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Anthony Owen – Three Poems

Posted on May 1, 2025

Sunrise over Israel

Sunrise with its loose threads
hurt my eyes oh yellow star
You set last night head separated with Jupiter
her deep scar visible only
to those who looked hard
through the looking glass.

I can see new houses emerge from ruins
It looks like a bomb site but like moonscape Gaza
Not otherworldly as headphones disconnected with a head
Not as manmade as birds who die in mid air over towns
Where a limestone moth flies over Palestine
Bones of white and sullen steel
The air mosquito red – the new keffiyeh

Price of a Tesla

I love the bare silence of a Tesla car
the slightest whine as it leans to the left
and I love the gutsy performance it gives
it’s elongated girth to stand out in any lane.

I wish the ceiling was higher for my red cap
but let’s not split heirs it’s one hell of a ride
It feels kind of dangerous, but we all know
Tesla’s are great for the environment.

I remember reading about Hitler and Henry Ford
the failed artist had a portrait of Henry
and thistles shot out through his engines
in nazi vehicles strewn across the old Greenlands

Typo, I forgot to add a space between Greenlands
And I forgot I was writing a poem about Tesla cars
And how good they are for cleaner air and earth
I believe one day Tesla engines will kiss Mars

What real men shouldn’t talk about

I went to a single parent Dads group
and we all introduced ourselves in a circle
as if we were orbiting a nothing nucleus
of men reduced to tiny rock rings of Saturn.

Pete took it on himself to assert the alpha role
telling everyone at least he got to keep the Audi
but he talked himself into the otherwise wreckage
that when the heater kicks in he smelt her perfume

Mike to his new friends said he’s not been sleeping
he gets angry and accepts he wasn’t man enough
that sometimes he wondered why she was late
he stopped trying when he lost his dad and himself

No-one was angry until the man who kept his name
he said all women are bitches and fuckin slags
then out of nowhere the animal in him emerged
a sound of turned metal as he left sobbing.

Antony Owen

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