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70 short poems Ashley Bovan ~~~~~ Herons are not graceful they are large, awkward lumps One just fell out of a tree ~~~~~ I love it when your eyes go dark black the colour of my heart the colour of my blood ~~~~~ She gave me ten pence. You are homeless, right? She said. Time for a haircut. ~~~~~ I have transmigrated into 400 billion birds If you see one wave, say hello ~~~~~ Swans can't fly If ever you see them in the air they're not flying It's all done with springy wires and sky-hooks You must believe me I have a good degree in science ~~~~~ The bedroom curtains are always open all night watch the stars This morning if you wish close them que sera sera close them ~~~~~ I never feel at home until I'm getting ready to leave ~~~~~ She cursed me the whole journey thought I'd stolen her seat wrong carriage wrong carriage wrong carriage I think she was deaf ~~~~~ In the hotel lift, London he had a bicycle tyre, 17" Moulton, he said I don't actually live here, he added I live in China. Gosh, that's a long way to cycle ~~~~~ I think I am mentally ill I'm on the kitchen floor again me and the fan heater It's been hours staring at the floor tiles - very interesting cracks ~~~~~ Egret on the harbour wall stands in the sun waits for the tide ~~~~~ When I sit on the throne I am Keith Moon My diet is terrible ~~~~~ Jersey Thursday Fair Isle Friday Sweater Saturday Shrug Sunday Merino Monday Tank Top Tuesday Woolly Wednesday ~~~~~ Tractors In green fields Should be red ~~~~~ stupid stupid but there you go I click open my D:\ drive and among the crummy folder icons and word docs is a thumbnail of your photo Makes me smile ~~~~~ Out back, the birds fight I love it! They're having fun Two wasps, mid-air, kiss ~~~~~ Cat has got the cream does not want my skimmed milk Think I'll get a dog ~~~~~ It's what we do, hun It's other people you have to explain to if you can be bothered ~~~~~ Our Londis has closed down so I have to walk miles for tobacco Lovely autumn morning light A kiss through the open window ~~~~~ The kid in the pushchair swigs pink liquid and stares at me extraterrestrially ~~~~~ I like you you're odd that's all I want to say light three protected picture inhale air white level clear soft 12 safe imagine below three exhale cocoon see three, count three exhale clear breath breath of deeply exhaled ~~~~~ I broke into your bedsit and trashed it. I'm sorry, but I get moods and you seem nice. [after Koch and Williams ] ~~~~~ Haiku I dropped a lolly wrapper onto the path the teacher said pick it up ~~~~~ Hike A to B walks are better than circular You want to believe you're going somewhere ~~~~~ When we had LPs we believed in an afterlife Side A : Side B ~~~~~ I gave her a rose She gave me a Rubik's cube No expectations ~~~~~ If I had a dog and I opened the back door of the car would it jump in? if I had a car ~~~~~ This looking backwards is beginning to smell of exorcism ~~~~~ Experience is digital Fingers, thumbs Decadence Decapitation ~~~~~ An endless mishmash of logical plot Lines Coke on the mirror Just find answers Make it up yourself Sleep well ~~~~~ The knot won't slip All the walking all the breathing all the giving in useless ~~~~~ I Can Drive You to Devil's Point she said as I tried to impress her with the economy of my machined regularity She cloud blurred my edges put points of light in the sky ~~~~~ Love gets heavier followed by greater distance for longer time ~~~~~ The nice ladies behind the counter in Boots gave me one £5, No. 7 voucher 'Good for your complexion,' they said. 