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