Only Last Summer

(1967)
Long days spent with imaginary friends
in a field of cows obscured by clouds
beneath grey skies and stumbling home
down winding green lanes in the rain
through the mist and loneliness of England
peaking . . . coming down . . . still tripping
staring out a frosted window
tracing patterns drawing faces
in the foggy condensation
while a snake slides through your [...]

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Basically a late night guitar solo

Embodying the modernist myth of sorrow suffered into art, he sank through quicksand storms of shame into the dark. Desire is a lonely cry: sand through the fingers, gritted teeth. Denial is a golden wall. Behind this wall a garden grows, with a fountain in it, and a tree. Upon a high branch, claws sunk [...]

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Fishing Port

From bridge to bridge, beneath the moon
a river flows and opens out
into a harbour. Ships and wharves
knock hollowly together
as the tide begins to turn.
Fear like a form of sentient fog
a cold and predatory throng
prowls through the twisting winding streets
on which each house in every row
seems like a crudely fashioned face
with lighted windows shining bright
for eyes, [...]

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Funhouse

The black tar street is strangely lit
Harsh smoulders in the afterglow
Of words flung head high words like fists
Like fires lit in the wilderness
Harsh crackles underfoot the leaves
A child ran trampling through the woods
One lost and smoky afternoon
Harsh blisters in the memory
In silence ever deepening
An afternoon of fear and dread
When childhood woke into youth
And found it [...]

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Sleeping Beauty

Black sea, still sea
of silent water
lapping gently at the docks.
White porticos and files of columns
stretching up the gentle slopes
of Tiplic, like a lifeless forest.
Vertigo cliffs soar beyond.
Long wooden ships, sails hanging limp
float on the harbour motionless.
No wind. The sun is rising dark
and fiery red far out to sea
yet no one wakes. The dream rolls on
wave [...]

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Into the Mystic

—Can I ask you something?
—Sure, I guess.
—It’s just, you know. Why do they call you Titblisters, for God’s sake?
—I dunno. They just do. They always have.
—But it’s not your real name is it?
—I dunno. Yeah. Probably. Should I take my clothes off now?
—Okay.
—Only if you want me to, mate. I mean, don’t get too excited.
—Yeah. [...]

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A Brand New Day

(excerpted from “Class Notes: the busy child’s guide to future history”)
From one perspective mankind’s present journey, of which we are so proud and humble and glad to be a part, began in the deep past, almost one thousand years ago, as a despairing but nonetheless epic attempt to undo the consequences of what made it [...]

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Figures in a landscape

The day is clear, but for a low bank of cloud on the horizon, hovering unobtrusively above the roofs of the town and the medieval spire of its cathedral. I am reminded of a painting I adored when I was young.
The foreground (of this particular painting) is a rounded hillside in northern Europe, an airy, [...]

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Once upon a time in the 18th century

A hawk hangs high above the sun
on wide wings gliding.
Whispers, mutterings below.
Leaves in the forest like green tongues.
The rustle of soft fabric
and the pale blue ache of dawn.
Hoofbeats. The song of morning birds.
A finger to her lips, a sigh.
Stained windows bled through by dim light.
Dark hair. Salt beads of sweat like pearls.
The thundering of iron [...]

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Shriek! Shriek! Shriek!

In a world of woeful women
and unhappy, desperate men
I wandered long dark tunnels
on the tracks of a long gone train.
I saw the man I might have been once
and the boy that I once was
with a woman who’d been crying
in the kitchen of a house
perched on the edge of a crumbling cliff
on the cold and lonely [...]

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