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The Rules

Do not describe the sunset, regardless. Never
write about the buttery moonrise,
especially near the beginning: everyone
just switches off, and if they don’t
they should.

Do not mention war; any of the many.
Those possibilities are nothing to do with me.
They belong to others, to a family friend
who knows mountainsides blooming
great mushrooms of dust.

Everyone has had enough of trees...

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Poetry   contemporary poetry   Graham Clifford   writing

The Hitting Game

The Hitting Game

 

 

On the island’s south side

a solitary town fizzes

like overloaded circuitry

on dark, motherboard hills.

 

Across a sticky, smooth-tiled walkway

an amusement arcade spills

a test of sexiness based on how clammy your palm is

and the hitting game.

 

You spin in coins so they register

on sensors worn numb. 

A padded st...

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Graham Clifford   poetry   holiday   game   arcade

In Cars

In cars, I'm him.
I make the shapes he makes –
one-handing the steering wheel
as if grasping some mane,
I cup the gear stick bulb
like it's a brandy bowl
and coast to junctions
clutch disengaged
scared as sharks to stop,
though on open road
I’ll box in better cars than mine,
a sudden stickler for the limit
I slap down and squeeze your knee
celebrating damming flow,
c...

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graham clifford   www.grahamclifford.co.uk   poetry   contemporary poetry   gender   history   Swindon

On the dispersal of water

 

It’s 1:30 am.

He takes me away from the others unpacking,

opens the front door to the first night

in our first home and squirts WD-40

over both hinges, explains

WD is water dispersal,

NASA concocted this stuff

to keep fields of rockets

from turning orange, then burnt umber.

He heard this on his pocket radio

cycling along blustery North London roads

...

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Graham Clifford   poem   poetry   contemporary   art   creative writing   reaction   philosophy   british poetry

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