Part-time embalming is joyful

Not enough to get you down

Leaves time to appreciate life

Freed from that bloody gown

Embalming can bring surprises

Cadavers turn up you once knew

This happened to young Dahlia

Its a sadistic geezer she'd blew

Chopped up in some car crash

His wife wanted a restful look

Freed from the visible causes

Her nerves would not brook

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I've always been a timid sort

Careful to look before I leapt

Rarely dived into the water

Watched the company I kept

Then I met you and blew a fuse

Saw my inhibitions do a runner

I was all over you like a rash

I thought you were a stunner

I'm wallowing in you now

The water's as clear as mud

Never been so wringing wet

Never knew life was so good

You...

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Tommy's a confirmed alcoholic

His usual social worker is Jane

In the old detoxification centre

Her efforts help ease the pain

His life has been a shambles

Job and flat gone, depressed,

Jane strives to fix the mess

Do for Tommy what's best

Discharged from detox, he's

Moved away from the edge

Jane's secured him a bed-sit

Got him to take the pledge

H...

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You look better than for ages

A healthy bloom on your skin

The way you walk so boldly

Proudly holding up your chin

Of course, you didn't see me

Admiring your mien so new

I must admit, against my will

That forgetting me suits you

Yet paradoxical as it seems

Without my baneful actions

You'd be that mouse of old

Tip-toeing about in fractions

Yes, I c...

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Jam-jar mobile homes

For tiddlers as a kid,

I speculated in vain

Whither went the lid

Sweet student summer

Molten and strawberry

Castor candy foundry

Damson, grape, cherry

Blanched fruit in drums

Pectin sugar and colour,

Without which your jam

Would look much duller

Buff overalls crisply caked

Treacly crystallised hair,

Boss boilers wielding...

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It's so easy to say you love me

But what do you mean by love?

Is it something you see in me,

Or a spirit falling from above?

You say I'm merely a nit-picker

Analysing everything to death

Yet I must be quite sure of you

To own your very last breath

Love is simply a word to others

So glibly pronounced for effect

But I dont want to fall for you

Only for you ...

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She volunteered at the hospice,

They'd seen off her old man fine

Daytimes she was a lollipop lady

Keeping kids safe with her sign

Then she took ill, her sight went

Gradually the kids put in peril,

A brain tumour behind her eyes

Still the kids relied on old Beryl

Sadly she gave up the hospice

Painkillers made her too weary

The kids noticed she was tired

Ge...

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Life in the shade was good

Your fame left me aglow

Finding you loved another

Dealt my ego a heavy blow

I thought love was exclusive

Deceit turned me to a saddo

No more your sole princess

Shade darkening to shadow

Now shade enfolds my rival

She enjoys your reputation

Seeking not the limelight

Knowing what is her station

Maybe I wanted too much

E...

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A recalcitrant granny at my local ALDI

Seeking a refund on her custard creams

Made me wonder how you get a refund

After a whole lifetime of broken dreams

Merchandisers of Eros were my nemesis

I bought my first dream from sweet Julia

Redolent of cinnamon and Dioressence

Before morphing into something peculiar

Heather's packaging was slick and cool

Her labelling ...

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Weddings evoked grief

For someone like Walter

With memories of being

Left stranded at the altar

Still dreaming of the one

Who shafted him badly

He'd wake up screaming

Bandy legs kicking madly

One dream, of making love

To an Amazon stunner

Got to the tipping point

But she'd done a runner

He sought a therapist

A woman of renown

Arson took her ...

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Being lonely is so wearing

Eyes averted fingers drum

Lasering of furtive glances

Pain of self-conscious hum

Repressed passion lashes

Barricades vast but hidden

Terror of getting through

Fears that come unbidden

Desire versus inhibition

Self-image sorely racked

By corroded self-esteem

Egos that failure hacked

Behaviours only reinforce

Self-loath...

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I blame myself, for its all my own fault

Should have been honest from the start

It began that night after American Gigolo

When I said he was prodding my heart

Since then his pud's gone to his head

He's convinced he's Warren Beatty

I could do with a lover of substance

A stud fit and well-hung and meaty

By now I've got used to pretending

I deserve at the very lea...

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I suppose I'm one of life's losers

Missed out on joys and content

Mourned other folks's milestones

Never learned what love meant

How to encounter consolation or

Stomach others's enjoyable sins?

The answer lies up in the clouds

Where brute eternity always wins

Winners cant take it with them

Imagine leaving behind that cash

Lovers weeping at the bedside

Tho...

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I stayed put, you moved on

With not a backward glance,

Its cold and dark down here

Hearing your merry dance

I'm in limbo now, forgotten

My spirit unable to restart

Trapped and left for dead

In the cellars of your heart

This place has other ghosts

Chains clanking like mine

Brooding sadly about how

You must be doing so fine

We're so near yet so far ...

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You're gone but it was good

You had to put up with a lot

My moods and wanderings

A child dying alone in his cot

Carnations bring you back

Our shady garden bowers

You dangle from my heart

In chains of faded flowers

High up on Ilkley Moor

Laid in fields of heather

Laughing we made love

Never mind the weather

His birth was not easy

For you might h...

