Category: NaPoWriMo2025
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Day 30 – Sing
I’m 14. I’m on the bus.Headphones on, trusty Sony WalkmanI’m with people, but I’m not They think I’m being rude And I am.I think about it a lot.A girl gets on and sits in front Pin badges, patches, eyeliner And I’ve *got* to let her know That I’m not one of themNothing matters more to…
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Day 29 – Practice Makes
Every time I go back I must start again from scratchPushing through Grinning and bearing With metal strands searing through each finger tip Every time I promise That I’ll keep it up, I swear Pushing through Learning and growing Letting the callouses take the hit But this Is not who I am The case stays…
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Day 28 – Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau
We sang Land Of My Fathers to send off Great Uncle Gordon In English, first, for the unannointed, Syllables falling clumsily from unpracticed lipsBut finally, the last verse came storming inThe organist ablaze My brother and I, an uncle and his bass baritone Propping up my Great Aunt, briefly dreaming of homeCarried the congregation through.Rugby…
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Day 27 – Masterpiece
Amongst the grandeur of creationI turn to look at my selfLike the figure in the corner of the paintingWatching me watching myself In an endless mirror of everything Take a bite of that apple Hand slicing that neck The push and the pull and the rush and the still Carving a place in infinityYetJustHere.
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Day 26 – Sonnet Song
Sing to the golden thread, sing to the bonesOf all our dreams and all our little hopesSing out upon the hill, sing to the stones Sing to the ties that bind and to the ropes Lift up your voices loud into the nightAnd let the gods turn crashing in the void Sing to the crystal…
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Day 25 – Howl
She screams she screams She fills her lungs She lets it be She cares for none She lets it take her somewhere elseShe lets it change She lets it out
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Day 24 – Procrastination
I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more Just to be the guy who does one single taskWith no distractions or Side quests sidelines Side eyes side slides Just sits and does The Thing, on time.
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Migration
I have not heard the swifts yetSo I’m afraid it is not summer.Some might think it odd that I fretWhen May approaches and not one,Not one have I Seen swishing brazenly about the skyYes, maybe I should focus on more pressing worries,But I have not heard the swifts yet.
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Tick Tock
Time is fluffy It passes in great dollops Or wisps by at the pace of lazy steamWhat is a year? In the grand scheme of all things, nothing.525,600 minutes,As any self-respecting musical theatre kid Would crash through a doorway Dramatically to tell you.And anyway,That minute soon ticks on into others andOthers and others and Anyway1,051,200…
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Things I am discovering about myself on the road to 40 – a poem
I love cooking, now that I have my own safe space And someone who’ll eat my experiments and not make a horrid face I need time, quite often, to switch my mask completely off And the people who love me get that, without making any fuss I should’ve cut my hair short a long time…
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We Move
We moveWe singWe cry We rage We move.We loveWe hurtWe danceWe hateWe move.We screamWe speakWe love We dream We move.We liveWe liveWe liveWe liveWe liveWe liveWe liveWe liveWe move
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In The Old Days
In the old daysWe would’ve had to write earnest lettersSighing deeply between the nicetiesWe would’ve had to have teaMake small talk about geraniumsWhilst trying not die every time you looked at me In the old days We’dve been married to some inoffensive prickIf we were lucky, and didn’t get one with a violent streak.We’d just…
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I Don’t Exist
The government says I don’t exist The government says my best mate’s a sex pest The government says The government saysThe government says I’m a walking womb The government says I need a special room Just for those with only X chromosomes To, I don’t know, compare fallopian tubes?? A billionnaire says I need protecting…
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Abandoned
Dusty walls creak with the wind Catching cobwebs Lint Debris The detritus of a life livedOne ends and some go on One changes course Some hold the lineA crystal legged spiderWatchful Waiting Hangs from the rafters on thin silken strands Water drips On silent bricks All is still For now
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So They Say…
Black Annis stalks the streets they sayClaws like knives across the stones ScrapingRaking Black Annis hunts at night they sayIn tunnels black beneath the roadLurking LurchingBlack Annis takes the babes they sayReaching through the window paneSnatchingScratching Black Annis builds her bower they sayFrom skins of those unlucky souls Stretched Wretched Black Annis walks in dreams…
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Everything
There is a crack, a crack in everythingThat’s how the light gets inSo shut the curtains for a bitLeave yourself on read Shutter the fortress of your bedSet no alarmsMake no plans The world can wait Here in your hands
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Imagining I’m In An Indie Film And The Soundtrack Is Immaculate
Miles and miles In sun and rain Down motorways And back again Playlist on Windows down Nothing on Earth can stop me now Except, maybe, the M25Or some prick in a Tesla That doesn’t know how to drive But despite that I make itAnother journey won Til tomorrow Different roads Under the same sun
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Cracks
I catch myself In the dappled lightIn the mirror above the sink I see new lines, creaking over my cheeks Ones that used to fade, with relief, When I could finally let go of my faceBut these fissures look here to stayI turn my head this wayAnd thatInspecting new angles And think, so what?Oh, did…
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Little Summer
April’s fake summer greets us with Outstretched hands Cloudy heads of daffodilsSway gently on embankments The hawthorn in the hedge Giving everything it’s got It’s just on the cusp of being too hot And we know it won’t last And the rain will come soonBut for now we shall baskLike two sunflowers in bloom
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We Could Be Heroes
We are not super heroes We do not wear capes (yet)We cannot stop a ravening hordeWe are not the immovable object to life’s unstoppable force We can’t fix what’s broken with a wave of a handWe can’t magically repair this bruised and battered land But we can, in our way, fight back from the groundWe’ll…
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Song of the Sea
Lord have mercy Hear our prayer As with a hint of frenzy We cast ourselves into the mercyOf Poseidon’s buoyant whims Lord have mercyHear our hymnAs the cold hits your bones Full shock to the system Lord have mercyHear our criesAs the waves obliterate the choir Of our voices with its own All-powerful death metal…
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Art
He pins I Love YouTo the well-worn cork board above a suffocatingly messy deskAn unfinished masterpiece Half-coloured in in dying drying felt tip penLong thought lost Forgotten.A lighthouse Tall and bright Red and white stripes Blasting its daffodil yellow beam through a Partly stormy sky.
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I Am (Not) (Really) (Sort Of) A Poet
I used to sit near the back of the busScribbling like mad near the back of an oldWH Smith diary, foraged from somewhere, Repurposed as a repository for Thoughts and words,Most quite unclear, As Kurt and Layne and Tori sang Directly to my gel pen Via a small blue Walkman.An hour and twenty six minutes Of pure uninterrupted blissNothing but the…
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What If
Who would they have been If they’d emerged into a different worldMore able and more willing More open to the notionsThat now seem just like breathing Who could have known how long How long That potent distillation would take to DripCleanWashAwayThe fog of expectationTo break the surface tension with theWeight of knowledge gained
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NaPoWriMo 2025 – Day One
On The Road Again Cold crisp darkPunctured by dancing spheresPromising questions I cannot answer The basso profundo drone of Concrete Singing in a minor key Gently lulling me Back To the sea
No Power In The Verse Can Stop Me NaPoWriMo 2025 