Category Archives: TONY’S POEMS

EARS WIDE OPEN // four in the morning

Dear Readers, Watchers, and Occasional Listeners, welcome to another instalment of Ears Wide Open!

Our main page states that you won’t find an overabundance of brightly coloured pictures, hit songs or other such paraphernalia here. Why? Because we simply want to keep your focus on our texts. This is a literary site after all!

We have, however, also been known to switch things up from time to time. Yes, we’re justifiably leery of shoehorning in things that don’t fit with what we do, but we also like to allow creativity’s natural flow to have its say. This time, we’re listening to that flow, and it’s taking on the form of one Magsi Rover.

Who is she? Well, we don’t know a whole lot about her yet, but we’re fairly certain (but cannot guarantee) that Magsi is a fellow WordPress blogger, Filipino, and loves to read things aloud. And we’re fairly certain that she’s read most of our stuff too. She’s even recorded a couple of our poems and sent them to us! How lucky are we?

Needless to say, our ears are wide open and receptive, and so we’ve decided to share one of her efforts with you, our Dear Readers, Watchers, and Occasional Listeners. Please do enjoy! Oh, and don’t be shy about joining our Ears Wide Open challenge. If you’d like to record one of your favourite poems by us, then please go right ahead and do so. The more the merrier!

 

four in the morning

time is a wheel
and it’s bearing down on me
time is a wheel
and it’s bearing down on me
how to outrun what isn’t free?
i still don’t know what i can be

hope is easy
when it is the first time
hope is easy
when it is the first time
but not when bells have lost their chime
and not upwind the squalls of mimes

be my comfort
deadly jesus, yeah be my friend
be my comfort
deadly jesus, yeah be my friend
brake the wheel afore story’s end
my soul to keep and ever mend

time is a wheel
and it’s bearing down on me
time is a wheel
and it’s bearing down on me
stars like dewdrops across my knee
lacuna matata on the cliffs of scree

 

Text by TONY SINGLE
Audio by MAGSI ROVER
Image by HERR TAMARIN
© All rights reserved 2017

callipygean clasp

i melt into your arms
decoherence, tummy to tummy
i’ll ditch me for a quantum of calm
yeah, for that i find in you

now, what did you say
whisper to me in my ear
oh, this goes where…
but your eyes are up here…
(am i a cannibal if i eat down there)

i want so bad it’s good
my hands amok across your bustle
rock your bloom from the inside out
ask again why i need you

 

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2017

four in the morning

time is a wheel
and it’s bearing down on me
time is a wheel
and it’s bearing down on me
how to outrun what isn’t free?
i still don’t know what i can be

hope is easy
when it is the first time
hope is easy
when it is the first time
but not when bells have lost their chime
and not upwind the squalls of mimes

be my comfort
deadly jesus, yeah be my friend
be my comfort
deadly jesus, yeah be my friend
brake the wheel afore story’s end
my soul to keep and ever mend

time is a wheel
and it’s bearing down on me
time is a wheel
and it’s bearing down on me
stars like dewdrops across my knee
lacuna matata on the cliffs of scree

 

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2015

tavernacle choir

in a tavern somewhere called the bag of nails
was a bank of cloud, the lair of the bear
he chain smoked so bad he’d light the whole box
and chat up the fox working the bar

a wretched man, we heard him to say, was he
an astute man, we sniffed his way, would he be
if in tongue lashing’s stead he regained face
and chose to be dead to the ways of disgrace

“what would you know of grace?” he asked we
“i was once considered lord of the dance”
“really?” we asked, “could one fall so far off?”
then we laughed like drains as he downed one last pint

a wretched man, we heard him to say, was he
but a blessed man, we ought to have said, was he
a nazarene broke bread, bled wine in his place
weighed with the dead, and waived time and space

but wretches would not share grace with the wretched
so a lorry got him

 

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2014