Tag: poetry
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Battle Knackered
Cattle cattle cattle Years of battle A decade waging a pro-war campaign, sabre-rattling zealots at last touch down on the frontline Meeting the chain death of rises lipped by gatlings Skulls in a line, as would dot tribal idols’ feet Slumped dead along ratlines east of the Seine, rivalling rubbish for scent Spent shell wreckage…
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Cold War
Overall it is a dull war A dreaded bore Nothing like the war you think of from stories Gore, glory, posh men ahorse arrayed in pendant-laden grey khaki and sashes, cavalries arranged in lines charging flak cannons under fire, legs exploded by mines, crying oxbridge sorts penning dreadful lines of clumsy-rhymed verse in rat-ridden billets…
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Slip
Deck wet with brackish water Cap’n sashayed, he fell over Skull warped against bulwark Be more careful how you walk.
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War’s Gnawing Worms Chewing Worldroots
Cavalry saddled, dappled flanks foam lathered Rattling at their sallying, fracturing gatling action Cleopatra’s fleet abandons field at Actium, ending the team. Teeming with corpses, sunrise orpiment solifies creamy pinttop waves bloodfoamed Octavian, having smashed Marc Antony’s maritime armies, consolidates Pheasant-fletched arrows along a dead soldier’s ridge like fangs in a fine-toothed comb.
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Hollow Now
You, finest mummer, around whom the glum blubbered with laughter Ready applause at your coming and silence reigning after When you died, that part of me for you alone died too Bikes like ready horses ahead a sluggish hearse, mired by grief Chief among us, bright-headed kindest, admired by all. In the pub an altar…
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Loss
I remember how much half-smiling teachers loathed your interruptions I remember eruptions of laughter every time you spoke I remember buying weed from you, smoking it in the lane There are more good times than I now can remember in the haze of days We spent blazing in what seemed like hazy endless summers, pondering…
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Death Brief Visitor
We who survive you do so begrudgingly, we the unsmiling Like a triumph spining along the road Lumps in throats blown noses Family read words they wrote, tears spatter coats Words more beautiful than merits so doleful a day, their voices did not break But rang out in elation and sang to broken hearts Music…
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Funeral of a Friend
Fearless grief fleeing and spending me in company Tears falling fleet as frontliners, sheeting down to blot my collar My wife’s hand on my back lending succour Colour-bereft black column watching a bike wheel conjure white smoke as at a Pope’s election Directing my quill, tears salt my cheek in pink streaks You have arrived…