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Love Sonnet
Photographs of daughters and grand-daughtersLine the hallway, a bright halo of smilesSurrounds her as she opens the front doorGingerly she settles down in the chairWith some bags methodically arrangedPrintout of her grocery order to handGood morning! greets the delivery manHer husband shuffles into view behindAnxious, trying to grasp what’s happeningHis eyes asking, Who’s this man →
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South Main Street, Memphis TN
531 South Main StreetPineapple cider and a burgerCome back tomorrowWe don’t close ‘til after twoI had been to the Lorraine MotelRead the storiesSeen the roomSuch injustice when all MLK wantedWas justice for people of colour tooI left that place tearful angryAt what had gone beforeStumbled into Ernestine + Hazel’sNeeding some foodCame out filled with hopeErnestine →
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Misunderstanding Blues
The mortician stood by the slabRed-eyed from working lateThe mortician looked so wearyShe had been called up from her bedIt was the witching hourWhen she was called out by the sergeant on the caseI drove until first light in my VolkswagenI’d had a call from the local policeThrough icy fog I drove that vehicleWithout stopping →
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Gernika: Wiederholungszeichen
Somewhere a Palestinian Picasso daubs a canvasOr chisels stoneNeedles coloured thread through linenScribbles out a poemScratches notes onto stavesAs fragments of shells are pickedFrom the hands and feetThe crown and sideOf the freshly crucified~n.b. NaPoWriMo 2025 combining art and music in poetry. Gernika April 1937, twinned with Gaza, April 2025. CLP 13/04/2025 →
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on reconciliation
to wipe the slate cleanopen your eyes to their painwash their wounds with your tears~n.b. Coventry cathedral, blitzed and rebuilt with this sculpture ‘Reconciliation’ (Reunion), by Josefinaq de Vasconcellos (1977). It imagines a couple embracing over a line of barbed wire. CLP 11/04/2024 →
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Ghazal for Gaza
Accursed gates forced open eighty years agoMy mother still a child, eighty years agoWhat happened there must not be forgottenEven fire could not cleanse the earth, eighty years agoListen to the gnashing and grinding of teethAt prising apart Hell’s jaws, eighty years agoOh Israel, how could a nation born from thisLet one man lead you →
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Wild Garlic
Shimmering sheets of ramsonsSpread through the woodRipple in the feckless breezeFootsteps fall softAs if in day old snowEvery gentle crunchEmits another pungent breathBetween harsh shadowsOf ash and sycamoreSquinting in steely sunlightShe stoops to gatherA small handful here another therePicking her way homeWith spring-stained fingers~ CLP 07/04/2025 →
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Why am I not?
Why am I not, what?How long have you got? Within our allotted span we have choices fewWhere we were born comes into it, true Who are our parents, where did we liveWhat was the school, all this we must sieve Then there is sex and sexualityDon’t try to deny that harsh reality Then there is →
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Comédie Larmoyante
Comédie Larmoyante Blame the starsBlame the planetsBlessed coincidenceNo one knows their true originPerhaps it was the simultaneousPowercuts wiping out the National GridThat fateful nightPreventing the big cup game being playedSo after tears of frustrationWith little other entertainment to handTwo unexpectant couplesBecame expectant parentsTears of joy at confirmationOf expectationAnd celebration(The Cup was won!)Born on the same →
Journey of Words 