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Mist hides the field head road
It lies in wait
For spring sunshine to burn it away

Freudian slip, as sixty-four degrees beckon
Freudian, Jungian; all the friends
Who have relationships with the psyche

The partridge picks away at the rape-seed
Oblivious to psychology and its drivers
Prone only to the trigger of instinct

Yet, what seems to be his best friend
(I always see them together)
Is a bird of such fine and loud plumage

Much as I, as a teenager
Wearing lime-green pantaloons
Backcombed auburn hair

Under a mauve fedora
Left the family home
At forty-one Field Head Road

I hitch-hiked
To my first ever music festival
On an island of music, and intimate love

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Morse Code

Numbers
Read out slowly
Nine, zero
Seven, four
Six, six

Then slower still
Nine
Zero
Seven
Four
Six
Six

Here begins musicality
Nine, zero, seven
Four, six
Six

Wrong number
Caller to collect

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Gentleness Of Warfare

Take these times
Take them with you
Let them travel
Travel in your carriage

The time
Of overheard overseas voices
The time
Of flags and fireworks and long walls falling

Remember the square in Belgrade
You, a younger man
Way out of your depth
Buying your first Tom Waits record

You sought out
And visited Nikola Tesla's Museum
Stroked his Van der Graf generator
Thought yourself too, someone special

It was a time of many misunderstandings
Yet tonight as you retrace the mourner's story
Think of the flowers placed at the roadside
Think of the flowers placed at the perimeter fence

Remember forever the flowers
For whenever
You are, as a traveller
Way out of your depth

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On Being Desirous Of Subtlety

Cloud covers sun
Sun breaks through

Darkness
Takes the mood with you

Lightness
Opens o so many doors

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Half Remembered

Love is in each skip
I take that
From the Maypole Dance

A time, a place
A part of junior-school memorabilia
Which occasionally surfaces

Smiles
That mean more than smiles
Take off runways
To the excitement
That love holds as a blossom

Ambivalent touch
The necessity of inclination
Held in suspension
As if once droplets
Of loves fair fragrance

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