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My mother used to believe she'd run people over...

by Tom Harding

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My mother used to believe she'd run people over
And would spend the long blue evenings
Circling the same roads looking for the aftermath
Of an incident she'd inadvertently caused.
It seemed normal then, driving round in the dying light,
Peering into hedgerows for fallen bodies,
Scanning the horizon for blue lights.
She'd massaged these distortions into a routin...

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Sunday 25th April 2010 11:14 pm

To A Teacher

by Tom Harding

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A living example of practical maths,

Exacted with a blunt pen knife

In the rain filled dark.

The sickness had you awake

At two, again at four

Halving pills to divide the pain

Into the fewest waking hours,

Totting up the maths

In the margins of your moleskin,

Dividing milligrams into minutes,

Counting binary bloods spots

In twists of tissue.

Still ...

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Sunday 11th April 2010 12:14 am

Where Is The War?

by Tom Harding

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Where is the war to make sense of all things?
My mother's mother was fond of saying,
“I pity you boys, with no war to fight.”
I'd recite this on dark mornings whilst traipsing
Towards the bus aside the road in mist.

Where lines of cars, shunted slowly with faces
Encased in glass like queues of roaring ghosts.
Trawling with half lit eyes through the gl...

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Monday 8th March 2010 9:54 pm

Defense Of The Drunken Poet

by Tom Harding

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Late in June we went out 
To gaze at the moon on the water.
I told the story of Li Po, 
Who died, it's supposed, 
Leaning from his boat 
Trying to embrace it's silver glow.

How foolish, you said,
With world famous 
Female disgust for folly,
Seeing only the great life
Eclipsed by drunken idleness.

I stayed...

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Sunday 14th February 2010 8:19 pm

Comparing Mythologies

by Tom Harding

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The Chinese girl

Always fell asleep if she drank beer.

So in the evening we sat

In the cafe beside her campus,

Talking over coffee.


The door kept blowing open

With a parade of red face students,

All thin and puckered up from the cold.


We discussed our parents,

Our respective states,

Our histories and mythology.


What was difficult for her

Was not th...

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Wednesday 6th January 2010 7:51 pm

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