'Life,' I said, 'is complex enough already.' ~~~~~ Training to be a Medium I look for light in the dark Hold hands in a circle You stroke my fingers I don't need to be clairvoyant ~~~~~ Up at 20 past 4 this morning The clock battery had run out ~~~~~ I built a reservoir out of mashed potato so you could walk around and get some air but they told me not to play with my food ~~~~~ She faxed me a doc from her legal rep Boundaries: Permissive Paths: Country Code: I'd erected my tent in her back garden ~~~~~ Baby strange-ling, get back to the play-pen! All your friends are dead ~~~~~ Disturbing Diagnosis We three are a triangle - me where I'm going and you ~~~~~ So nice to sit in Heath Park the sun full-face and watch the thin, white smoke from the chimney of the hospital furnace ~~~~~ Warming In (or think of something else) Let me just love you until I can love no more then chuck me out with the rubbish ~~~~~ C'est La Vie Politicians, like the weather, compress us, release us, force us to contract and expand. We breathe we must be alive. Season follows season. Difference convinces tomorrow will move on from today. We must be going somewhere. ~~~~~ You put yourself into a mess of it but it took strangers to show that if we feel good together then the rest is chatter ~~~~~ poem on a ripped pack of condoms her felt pen stuck at the punch line ~~~~~ She told me she divides her day into half-hour chunks At the end of each she has a treat - a piece of chocolate a cup of tea… The difficulty, she said is keeping your mind elsewhere ~~~~~ I am writing a poem with meter - it's about a gasman ~~~~~ Fell bored off my chair Slid to the floor Coccyx ~~~~~ Punch-up at the Writers Group She read out her poem Michael wanted her to make it into a sonnet Rob wanted her to dig deeper into her feelings They settled it, man-to-man, outside, in the car park No idea who won we'd all gone down the pub ~~~~~ Don't we just love to assign numbers to things like exactly how much not here not here is ~~~~~ Woven Threads Twist Front & Short Plunge Neck in Animal Dipped Hem in Crepe Neon Jersey Waist Dotty ~~~~~ Garden Drama A caterpillar as big as an angry snake is suckering up your inner thigh thirsty grinning hairy hungry Let him come he means no harm probably ~~~~~ I build a pipe to an imaginary god who never speaks ~~~~~ Zen walkway for girl in summer dress The lock gates at the entrance to the harbour are always closed but she's delighted to cross without waiting grateful for her good fortune We say nothing ~~~~~ Hypocrisy and Hippopotami Bleedin hippo bit me in two in to two pieces shed me faeces I did, whilst his brothers and sisters gawped in glee at me bifurcation I've been bifurcated I frickin cried Herbivorous!? My backside! ~~~~~ If you lived next door I think I'd look after you but you'd rather be a dollop of dead meat in someone's fridge ~~~~~ i stole dark night of the soul because it was out of print i posted it back 14 years later anon ~~~~~ Cracker You must be 80 I've seen you strut around the park Today, I realised I hadn't seen you for a while Your collapsed shoulder Your tilted neck Broke me up ~~~~~ Dirty Love In the drizzle a huddle of smokers touch shoulders stay warm Lost outside Crewe Station waiting ~~~~~ Karate groove thumped into sand For you I said if you like a year ago Smooth now ~~~~~ If the moon tonight is the centre of a clock face then the time according to Planet Jupiter is nearly 9pm ~~~~~ if I was a goldfish I wouldn't remember if I was a traveller I'd pack if I was a clock I'd go forward or back ~~~~~ you left your shoes at the door walked on scatter rugs caught your toes in a mousetrap ~~~~~ I will write about your love but this is not the moment of love. Love is currently impossible. ~~~~~ She sleeps on her back with 20 coal tits resting warm on her tummy ~~~~~ You know what lads are like they're on a ladder climbing higher Guns for hire ~~~~~ All Change From this perspective the Skirrid's northern flank is a perfect ski-slope The rail-track turns southwards the hillside is just another wooded cliff scrubby seen the like a million times I cosy down inside myself Nothing out there for me ~~~~~ Sunny days are like Sundays odd macromolecular clusters emerge into public spaces ~~~~~ There was a time when you would not read between lines Now you do little else even when there's nothing to read ~~~~~ I'll meet you in the sky dawn-light in your eyes ~~~~~ |
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