Old age is something nobody warns you about
Even leaflets can’t tell you what to expect next
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The lyric of dawn is fading
Though her song be mournful
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The Jumper
So much can be told by this old picture of me wearing a given jumper.
Hidden among its well-worn fabric and faded colours and patterns.
The hint of perfume my sister had borrowed to impress a new boyfriend
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Give Me Back My Town by Chris Darlington
Looking up one day at the new Deck flats by the canal
I thought, this is not Runcorn nothing like it, nothing matches.
No beautiful dawn can rise up there in the clouds as is does on the packed tiny terraced streets below.
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My dad worked in a slaughter house
Stale blood on his boots smelled for miles
I thought what a cruel job he had
He was chief eyeball exploder.
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Sometimes I’m in your shadow too much
And slip in to it like putting on a comfy overcoat.
Some days I wonder if your life has been worthwhile
Or I would have been better off without you.
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Everyday Hunger
Each day I feed the hunger to write
I need my fulfilment of words
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BLOOD AND RAIN BY Chris Darlington
It only takes the damp, dirty streets and the smell of cheese and onion crisps, to remind me of the assassination announcement.
Old people in the dole queue grieved for a stranger.
Kennedy was dead, he'd been shot.
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In our house a bowl of fruit meant that somebody had a series illness and the fruit was for them alone.
Normally we couldn’t afford to buy fruit because it was too expensive to buy.
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