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Moved in, hired a skip

In here time stood still

Dealt with the daughter

Her dad gone, taken ill

Bathroom has lead pipes

Ceilings tobacco-stained

Window timbers rotten

Wet-rot well-engrained

Valuers took the quality

I'm left with foisty rugs

Sixties-style bric-a-brac

A zoo of domestic bugs

Fifty years in this semi

Kids married, wife dead,

Mak...

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Sounds a bit John Donne

Breasts and thighs so firm,

Lying cold at the mercy of

That fruity graveyard worm

With age you consider more

The destiny of your remains

When time puts an end to

Yearsful of aches and pains

Bodies decay, even one as

Delicious as bonny Linda's,

Whatever made her stipulate

Bowing out in hot cinders?

Either way she's history

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Then the photos appear

I never see them coming

That need for revelation

Emotionally so numbing

Image of ex-husband

Faces of cheeky kids

This woman has lived

My life hit the skids

Tales come with the pics

Stories of her family life

Domestic ups and downs

How she fared as a wife

All I feel is hot shame

Angry at what I missed

Wife, kids, annive...

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We'd made love as usual

A heavy night in the sack

After breakfast I told her

I was never coming back

Inexplicable the only word

Why so drastic a measure?

What impulse drove me to

Quit a house of pleasure?

A bitter taste in my mind?

Neurosis bending my head?

Maybe the new marmalade

Made my psyche see red

She'd always been restless

The place in a...

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He was hardly without vice

Beat women, blew cocaine

He was a true black genius

We won't see his like again

Hear the album Jack Johnson

Paean in a universe of black

The travails of a champion

Ring-craft his violent knack

Johnson brushed with cops

Neither of them were saints

Human pixels amid the mix

In the picture destiny paints

The albums are his ...

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My love was welded by wit

No woman was ever racier

Yet after my crazy revelation

I was sleeping with a glacier

Some things are best hidden

Dont oblige that need to tell

My regrets forged hot tears

For I saw ice in your farewell

My fault misreading the signs

I felt we'd reached that page

Where we became truly one

Not paper lovers on a stage

I'd dis...

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That inner limb was lacking

A sense of right and wrong

Like a pane without glass

A melody without a song

You possessed virtues of sorts,

Were, not by any means, all bad,

Yet I remember you only for

The conscience you never had

Fissures materialised where

The inner self was displayed

Skeletons in your cupboard

Facade aside, were betrayed

Good times...

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Your heart sags wrinkled now

Old and grey before its time

Ravages shown in bandy legs

A heavy toll of frost and rime

Tarry not till your heart is old

Make hay afore night descends

Time rips fast and none knows

When life sinks low and ends

Once your heart was fanciful

Joys were the order of the day

Now its an armchair and pills

Listening to what doctors sa...

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All that's left is wreckage

Debris from what's over

The time when I loved

No more the idle rover

Ashes are better than nothing

Half a loaf better than crumbs

Yet memories burn painfully

What's forfeited still numbs

Years that went quickly

Days that ran into sand

Left poignant memories

Your soft yielding hand

That May day at the beach

Sand caugh...

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She was a noted collector,

Meissen gold and clocks,

Her chosen specialty was

Rich, antique old crocks

My place on her shelves

Augured ill for my fate,

A corner spot and dusty

Was not exactly the Tate

Her turnover was high

Stock came and went

Dealers felt her tongue

She relished every cent

Not the vogue now, I'm

Deemed surplus stock,

Auction ...

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each day I went for a walk in the woods

with COVID you look after your ticker

you tend to see the same folk each day

they smile as I offer the faintest flicker

I'd copped a wan couple making the circuit

a pair regular as clockwork out every day

then I saw the woman strolling on her own

had her partner upped and gone away?

a week later I caught her eye and stopped

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I've known many stairs

Rising to strange places

Where joy roams free

A blur of female faces

Stairs can feel unreal

From drink and hurry

Chasing hot rump in a

Scented hectic flurry

Drink risks a frisson

Tumbling down stairs

Scrambles your wits

Impedes your affairs

Some boast a bend

Others climb straight

Either route is urgent

Desire will n...

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I wasted my life in a search for myself

Lost amid cul de sacs and blind alleys

Wondering just what it was I wanted

Sages say he is doomed who dallies

Horizons don't wait for anyone

Age creeps up on you like a mist

Years become vague phantoms

Its why I've rarely been kissed

I'm getting older but still confused

I always had trouble with my vision

Soon I wont s...

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In olden times great monsters roamed

Spirits and devils hid behind each door

Superstition governed fearful peasants

Subsisting uneducated naive and poor

Centuries on and we have progressed

Affluence burnished the common weal

Giants and dragons imagined no longer

For today's modern monsters are real

Frankensteins stride brazen and free

No wonder in our hearts we...

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Its amazing how quickly time passes

I only heard about him the other day

I got a call from my cousin Katherine

It was her told me he had passed away

A completely new outfit is essential

At my age you have to put on a show

Time for a manicure, see to my hair

Show them I never lost that old mojo

They'll be wondering will I turn up

It will be fun to keep them gues...

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Is this thing some punishment

Or are we being softened up?

Is Dominic Cummings an alien,

Are punters getting sold a pup?

More rumours of mutation rumble

As if we didn't have enough fears,

Seems the virus fancies a change,

Securing access through our ears

Sounds bizarre, but a while ago

I met a nice woman out walking

She was so sorry her dog bit me

And bef...

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