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191 · Mar 2021
Find Me
Unpolished Ink Mar 2021
Find me
feel my pain
mend my soul
make me whole again

Touch me
calm my fears
hold me close
catch my falling tears

Love me
hold my hand
talk to me
try to understand
191 · Oct 2020
Lies, Damned Lies...
Unpolished Ink Oct 2020
Teeth in jaws that snap

Beyond the tongue that twists and winds

The trap that binds you to your word

Once beyond those tombstone markers to the world

All hope is lost for yet another lie uncurled

To wind itself like smoke

To choke and wrap around your slender throat

To make you wish you never spoke a single scarlet word

And those you hurt had never even heard!
189 · Aug 2021
Ink Page Pen
Unpolished Ink Aug 2021
To be a poet
Is not to burn the paper with your words
but to be heard
when drifting smoke of love and life is gone
the poet in us carries on
when ink and page and pen are embers
it is the beauty one remembers
188 · Jul 2020
Tree Dance
Unpolished Ink Jul 2020
Fir trees in the dark
Move against the moonlit sky
Waving to the stars
188 · Sep 2021
Summer King
Unpolished Ink Sep 2021
Winter’s lonely queen
grieving for her summer king
a lover long gone
he left his clothes
an Autumn coat of crimson velvet
lined with orange and a dozen other hues
without his light it faded to a duller forest brown
and she was left with shreds and tatters in her hands
that seamstress spring will come in time
and weave a cloak of gentle forest green
to see him though the coming year
188 · Jan 15
Seasonal Fur
Today I will hang my winter curtains
thick and soft as a cat's full belly,
December throw your gauntlet
full blast the rain, the wind can roar
they will not step inside my door
for every sound becomes a purr
once I have donned my seasonal fur
Unpolished Ink May 2020
You cannot possess a soul

Force it into chains

Crush a spirit and take what
remains

Make a slave

Own it from the cradle to the grave

You can use cruel ties

But you cannot bind

Freedom of the mind

Original thought

Cannot be bought
187 · Jan 2020
Argument Wine
Unpolished Ink Jan 2020
Victory wine can be  divine

A taste of defeat is not quite as sweet!

Whatever you choose to put in your glass

Finish it off then let it pass

Cork the bottle and shut it away

Drink the rest another day!
187 · Nov 2020
Troubles Shared
Unpolished Ink Nov 2020
You can trust the moon

She is too old to be shocked

And she never gossips

Except to the stars

They shimmer

Because they know

All the juicy details
186 · Jun 2021
Butterfly Soul
Unpolished Ink Jun 2021
When I am gone
think of me often
for I will be a butterfly free soul
a forever spirit of the air and wind
dancing among the flowers
in endless summer
186 · Feb 2024
Unseasonal
Unpolished Ink Feb 2024
Peaceful, I protest against this morning,
grey and wet and dull, not fit for larks
I demand a change
no, I command the sun to shine
rise and get you out of bed
and give us something else instead
I like this not
any decent summer day should start off fine
and then continue hot
185 · Oct 2020
Subconscious
Unpolished Ink Oct 2020
Every thought, every sight,
every book that you've read
Is all packed neatly away in your head!
A big subject in as few words as possible-neat!
185 · Jan 2020
Girl
Unpolished Ink Jan 2020
Your average girl

Is mostly Grrr

With a bit of whirl!
185 · Feb 17
After The Rain
After the rain
during the silence that follows
in that cool calm moment
when sodden the earth retreats
and all is still around your feet
where there is no time,
just space
a thinking place to listen
the cicadas of memory start to sing
184 · Mar 2020
Isolation Blues
Unpolished Ink Mar 2020
The winds of change

Are blowing

We need to hear them sing

Open up and listen

To alarm bells as they ring

Learn from this experience

Like we never did before

This virus isn't kidding

It's already gone to war

Casualties are many

No-one wants a million more!
Stay Inside
184 · Mar 2020
Memento Mori*
Unpolished Ink Mar 2020
Let gentle rain fall softly as she sleeps

