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  Jan 2017 Joe Cole
Martyn Grindrod
Cardboard City
land of broken dreams
life on the pavement
existence of extremes

lost my job , my home , my wife
No end in sight of my pitiful life

Down on my luck my life's a mess
living outside as outdoors  guest

A kindly gent puts a fiver in my palm
below freezing tonight
so it's
McDonald's coffee and a lip balm

So if you see me asleep on the side of the road
I sleep here because I have

No Fixed abode

thank you
Life in Manchester prompted this poem . So many homeless
Joe Cole Nov 2016
Where has gone the lands we knew?
Of waving grass and glistening dew
All fallen to the housing plan
Devised by an educated city man
Educated!!!!
Those once green green fields and woodland tracts
Have succumbed to bulldozer blades and felling axe
No more the places where as kids we played
On those beautiful sunlit days
Now landfill sites and city dumps
Cover the places where we once ate a picnic lunch
Gone are the fields and woodland glades
Where we once spent our sun filled days
Joe Cole Nov 2016
Is it Trump
Or Lump
Or Clump
I'm not quite very sure
But what really bothers me now
Is when the reds come knocking at my door
Don't be disabled, Muslim or even yet a girl
Because the life that once you knew
Will end up in the depths of hell
Yes he said I'll build a wall to keep
Hispanics out
But now its just become a fence
Trump is such a lout
Joe Cole Nov 2016
I sit here on this lonely windswept ridge
Overlooking a wild place
Of peathag and bog and wild heather
Of outcrops of gritstone rock
Standing like rotting teeth
In ravished gums
Bleak and dreary in the rain
But still a place to be loved
Hardy sheep graze the barren slopes
Watched over by equal hardy men and dogs
Out in all weathers
I'm lucky
Because I know the tracks and trails
Crossing this wild land
I know the streams of fresh water
And the sanctuary for my nights rest
In my small lightweight tent
This is wild Yorkshire
As yet an unspoilt place
Joe Cole Oct 2016
I want to sit on the stoop with the good old boys
A scraggy old hound sat by my feet
To Chinwag about the good old days
When in the noonday sun we'd sleep
Of walking in the mountains
Of drinking from fresh streams
Not worried about the deer ****
But just living out our dream
Those days are now but memories
Just long held distant dreams
Now we just sit and reminisce
With my old dog at our feet
  Aug 2016 Joe Cole
traces of being
.
Honeybees, birds and blooms unfurl
an enchanting spell
when spring comes by here

Memories waft 'neath burled rustic trellis
where flowered tendrils grasp fleshly
like the newness a love once tenderly embraced

Songbirds in your garden sing
of swooning memories rapture.., of velvet eyes,  
the fragrant spicy nectar hidden within her walls                            

A song of honeyed bees'  sweetest stinger,
and the poignant ***** of intoxicating surrender
lingers, bemused spellbound by a thorny heirloom rose

Sharp beauty beloved like a blameless trap
caught blissfully, breathlessly inbetween
all you wish for and all your wanton needs

Desire 's wellspring an unspoken passion
coquet swollen buds adorn blossoming,
sensual, untamed carnal grace

A picture perfect natural beauty;
sunlit chassé … feathered brush, demure blush
dancing with basket of lace petal’d perfume

For to colour a heart's blank pages
rapt in the poesy a joyous ecstasy ..,
enrapture with rainbow's luscious taste

What seems lost is but a tender vestige unfound
a passing moments innocence lost
to steal away like rumors of gold

These silent reveries seep from a hole in my heart,  
as if ripe strawberries of yore, gently weeping sweetness
when pricked by a thorny rose  

The ides of spring do still bleed a timeless ache
onto the page ... sweet naivety stung
by a mesmerizing dart to the heart

Songbirds in your garden do sing
of sweetest things immersed in nature's nectar
blissful memories sleeping in the petals of a rose




Sung to the wind by a song sparrow — ♪ ♫...✩ ☼✩ ✩☺✩
If only now in dreams of yore
a sky full of stars shine brighter,
a garden of flowers fragrance more pungent,
and songbirds in your garden from yesteryear
sing tantalizingly more beautiful ...,
when you were near

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