Steve Downes

Steve Downes Poems

Waiting for that sweet moment
when I break the surface and gasp
a lungful of clean air
when words mean what I want them to mean
...

Once I was a man like you
strong in the heart and mind
Now my spectre drifts the sands of Egypt these sixteen
centuries
across the tombs of Pharaohs
...

A tiny push
just a tip of a finger
as the exhale of a humming bird
...

I am vanquished by pressure unseen
my lungs are rasped by air unclean
and my eyes are bagged
by images and magazines obscene
...

I feel translucent
a man of marble skin
as if dreaming my motions
every step a tread in water
...

Never begin a poem with the words
‘And Suddenly …’
Or
‘Aardvark’
...

It is not a hallmark day
nor a chocolate festival
nor plastic paddy pageant
not even a pagan sunrise
...

There is no return of the Kings
the sun will never travel from west to east
the Augur will never see the blackbirds
fly backward across a windswept hill
...

Ugly poetry
sub-urban
interwoven emotions
with car crash image
...

A window to a wall
a dull council grey that exists nowhere in nature
a few square feet of glass
dividing what is inside from the wider world
...

I shuffle like a bad movie extra
around the cold dark kitchen
you know the type of place
written by a hack and furnished by a ham
...

See my face
an imperfect window on this spirit
slivers of my likeness
on shattered and bruised glass
...

Sleeping eyes open to sobriety from engrossed lethargy
A medicated shroud of self-indulgence lifted momentarily
Voices chatter back
But not forth
...

Here in a place of Gods
without worship
stones without mortar and
graves stripped of souls
...

Silhouettes against a kaleidoscope
fast-motion dancers on the stage floor
the DJ spins another web of indecipherable drivel
and the hunt begins again
...

Poor little Moon King
trapped inside a gilded cage
within the marble prison walls
the cage is painted
...

The babble of streaming tongues
in the courtyards and parks
...

Trainspotting
isn’t fun
not when she’s dead tired
arms of jelly
...

Amid the madness of eyes on stalks
wagging tongues drying out in the bluster of their
own chatter
hip-shake walks of boys stepping out as girls
...

Steve Downes Biography

Steve Downes Biography follow me on twitter @writer_s_downes Steve Downes was born in Drogheda Co. Louth, Ireland in 1973. He has been writing poetry and prose since 1992 and has been publishing and performing his work for over 20 years. Steve's debut Novel is Cosmogonic Marbles (available on Amazon @ http: //www.amazon.com/dp/B00E2SB1P4) Join Cosmogonic Marbles of Facebook @ http: //www.facebook.com/CosmogonicMarbles Steve's plays produced, performed and given awards are: Until Morning 1995 Voices 1996 For God and Country 1997 The Creator 2006 Steve has poems and stories published in magazines and anthologies in Ireland, the UK and the USA. His poetry books to-date are: The Pagan Field 1996 Celtic Echoes 2000 (with Tom Hodgins) Side Angles 2005 (with Roger Hudson) Urbania 2010 http: //www.stevedownesurbania.com Steve Downes was educated as NUI Maynooth, where he received a BA in Classics and Anthropology in 2001 and an MA in Research Anthropology in 2003 Steve currently lives somewhere in Ireland (he's not exactly certain where himself))

The Best Poem Of Steve Downes

Writing Under Water

Waiting for that sweet moment
when I break the surface and gasp
a lungful of clean air
when words mean what I want them to mean
when they say what's in my eyes
and not the lies on my face
the public face worn as a thin skin veneer
exploiting those last moments before
sinking down again
back into heaviness
down to another blank page
washed clean
struggling and writing under water

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