Let tumbled grass grow long and wildflowers be her counterpane

Let twining strands of ivy cover up her name

Let her rest in peace
* Latin for Remember You Too Must Die.
Marking the death of a family member
184 · Jan 2020
Fly
Unpolished Ink Jan 2020
Fly
In the eye of a fly

The world rushes by

They see it all trippy

And fractured and zippy

As if they were high

Not sure why

Perhaps we should try!
184 · Dec 2024
Simple
Unpolished Ink Dec 2024
To be a poet
is not to burn the paper with your words
but to be heard,
when ink and page and pen are embers
it is the beauty one remembers
183 · Aug 2020
Universal Clay
Unpolished Ink Aug 2020
Potters hands are grey
Clay doesn't know your colour
Only your talent
I have been trying to find something that unifies us all-In the end we are all clay of some kind!
183 · Apr 2020
Chequers From The Same Box
Unpolished Ink Apr 2020
We are chequers from the same box

Sailing in the same leaky boat

We all bail

We get to stay afloat

We don't bail

Then we fail

So think

Do you really wanna sink?
182 · Dec 2020
The Writers Song
Unpolished Ink Dec 2020
I want to write
to set the literary sky alight
with words, bright birds
that take me with them in their flight
transcending earth to give me sights
and views I never saw before
but I can only watch them soar,
as with other earthbound things
I look up and wish for wings
writers frustration,
182 · Nov 2020
Show Me The Beauty
Unpolished Ink Nov 2020
Show me the beauty, beyond our careworn world
where sighs of woe outnumber gasps of wonder

Show me the beauty, of a winter sky seen from a window
etched in deepest shades of elephant grey

Show me the beauty still to come,
Sleepless dawns above silent shuttered houses

Show me the beauty hidden in plain sight,
A gift for those who dare to reach beyond their walls to see
Trying to find the beauty
182 · Nov 2022
Beauty
Unpolished Ink Nov 2022
What is beauty
If you see it with your eyes
and I do not share with mine
is it any the less beautiful
for being yours alone
181 · Mar 2021
Why Do We Do it
Unpolished Ink Mar 2021
Why do we do it
tear a fragile piece
of inner self
a printed page
and hang it raw
for public crows to peck and gnaw
blowing dry for all the world to see
what need have we
but still we strive to write
to search our foggy tired brains
and sift the ashes that remain
to lay them bare
upon the hearth and stone
to carry on
and give a little blood and bone
with every word we make our own!
181 · Sep 2023
Hope Is A Bird
Unpolished Ink Sep 2023
In darkness
when fear of fear itself and the unknown
ensures that certainty and other showier birds have flown
an unremarkable bird of no particular renown
will sing to you, her feathers plain and brown
no matter how hard the road, or the steep the stair
nothing is ever hopeless as long as I am there
181 · Jun 2020
Bottle
Unpolished Ink Jun 2020
A broken bottle
Rubbed smooth by the ocean
Tamed and beautiful
Nature creates art
181 · Mar 23
Gweiadur*
Ploughed fields
stark after rain
standing proud, brown and plain,
this year's crop will be planted soon
on corrugated paper
in the steamy water vapour
of a spring afternoon
*Welsh for tractor

I love the spring-ploughed fields always remind me of corrugated paper
181 · Nov 2020
Temporary Claim
Unpolished Ink Nov 2020
Winters frozen earth my tomb below a shadowed frosty mothers face, a working boot with rusted nails that pushed me deep beyond the freeze to where I came upon another place, a womb of warmth within the soil

The fallen leaves which flew me to my doom, became a broth to speed me into verdant life.  I cannot say how long I lay within my room, growing fat among the worms which chewed my infant food and burrowing things all shiny on their backs like glass which passed and took me to the sun and light and air.

My growing place I knew not where, was ploughed and ready land where I so small could barely see above the plants which grew around me as a coat and shield from spring and summer heat.

