriated vagrant lying in the gutter

A mysterious figure very much alive

but it's as if a poltergeist is passing by

Every nook and cranny, wall and r...

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THE BUILDERS YARD 

By the Urban Poet

An eerie, icy builders yard

tools, equipment and materials

do forlornly lie 

A barrow with a squeaky

wonky wheel

Caked with cement

bruised with grit

  Planks of un-plained

knotted wood rest

amidst rusted terracotta

scaffolding clamps

A thousand screws and nails

some misshapen, aged

extracted, used,

deemed useless

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2051 A SPACE ODDITY

By the Urban Poet

Gas-like mist rolls over the gritty dunes

and strange shaped, granite like rocks 

Multi coloured clouds form like plumes

of smoke spreading across the eerie plain

Periods of extreme quiet give way to what would seem like peels of distant thunder

accompanied by a gentle surface tremor

As if playing out a sinister rhythmic sequence

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WHO IS THIS PLEASE?

By the Urban Poet 

Forty more years with nothing to show

Only fragmented memories to join together 

The past behind so just go with the flow

Keep it safe, don’t push it, can’t live forever

Who is this please?

In this cellophane dream?

Is it you, or is it me?

Promise me that I’ll soon be free

From a hazy world I can barely see

Who is th...

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WHATS WRONG WITH ME?

By the Urban Poet

What’s wrong with me?

If only I could see what others can see

Does it matter that over beer

I sometimes choose tea?

You see I thought I was free

But in everything I seem to do

That doesn’t appear to be the case

we’re all in a race

to be the perfect face

Obsessed by the need for information

With a determination

to succeed...

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TRANSCENDENTAL

By the Urban Poet

Transcendental meditation

Trance like state for inspiration

Whirlpools of the mind in motion

Thoughts bombarding every notion

Levitation, floating onward

Dancing, prancing, lurching forward

In a dreamlike inner world

Flags of hope and peace unfurl

All the files are confidential

Knowledge can be detrimental

Bordering on ...

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‘EVERYTHING’S GOING

TO BE ALRIGHT’

By the Urban Poet

Alone again tonight as I turn off the light

No one to tell me “everything’s going to be alright”.  It’s seems years and years, a shed load of tears, have literally been salted away

I can’t remember the day someone said

 “everything is going to be be alright”

When I was a boy, I had no toys as such 

‘cos we didn’t hav...

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THE DENTISTS CHAIR

By the Urban Poet

Wars rage in far off places as struggles

so complex continue on through the ages 

The changes have been vast

From stick and stone to bow and arrow then gunpowder, cannon and war plane

However, pain, suffering and unspeakable despair, do not seem to compare

to the fear and apprehension of the Dentists chair.

The Bible spoke of '...

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HOW ARE YOU, ALL RIGHT?

A conversational poem

By the Urban Poet

“You’ve been on my mind a lot lately

How are you, alright?”

“Thank you, that’s actually very nice to hear

Don’t know why, but I feel drawn somehow”

“I get that, well we’ve been through lots lately”

“Yep, I know, but why is it so hard?”

“How am I, am I really alright?”

“You’re handling things and that...

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DARKNESS AND LIGHT

By The Urban Poet

In a life of confusion and pain

you wonder what it's all about

Hurry scurry helter skelter

you just feel like getting out

A whirlpool of insanity in

a world that gripped with fear

Oh what can the answer be

to all the things we hear?

The answers to the questions

sometimes they appear

to make no sense

The problems of th...

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AGE IS ONLY A NUMBER

By the Urban Poet

They say I’m old, or so I’m told

But in my head I’m far from dead

Now in my mind I’m still in my teens

I like rock music, tee shirts, and faded jeans

I can still throw moves on the dance floor

I know I’m good ‘cos the ladies want more

of my dancing that is, they think I’m the biz

But the fun stops there if you get my drift

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THE SALUBRIOUS MR STEVENS

By the Urban Poet

He’s moral, ethical,

good, clean and nice

Virtuous, pure

Innocent and chaste,

He’s encouraging, edifying

righteous and upright 

Upstanding, high minded

But never gets uptight

Non violent, not erratic 

Honest, just and noble

Respectable and decent

Chivalrous and honourable

He’s proper, correct, simp...

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THE MILLER

By the Urban Poet

Children and women with child awake from flee infested beds of rags on putrid floor

As they struggle to scrub out sleep from itchy eyes, the loud shriek of the foreman echoes and resonates through waxed ear as they gather in packs of trembling fear

Not a sentence of death but a daily trek down mud track eroded by torrential rain at six o'clock on the d...

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THE BOY IN SHORT TROUSERS

By the Urban Poet

Boy stands in a rowdy frantic playground 

Feeling the cold in more ways than one

Shoes letting in water, nose dripping

Wiping dew away on the back of coat sleeves, too long for his skinny wiry arms

Mind wondering, cravings for recognition 

will fall again on closed ears, as others have already categorised him as poor, pale and i...

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