2 Poems by Tony Rickaby

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Elephant & Castle Underground Station

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 ELEPHANT & CASTLE

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A voice from somewhere

Accelerates away around

Chugging on

Circling overhead

Silence suddenly

Screeching at the crossing

Shouting running home

Siren round the corner

The Eastenders theme

This particular flightpath

Today’s rat run

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A baby cries spasms

Buster barking

A conversation ends in laughter

In a deep voice

Door slams deeply

Hiss from somewhere

Not so loud reply

Shunt to a halt

Cheerful snatches

Something muffled dragged

Sort of rustling

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A machine spins

Asking so quietly

Blares and booms

Continuous screaming

Coughing in a waistcoat

Red anorak revs

Repairs somewhere

Roof bangings

Sighing on a car bonnet

Splattering onto concrete

Throbbing in time

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photograph by Tony Rickaby

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TOWARDS THE RIVER

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different dots – fixed directions

floating rubber – grey positions

lines at angle – random dark

row of arcs – see-through metal

some thin – some thick

striped horizontals – elastic brown

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thicker emerging – woollen sphere

angled table – floating ochre

camouflage cover – concentric slots

cracked hill – edible stop

lost root – mirrored y

mystery box – resting bricks

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splitting wall – yellow island

upturned purple – criss-crossed flaking

corrugated shop – leaning diamonds

mesh wall – hanging hedge

weeping slats – tangled brick

wooden rust – lonely white

Tony Rickaby has produced hypertext animations for Drunken Boat, Locus Novus and Toad; visual poems for Altered Scale, Counterexample Poetics, Cricket, InStereo Press, 20×20, Otoliths and Suss; prose for Anderbo, Athregeum, Aspidistra, Dark Sky, Litro, The Whistling Fire, and Word Riot; poetry for Camel Saloon, Ditch, Message in a Bottle and Sugar Mule. He lives in London. Tony Rickaby