For so it came to pass upon my second year and more when I did chance to see the floor the grass and daisies at my feet for I had grown so tall that they were hardly there at all.

A mighty oak I stand through changes to the times which seem to work though some mysterious and unknown hand. I heard the ***** of soldiers in their passing off to war and heard returning feet of some I heard before.

And when my limbs became so heavy and then thickened to  a width beyond what eyes could see, they changed the name upon my trunk and I became the famous hanging tree, it was not right, it was a man who pulled the rope and took a fearful struggling life, not me.

The seasons came and went and all around me in my view, began to build and change from what I always saw and knew to be my place, tall buildings sprang from what had been a lonely space, of solitude and wind that whipped my leaves and brought my children to the ground, as that surround which I had long held dear began to fade and slowly disappear replaced by traffic ever near.

I cast my green and shaded eyes upon grass and daisys once again, an old and fallen victim of the rain, now I with scurrying creatures lie upon my back to see the sky, so once I grew and now I die, to sink beneath the soil from whence my acorn came, I lived the life which all of us man beast or tree have only temporary claim.
Please be kind, it is a new venture. I am not known for writing long poems so there might not be another one. I just felt inspired today.
180 · Jul 2020
Rain
Unpolished Ink Jul 2020
A sky full of rain
New life springs from brown parched earth
Green shoots from grey clouds
180 · Jan 11
World
We were given a lovely world
but we trampled it and mashed it
beat it up and trashed it,
nobody else to blame
we did it to ourselves
and it's such a ****** shame,
we can't walk away,
we can't say I quit
we made this awful mess
now we have to live in it
180 · May 2024
Diesel Daisies
Unpolished Ink May 2024
Down along the motorway
pathos flowers grow
a tiny piece of nature
putting on a show
watch the diesel daisies
dancing in a row
among the shredded leavings
of the M1 contraflow
179 · Jul 2020
Crocodile
Unpolished Ink Jul 2020
A crocodile smile
Might be a covering for
Sad crocodile tears
People hide their sadness behind a smile.
179 · Nov 2020
Unrequited
Unpolished Ink Nov 2020
Unrequited love
Is a smouldering fire
Alight on one side
178 · Nov 2022
Corners
Unpolished Ink Nov 2022
At the corner
where the year turns
Autumn’s carefree child
dressed in shades of rebellious scarlet
whistles as he walks full into Winter
a vicious hungry old man
who strips him bare naked and cold
before he strolls away to find the waiting arms of spring
she wraps him in a warm embrace
bestowing kisses sweet enough to melt his cruel and icy heart
and leaves to find the Summer
bearing gifts of fruit
with which to make the heady wine of Autumn
178 · Jan 2021
The Reason I write
Unpolished Ink Jan 2021
The reason I write
to **** the banality
of reality
178 · Jan 2023
For Margaret
Unpolished Ink Jan 2023
Margaret's hands are small and white
they will never hug her mother
or feel a lovers hand squeeze hers
never play piano like her sister Maud
or wear a wedding ring
not any of these things
Margaret's hands are marble still
each dove at rest upon her chest
177 · Sep 2019
A Room With No Doors
Unpolished Ink Sep 2019
Grief is a room

It has no doors

No one can join you

For each of us has our own


You sit in the centre

On the hardest chair

Wondering how you will escape and join the world again

Leaving the sorrow behind


You take the sadness with you when you go

It is a burden all must carry

You will learn to manage the load

One of the many rocks we must bear on our journey through life


One day you will leave

The walls will know when it is time

You will see the crack of light under an exit you never even knew was there


Do not fear it

Embrace its protection

This room

Is a womb
177 · Aug 2020
Early Mist
Unpolished Ink Aug 2020
Mist on the river
The ghosts of gentle old clouds
Come to visit earth
I wanted to write something pretty today
177 · Feb 1
Urban Missile
I cheered for the President
and raised my hat to the great man,
he promised prosperity
for all his supporters,
then he started a war,
when the rockets came
they did not know the difference
between me and my neighbour
176 · Oct 2019
I Dare You
Unpolished Ink Oct 2019
Dare you follow the old road?

