Three Poems by Paul Stephenson

Humorous Elbowings

after Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘The Bight’

Humorous elbowings, not serious ones.
Not dour elbowings that started the day
on the wrong arm. Elbowings that can
see what’s funny, elbowings that rib you
but mean no harm. No sour-faced elbowings.
No no-nonsense elbowings, just elbowings
that don’t nudge hard, aren’t dead or dying
but dead pan. That category of elbowings
with a glisten in their joint, those that take
the mickey out of kneeings, tickle your sides.
Elbowings that don’t do diets or obsess
over headlines or sorting the recycling or
train for years of evening classes to qualify
as Tax Accountants. Elbowings that crack
blue jokes like eggs producing blue chicks
whose blue runs off in the rain. Elbowings
you can trust in a crowd and know will
pay back every single penny. Elbowings
that conduct live orchestras to an absent
audience and take a modest bow. Elbowings
that walk the aisle counting to themselves
calmly before take-off. Elbowings tucked in
beneath a sheet and ready for the flight.

Cities Beginning with B

Pig-headed, you refused Berlin and Barcelona,
said Everyone goes there! And so, in your obstinacy,

you never gawped at Gaudí, or got to see how
they raised up the Plaza de Toros in its entirety,

didn’t climb the spiral of the Reichstag’s dome.
Now in your passing, I no longer hear you

berate the tourists who go in low-cost droves,
won’t ever see you drink in the oldest Biergarten,

get a handle on the beer. You weren’t that thirsty
and it was all too easy. Let’s not even go there.

Better Verbs for Scattering

To dizzywind the ashes
To kindrelease the ashes
To henryjames the ashes

To lightallow the ashes
To dayaway the ashes
To žižek the ashes

To aroseisarose the ashes
To deruck the ashes
To nabokov the ashes

To let blendblow the ashes
To let currentcarry the ashes
To sufjanstevens the ashes

To let airdance the ashes
To breezegive the ashes
To fabriziodeandre the ashes

To unworry the ashes
To sunsow the ashes
To susansontag the ashes

To undespair the ashes
To debonair the ashes
                        To flaubert the ashes

To desparple the ashes
To usheroff the ashes
            To toriamos the ashes

Paul Stephenson has published three pamphlets: Those People (Smith/Doorstop), The Days that Followed Paris (HappenStance) and Selfie with Waterlilies (Paper Swans Press). He currently lives between Cambridge and Brussels, where he walks the city taking photos of doors. Instagram: paulstep456. Twitter: @stephenson_pj / www.paulstep.com