Anthony Ward- Two Poems

Ghosts

We’re boxcar bums riding the seat of our pants,

Dreaming above sleepers,

Living the glamorous life

Amongst the freight,

Transients on the train risking our lives in search for it,

Runaways on the railroad looking for adventure,

Home-sick from the depression,

Wandering aimlessly,

Staring out the distance,

Passing pylons published like trees across the land-

Tractors like retracted locusts swarming crop.

Legs lolling over the side

Where we remain unseen,

The romanticised ghosts silhouetted in the horizon,

Moving on, moving on, through the night,

Smoke aiming back home,

Sharing our loneliness amongst ourselves,

Hobbling hobos picking hops,

Hopping cars hoping to evade the bull,

Jungle buzzards,

Migrant of the malignancy

Spreading across the land.

On Draught

He’d swear he ruptured his spine due to trapped wind,

But the doctor gave him wind which breezed by him.

Too bloated to take anything more,

Stomaching emptiness.

The klaxon of his congested conscience

Deafening him from the truth.

Anthony tends to fidget with his thoughts in the hope of laying them to rest. He has managed to lay them in a number of literary magazines including The Faircloth Review, Dead Snakes, Jellyfish Whispers, Turbulence, Underground, The Bohemyth, Torrid Literature Journal and Crack the Spine, amongst others.