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Anthony Dawson - Issue 35

Tony Dawson, an Englishman living in Seville since 1989, took up writing during the pandemic. He has published widely in the USA, UK, Canada and Australia. He has also published three small collections of poetry: Afterthoughts ISBN 9788119 228348, reviewed: https://londongrip.co.uk/2023/06/london-grip-poetry-review-tony-dawson/



Carnal Knowledge


I fancy a piece of skirt right now

or a meaty leg over some warm loin.

I want to recline cheek by jowl,

as the Romans were wont to do,

trotters across some shoulder or belly

as long as it’s not mutton dressed

as lamb. Oh, how I’d lick my chops.

Even if I have to get into hock for it,

nothing can beat a piece of meat

laid out to satisfy my appetites,

so, somebody lay the table, please

and keep those vegans away from me!




On the Poetry Front


I began to write quite late in life,

when the Covid pandemic struck,

to while away my time judiciously.

A few successful poems encouraged me

to persevere, to burnish my technique. 

Oh yes, so keen was I to improve 

I laboured hard and long. My one regret:

I wished I’d begun when I was young.

I might have honed the skills I needed,

for instance, the iambic da-DUM, da-DUM

and brought my trochees under control.

Just as a boxer must develop his skill,

I had to work on the rhythm of mine

instead of reeling from line to line 

like a drunken sailor on liberty

or a punch-drunk Marlon Brando

as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront 

who mumbled to his brother, Charley,

in the back of a car: “I coulda been

a contender. I coulda been somebody.”




Elektra


She walked in wearing her LBD,

immediately arousing my LiBiDo.

I wasn’t sure her presence was real

because I was having an out-of-body

experience after a heart-stopping

recent encounter with Elektra.

“Mourning becomes you,” I said,

and it also means I’m not really dead.

An autoscopy beats an autopsy

any day of the week in my book.




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