Blog Entries by Tom Harding (2010)

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

by Tom Harding

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

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

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

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

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

To A Teacher

Where Is The War?

Defense Of The Drunken Poet

Comparing Mythologies

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