Ian Bowen

I want to write a poem about 'nothing'
(not an easy thing to do) .
I want to describe the emptiness
that I've found since I lost you.
...

Life is now as confusing
as an Irish mermaid.
The dye from these thick, black socks
colours my toes in violet.
...

Hold tight now as we glide above the night-gray slates of village rooftops.
Look into the chambers, where in creased pyjama beds,
the sleeping, wrinkle the sheets in unconscious feats of love and derring do.
...

Now in my grey-haired heart,
Flows the blood of seasons past.

Those pastoral beats, that once surged
...

Is this a poets life-
Is this just fantasy-
Caught in a forum
No escape from profanity
...

A red ball of a sun
sent golden shafts
through the canopy
of ancient oaks; their
...

I remember crying in my sleep.
I remember wiping my eyes
on the blanket my Uncle
brought back from the army,
...

She moved the plate
of cream cakes
away from herself
to the far corner of table.
...

On the back lawn of a home
for the mentally unstable,
she sits threading daisies...
...

Charging across the grasslands,
having blown down the houses
made of straw and wood, he nears
the brick one.
...

From a pretty lace bed,
in the chamber
of a cosy widow, where old ornaments
dusted to death by the feathers of ostrich,
...

The poem
under the magnetic penguin
on the fridge door
will explain everything
...

Bathed in tepid water,
powder puffed in clouds of special talc:
this little lady is then pigtailed
with coloured ribbons
...

A lemon dropp of a moon,
spread light over river and meadow,
and lit a few whisps of clouds
that floated aacross its surface.
...

Anger, done up its laces
and kicked out with iron boots.

Hate, sat on the fence,
...

Pride positioned itself
at the front of his chest;
where ribs were pushed out
to twice their normal size.
...

The richest man in my town,
supplies and fits
the boards
that protects the glass
...

The pale pink blooms
of busy, spring avenues,
glow in a warm light.
Tables and chairs spill
...

When a copper eyeballed me
outside ‘Boots’ in Croydon
at 1.00 am, he
was actually doing me a favour,
...

I remember how my mother
placed her cupped hands
over the mouths
of my sister and I.
...