The one that leads to everywhere and nowhere

You with your masks and Jack ‘o’ lanterns

Will you take that path into the mountain?

Where midnight pixies dance to the sound of a flaming violin

And the night birds with their wicked lonely eyes hover, ceaseless in their search for prey

Keep your gaze on the way ahead

Never look around

You don’t want to see

The darkling things that are waiting

But they can see you!

Come with me to the broken table

Give up your Soul

Sit and dine with the dead and the ****** and those that aren’t too sure

Feast with us

And leave this tattered weary world behind

Halloween is play for children

Follow me to the old road

Real darkness lives there…
176 · Aug 2020
Bubbles
Unpolished Ink Aug 2020
Bubbles in a stream
Floating by like passing thoughts
Deeper than you think
176 · Feb 2020
Silent Sonata
Unpolished Ink Feb 2020
Words you once read

Voices long dead

A silent sonata

Of sounds in your head
The prompt word was acoustic
175 · May 2024
How Kind
Unpolished Ink May 2024
Spring you called, how kind
I see you’ve settled your wandering mind
you brought a leaf for every tree
and flowers for every buzzing bee
sit a while we’ll have some tea
I made a cake so I hope you’ll stay
if not, can you visit another day
175 · Feb 2020
The Apple Of The Mind
Unpolished Ink Feb 2020
The apple of the mind starts small

A tiny bud without form

Flowering in the spring of our lives

Full of hopeful promise

Blooming

Summer sweet

Red and juicy

Or crunchy and full of bite

Some are windfalls

Cast aside

Before their time

Others become *****

Hidden maggots in the heart

Ripeness gently falls to autumn decay

We wither and we die

Returning to earth when we have cast our seeds

Leaving younger fruit to take our place

On the tree of life
175 · May 2020
Fake News
Unpolished Ink May 2020
Fiction causes friction

An untruth uttered and whispered, gets muttered

It grows until it throws  a shadow on the truth

Fake news screws and skews what we see

In a deception of perception

A false perfection

Losing reality

In a flood of banality!
175 · Sep 2019
Calling Me Home
Unpolished Ink Sep 2019
I watch at first light

Summers dawn

As it ripples over daisy fresh grass

Not yellow like syrup or honey

Sharp and green and cool

With the possibility of peace

He sleeps

Quietly folded into a bedside chair

Like an old newspaper that someone else has read

Time to shut the pages and say goodbye

For me the tale is told

He will wake and find me gone

Our story is done
My last day
174 · Jun 2020
Hope Is The Butterfly
Unpolished Ink Jun 2020
The winged things

Feathery worries

Ills of the world

Released furies

Moth like

Tearing holes in the future

To feed their ravening savage mouths and starving offspring

A plague of stinging hornets

Free to fly and drop their bombs of despair where they will

And yet beneath this hateful cloud

Lives hope

Crushed but never defeated while it lives

Yin to the vile Yang

Fluttering slowly behind

Always there until the very end

A tiny crumb of comfort

Oh Pandora

What did you do?
174 · Dec 2020
Missing Kissing
Unpolished Ink Dec 2020
In the year of missing kissing

it was masks for simple tasks like queuing for bread

ditching foreign travel so we all stayed home instead

we swapped hugs for elbow rubs and waves from afar

coffees in the car instead of drinks with a friend

oh the fun of this year

Will it never end?
173 · Apr 3
Read your Ozymandias
All power is fleeting, none of it will last
look at the dictators we have buried in the past,
those excutive orders will be shredded and torn
burning in a heap, upon the White House lawn,
America will rise, after you have gone
your name will be a curse, when its soul goes marching on,
images smashed, tinted rubble for foundation
trodden in the mud of a bruised but recovering nation
173 · Feb 2020
A Bite Of The Apple
Unpolished Ink Feb 2020
The profits of crime

Are not half as sublime

As the wages of sin

So jump right on in!
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