Centre Court

This shrine, divine
Leaves me, inclined
To feel for love
Under cotton sheets
After Muscadet and the castle chatter

Skin on skin
Breast on breast
Tongues kissing
As the boys
On the tennis court squeal with laughter

As our squeals
On the expectations
Of loves lustful sensations
Gut-strings, taut
On the racket; tension, suspense; one-all

Our strings also
Echo back and forth;
'Yes I love you'
'Yes I do love you'
After all it is one-all; it is one-all, isn't it

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Self-Service

I've found a breeze, and shade
After a drink
Of Summer Fruits with Cloudy Lemonade

What a world in which we live
Taking photographs
Of the sun's effect on this summer's June

Listening to agricultural machinery
Stirring up a fair-old agricultural aroma
Meanwhile, the young boy plays

That same young boy as all young boys
Some with their picture in the paper
Some locked away behind closed doors

Whosoever gave us the sunlight
Also gave us the depressions
The greater expressions of woe

From where we are grateful to leave
To find the breeze, and the shade
With a pitcher of Victorian Lemonade

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Long View

Skyline

Sublime

Over the treetops

In time

Your sign

Falls on the page

First crime

You to be mine

Nothing now to stop us

That line

Grade nine

Calmed the rage

First to climb

Then to remind

The course of our way

The light of our day

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Uniform

The day begins
With the delivery man
Good looking letters
Arriving in the post
The day is bathed
In the sun of June
Good looking lawns
Stretch to the water

Listen to the buzzing-bee
Listen to the chaffinch
Shadows aren't all we see
As we watch the dragonfly
Stamp this moment
Label it at least once more
Blow away the dust
Eradicate the cobwebs

Love is as lovers do; so say thanks
That she asked to marry you
Look on down the line
Look back to the doorstop
Say thanks for her loving you
Say thanks for the morning

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Seat Towards the Water

The old silver-birch
Its leaves, tilted by the breeze
As though the time had come
To wave brightly at the blue sky

The groundsman
He has done the groundsman's job
As though knowing of my nostrils needs
For the tinge of newly-mown grass

The blackbird soars
In a territory of its own making
As if to take me back to the stories
Of Jonathan Livingston Seagull

I am also conscious that flies
And midges share this space
As if they had been invited
By the sounds of the bullfrog

You are on the steps
Saying goodbye to the scouser
As if your empathy with mankind
Could become never-ending

And of course the butterfly
All dressed in cream & damsel
As if the meadows are about to beckon
With the flight, and call, of the partridge

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